A Prideful Prophet and a Pursuing God | Jonah 4

Good morning, church family. How are we doing? My name is Oren Martin. I have the privilege of serving on the Equipping Team as well as teaching at the Watermark Institute. We are concluding our series on being a missional and sending church in Jonah. Before we do that, let me pray for us, and then we can jump into Jonah, chapter 4.

Father in heaven, we lift up our eyes to the hills. From where does our help come? Our help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. So I pray, Lord, that what we know not you would teach us, what we have not you would give us, what we are not you would make us in Christ by your Spirit. For your glory and for our everlasting good we pray. In Christ's name, amen.

All right. We are concluding our series on being a missional and sending church. We've been in Jonah the last couple of weeks, and we are now concluding that series in Jonah, chapter 4. Let me give you a little bit of a recap of where we've been so we can know where we're going. Chapter 1 is about running. Chapter 2 is about returning. Chapter 3 is about repenting. That's where we've been.

What I mean by that is in chapter 1, the word of the Lord came to Jonah, saying, "Go to the Ninevites, those evil, sinful people who deserve my judgment because of their sin." Jonah didn't want to go, so he ran from the presence of the Lord. God so orchestrated his circumstances (it's where we get the story of the big fish) that Jonah returned to the Lord. We have that in chapter 2.

Jonah returns to the Lord and calls out to him, and the Lord answers him. We have that wonderful line that says, "Salvation belongs to the Lord." So, as he returns to the Lord, God comes to him a second time and says, "Go to those people. Go to the Ninevites." So, Jonah goes, and he proclaims the word God told him to proclaim. "Because of your sin, judgment is coming, but if you repent…" Just like Jeremiah 18 says. "If my word comes to a people in sin, and if they repent, I'll relent."

So, God acting faithfully to his promises. His word works through Jonah, and they repent. It says they believe God, so they have them repenting. Now we come to chapter 4. We would think chapter 4 is about rejoicing, but we get a drastically different picture. Read verse 1 along with me. "But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry." Now, this is not what we'd expect. In fact, this is every preacher's dream. God's word worked.

You think about Pentecost. If they preach Christ… Imagine the picture of Peter and the apostles being angry. But here's what we have. I mean, people repented, from the greatest to the least of them, all kinds of people. God's judgment turned away. You can cue the music from Chariots of Fire, and the story ends. Jonah rides off into the sunset, rejoicing. No, that's not what we find. It would have been the perfect ending to the perfect story, but we'll see as we jump into chapter 4, it's a bit messier than that.

We're going to go through verse by verse. It's going to seem a little bit weird, but stay with me. We'll get to the end of the chapter. Hang in there. I think the Lord has something for us this morning. If you're like me, on the first read of Jonah, chapter 4, especially this first verse, you might be ready to pick up a stone and throw it at Jonah. I mean, the nerve of that guy. Who would be upset at God's word working, God faithfully working according to his word, people being saved? But upon further reflection, we see just how similar we can be.

Think with me about a couple of examples. First, let's think about anger. Can you think of a time when you've been upset about your circumstances? You're like, "Yeah, maybe this morning." Maybe this week. Perhaps you're overworked and underappreciated at work or maybe it's at home. Maybe you've been mistreated or ignored or neglected. Maybe you've worked hard to get that grade only to be let down, and you're frustrated. You're angry.

Now, you might be thinking, "But that's different. Jonah was angry at God. I'm just angry. Jonah was angry at God for showing grace to others. I wasn't angry about that," you might say. But let's dig deeper. Let's say you're overworked and underappreciated, but someone else who does way less gets noticed. They get the promotion. Or maybe you're the one who's mistreated or have been harmed by a spouse or a coworker or a boss or a friend, and that offender, the one who has harmed you, is thriving.

Or you get that lower grade, and that person doesn't even have to study and gets an A. I don't like those kinds of people. Not only that. A little bit deeper… In each of these instances, that other person has been insulting you, provoking you, and ridiculing you. You see, oftentimes, our anger and discontentment are tied to the comparative goodness of others. "Why do they get…but I get…" You fill in the blank.

Let's look at anger's distant cousin, self-pity. Self-pity is when we feel sorry for ourselves because we don't get what we think we deserve, or maybe other people get what we think they don't deserve. "I work and work and work, and I serve and serve and serve, but no one else does anything. Not only that. They're the ones who are getting recognized. I live and work with kindness and honesty, but the dishonest, the merciless, get ahead. Not only that. They've been hounding me about it, insulting me."

On the surface, self-pity seems harmless. After all, we're getting the short end of the stick. Right? I mean, shouldn't we be allowed a little bit of sulking when life gets hard, when that other person who's out to get us, who's out to harm us, who's out to put us down is doing so well? In Jonah's case, and in ours too, I want us to see there is a deeper theological problem lurking beneath the surface. That problem is a distorted view of God and an inflated view of ourselves, which will become clear as the chapter progresses. A distorted view of God, a wrong view of God, and an inflated or wrong view of ourselves.

The thing we have to see here is when we indulge in anger and self-pity, as harmless as we think they are, regarding our circumstances or the circumstances of others, we are playing God. We are standing in judgment over God, questioning his character, questioning his knowledge, questioning his actions toward us and toward others. So, I want us to see three things from Jonah, chapter 4. The first thing we'll see is a prideful prophet, the second is a purposeful plant, and the third is a pursuing God. Let's jump into the first few verses, a prideful prophet. I'll read verses 1-4.

"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.'"

Jonah's response to the Lord and to the Ninevites' repentance shouldn't really surprise us by this point. I mean, he never wanted to go to Nineveh in the first place. He didn't want God to show them mercy. That's why he ran away in chapter 1. That's why he's responding the way he is here in chapter 4. Yes, it may have appeared that Jonah changed after his experience with the fish, after he called out to the Lord and the Lord saved him, delivered him.

There was at least external change, but after the Lord showed kindness to Nineveh and spared the Ninevites, Jonah got angry. This is maybe to file away for later, but here's a really good, instructive, revealing lesson about what true repentance is. True repentance isn't merely mouthing the words. It's not merely going through the motions. Genuine repentance, godly grief, results in a change of heart, which results in, bears fruit in, a change of action that's lasting. Not perfect, but consistent. That's what true repentance is.

Look at what verse 1 says. It displeased him exceedingly. If you look at the footnote in your Bible, verse 1 literally says (this is staggering), "It was exceedingly evil to Jonah, and he was angry." In other words, Nineveh's evil in God's eyes was equivalent to God's mercy in Jonah's eyes. Did you catch that? Nineveh's evil in God's eyes is equivalent to God's mercy in Jonah's eyes. He thinks God showing mercy, sparing the Ninevites, was an evil.

It's difficult to emphasize Jonah's disapproval in a stronger way than he does here. He voices his anger to the Lord. Now, again, I want to remind us of where we've been. The people of Nineveh were a sinful, wicked, violent people. They were enemies of Israel. In fact, the word on the street was that they would eventually come after and conquer Israel, which they do.

This was very personal to Israel. So, let's get personal for us so we can identify with what's going on here. It's like a person, like I said earlier, who willfully harms you; a spouse who has regularly failed to love you or who hurts you; a friend who, after years of friendship, turns on you and betrays you; maybe a boss who consistently fails to honor your work and, not only that, who demotes you and elevates someone in your place.

We're not just talking about people who were unintentionally hurtful or simply unthoughtful but people who actively opposed the Israelites, who were out to do them harm, who had a complete disregard for their well-being. God now calls Jonah to be a means of grace toward them. He's saying to Jonah, "Jonah, go to them and tell them I'll have compassion on them if they turn. If they repent, if they turn from their sin, if they believe in me, I'll have compassion on them."

Jonah gets angry, and then Jonah turns inward, and then Jonah sinks into self-pity. Verse 2 tells us he prayed to the Lord and said, "Isn't this what I told you? That's why I fled to Tarshish: because I knew you were gracious. I knew you were merciful. I knew you would relent at the proclamation of my word." If that's not enough, verse 3 says, "Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live."

In other words, "If you, God, are the kind of God who forgives my enemies, that the people who don't deserve his grace get his grace, then I don't want to be a part of this story. This is a world I don't even want to be a part of." Jonah displays here what Sinclair Ferguson calls spiritual infantile regression. What does that mean? It just means he was being a big baby. He was throwing a fit, a temper-tantrum.

In a helpful article on self-pity, William Farley, a pastor, says when anger and self-pity come together, they create a vacuum into which gratitude cannot enter. When anger and self-pity come together, they create a vacuum into which gratitude, thankfulness, cannot enter. When we are consumed with anger and self-pity, we become blind to the countless expressions of care, kindness, grace, and faithfulness from God.

We see in Jonah's case (and we see in our case) the Lord loved Jonah enough to address it. He loved Jonah enough not to let Jonah go. Look at verse 4. "And the Lord said, 'Do you do well to be angry?'" Now, I don't think Jonah realizes it at this point, but that's intended to be a rhetorical question. The Lord is not asking as though he doesn't know. No, he's asking in such a way to get to Jonah's heart so that Jonah will examine his own heart and the nature of God's free, unmerited, undeserved grace.

Friends, this chapter has a word for us this morning. When we reflect on God's grace toward us… Just think about one verse, for example, in Ephesians 2. "But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved…" Friends, that is grace.

It doesn't say, "When you kind of cleaned yourself up enough, then I was gracious to you. When you pulled yourself up by your own bootstraps, when you came halfway, met me 50 percent of the way, then I…" No. It says when we were dead, God saved us by his grace. There's nothing we could do to buy it. There's nothing we could do to earn it. It is in no way dependent on us. It is dependent on God.

When we reflect deeply on the grace of God toward us, a grace that not only saves but a grace that transforms, then it shapes the way we think about God. It shapes the way we think about others. This is why we've been in a series on a missional and sending church. We want to be a church so gripped, so changed, so shaped by God's grace it overflows into others, and not just here in Dallas but to the nations. So, what happens to Jonah? How does he respond? Look at verses 5-9. We'll see a purposeful plant.

"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. 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.'"

This is amazing. It's kind of weird, if we're honest. I mean, you think about Jonah. Though he delivered God's message to the Ninevites, and it says they believed God… They repented. God turned from exercising judgment, from punishing them for their sin. Maybe Jonah was happy, but it tells us, apparently, Jonah still hoped the Lord would destroy the city. He goes outside the city, sets up a shelter, and just watches and waits. He's like, "I want to see. This is going to get good."

As he's waiting for judgment to happen, the Lord appoints a plant. Now, that's very, very interesting, because this is the same exact word we see back in chapter 1, verse 17, when God appointed a fish. Why is that important? Well, because I want us to note the particular sovereignty and control of God. Do you see the Lord working to get to Jonah? Not only that. The Lord did it to save Jonah from his discomfort.

Now, that word discomfort is the same word for the disaster God spared Nineveh from in chapter 3. In other words, as God spared Nineveh from his judgment, from his disaster, from discomfort, so now he is sparing Jonah from disaster. God is showing the same mercy toward Jonah that he did toward the Ninevites, and now, surprisingly (not surprisingly), Jonah is happy. Why? Because it directly benefits him. "Oh, I love that plant."

But the next day, he appointed (same word) a worm, and that worm attacked the plant, and then he appointed a scorching wind that made Jonah grow faint. Now, I just want to interrupt this regularly scheduled program to say two years ago, before we moved here to Dallas, I would not have understood what this scorching wind was, but in July, after we moved here in 2022, I walked out from the church, and I felt that scorching… I don't know where it came from. I think it came from the lower parts, if you know what I mean. It was scorching, and I was faint.

This is Jonah. What's going on here? Well, added to Jonah's spiritual discomfort, which we've seen, now is Jonah's physical discomfort. Again, the Lord continues to pursue Jonah. He doesn't leave him. He asks again, "Do you do well to be angry?" This time, Jonah answers. "Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die." Holy smokes! He says to God's face, "Yes, I know better than you, and I have a right to be angry, because what you're doing is evil."

You know what? We would expect this, but the earth didn't swallow him up right there in that moment and sweep him away into judgment. No. Marvel at God's patience toward Jonah. Maybe you're here this morning, and you find yourself in a similar place. Maybe you're shaking your fist at God, saying, "God, what do you think you're doing?" and God is so patient he has you here this morning, that you might hear for the first time how to escape his punishment for sin through the one who took our punishment named Jesus. We'll hear more about that in a minute.

Marvel at God's patience in the face of pride and hard-heartedness. Again, let's pause and think about God's sovereignty in this moment, which has been a major theme that comes to a head that culminates in chapter 4. God appoints first a storm, then a fish, then a plant, then a worm, and then a wind. That's a lot of appointing. Is he toying with Jonah? I mean, one minute he brings discomfort, then deliverance, then discomfort, then deliverance, and now discomfort.

Maybe you're here this morning, and you feel that way too. Maybe you feel like God is working that way in your life. If so, if you find yourself here this morning, and maybe you're questioning in your heart, "God, are you just toying with me? Are you just being mean?" Jonah is a great gift for you, like it was to us. In our journey to have children (some of you know), my wife and I experienced infertility for years until we finally got pregnant. When we went to hear the baby's heartbeat at 18 weeks, we found out we miscarried.

Then we got pregnant again, and then we miscarried again. It could have been very tempting for us to think God was toying with us. We're so thankful that when we moved to Kentucky… We're so thankful for our local church, when it was all we could do to gather with our church under the preaching and teaching of the Word and the singing of wonderfully rich songs and being trained and equipped to be washed by the sovereignty of God.

God had prepared us over those years for this moment to experience his difficult providence. It reminded us of those wonderful words in that hymn by William Cowper, "God Moves in a Mysterious Way." "Behind a frowning providence God hides a smiling face." Behind God's frowning providence hides his smiling face, because through those painful circumstances, we came to know and experience God's love more deeply.

We came to know and experience more deeply the hope that is ours in Christ, that "You know what? Our joy isn't wrapped up in having or not having children. Our joy is wrapped up in Jesus who provides what we ultimately need. If God didn't spare his own Son, but freely gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things in the midst of this broken world?"

We learned that though we don't always know what God is doing, from this little book we can learn that when we can't see his hand, we can trust his heart. God lovingly appoints every circumstance in our lives to loosen our grip on this world so we might rest and relate to others out of his grace and mercy that he has extended so lavishly to us. Along the way, like Jonah, God cares about your heart and my heart. He cares about us enough to arrange our circumstances such that our hearts would align with his.

But God is not done. The last thing we see in Jonah 4 is found in verses 10 and 11. We see a pursuing God. Verse 10: "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?'" We'll get to there, but it's weird. It makes me think of Michael Scott in The Office. "Where are the turtles?"

Here in verses 10 and 11, God is explaining the object lesson of the plant. He was not toying with Jonah. He was patiently leading Jonah, like a good father does. You see, Jonah cared more about his comfort than he did his enemies, but the Lord cared more about Jonah's heart than he did his comfort so that Jonah would reach his enemies. Do you see that?

Jonah cared more about his comfort than about his enemies who needed to hear this saving message, but the Lord cared more about Jonah's heart than his comfort so that Jonah would take that message to his enemies. This is an important question for us. Do you see difficult circumstances as an obstacle to your joy or as an opportunity for your joy so that you might take that joy to those who need to hear it?

When our hearts are aligned with God's, no earthly circumstance will feel arbitrary or capricious. They won't steal our joy and gratitude in God, but if we find our comfort in the things of the world, in material things or possessions or success or people or health or just simply a trouble-free life, then God's kind, fatherly providence will be a frustrating thing to us.

Friend, here's the good news. You don't have to manufacture that kind of heart. The good news is God freely gives us new hearts when we come to Christ, when we abandon our way to follow the way of Christ, a way that leads to forgiveness, freedom, joy, peace, hope, and love…not just to receive it but to give it to others.

We see here that God lovingly puts his finger on Jonah's idolatry and tells him, "Jonah, you did not lift a finger or do anything for that plant. You are more angry over your own comfort, which you did not earn, than you are 120,000 people made to worship and glorify me. Not to mention even the cattle." This is an indictment. Jonah was so blinded by his own love and comfort he couldn't see God's love for others.

But God was relentless in pursuing Jonah and showing him that he is a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. And so his people must be also if they've been transformed by this grace and mercy. The Lord asks, "Should I not pity them?" That demands the next question. If that's true, if God pities them, Jonah, shouldn't you? Should you not pity them?

This is where the story of Jonah ends. What? Where's chapter 5? You know, turn the page. Where's the Chariots of Fire theme? Where's Jonah's repentance and the Ninevites throwing a big party together and celebrating like it's 1999 or whatever year it is? We need a resolution. Friends, I think this is divinely intended to leave the nation of Israel and us, as readers, with a question…How will we respond?

You see, Israel was supposed to be a light to the nations. It was supposed to be through Abraham and his people that God would bring blessing to all of the families of the earth. We see here in Jonah that Jonah is actually the older brother in Luke 15 who thought he deserved God's grace, unlike his undeserving little twerp of a brother who squandered his inheritance. (I haven't said the word twerp since I think I was 8 years old with my sister, but here we are.) The older brother needed that same grace to save and change him, as his little brother did. Friends, we need it too.

So, we come to the end of Jonah, and we see that Jonah isn't the perfect story. Jonah 4 isn't the perfect ending to the perfect story. Why? Because we need a better Jonah. Brothers and sisters, the perfect Jonah has come, and his name is Jesus. These two prophets could not be more different. Jonah ends with him outside the city, sulking. If you read the letter to the Hebrews, Hebrews 13 ends with the better Jonah outside the city, suffering. Do you see that?

This Jonah ends with him sulking; the greater Jonah ends with him suffering. Why? In order to cleanse the people through his own perfect blood. Friends, we see that in Christ Jesus, the very Son of God who became man, who lived the life we couldn't live, who obeyed and fulfilled the law in our place because we could not live up to God's standards, he proclaimed a salvation that was better than we could have ever imagined.

Jesus is able to save us from our sin and save us from our greatest enemies and deliver us into a sin-conquering, Satan-trampling, everlasting, death-defeating, resurrection life. Friend, if you only want more comfort in this life, then this is not the Savior you'll want, but he is the Savior you need. He is the Savior we need, because he gives out of his own abundant life what we need.

So, the question is…Will you come to him? Will you receive him? Will you trade your sin that comes to steal, kill, and destroy? Will you trade that for Christ who came to give you life, and to give it abundantly? If you have received him, you must know he hasn't designed his grace and mercy to stop with us. Watermark is not a destination vacation for his grace. Know we have received mercy so we might take his mercy into our neighborhoods, to our neighbors, to our barbershops, hair salons, gyms, grocery stores, and restaurants, and to the nations.

This is why we've been going through the book of Jonah: we want to be a missional and sending church. We want our lives to be so transformed by the gospel of God's grace, like it was Elisabeth Elliot's. Maybe you've heard of Elisabeth Elliot, who, as a new college graduate and newly married woman, went with her husband, Jim Elliot, to the Auca people. Upon arriving there, these newlyweds were greeted with enemies, and those enemies killed her husband Jim.

Elisabeth Elliot had every right in the world to say, "You know what? I'm done with this. They just murdered my newlywed husband? I'm done with this place. Take me back to the comfort of America." And she didn't. She stayed, and she proclaimed the gospel to the Auca people, and those people came to faith in Christ. Why? Because she had been so transformed by God's grace she couldn't help but share that grace to the people around her. If that meant going to her very present enemies, then so be it.

That's where we are. We've heard through this series some of the ways we can respond to Jonah. We've heard in previous weeks… Maybe that's praying that God would give you his heart for the lost. Maybe that's downloading the Unreached People of the Day app. Maybe that's learning a 30- to 45-second version of your story of grace, of how you came to faith in Christ, practicing that with your Community Group or those who know you.

This is the goal of our missional and sending church series, because we want to grow in being more faithful and more intentional in taking the gospel to our neighbors and to the nations. Maybe you find yourself here this morning, and there's a person God has put on your heart, and you're like, "I've got to go share the gospel with that person." Maybe it's a missed opportunity at a restaurant you maybe ate at yesterday. You're like, "I missed it. I want to go back."

Maybe it's a person at work or maybe God right now is stirring your heart to say, "God, I think you're leading me to go to the nations, to the billions of people who have not heard the gospel of Christ. And how will they hear unless I'm sent?" Because we know that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. So, maybe the Lord is putting it on your heart right now to say, "God, I want to go."

Whatever it is God is leading you to do right now, I want us to take a moment and reflect on what God would have you do. Maybe that's coming to faith in Christ. Maybe that's taking the message of Christ to someone here in the city of Dallas. Maybe that means abandoning your own comfort and leveraging all you have and all you are for the sake of the gospel to go to those who need to hear it. I don't know what that is. The Lord knows. Let me pray for us as you consider this.

Lord, your Word says in Psalm 67, "May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us, that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations. Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you!" God, I pray that we would realize that you have been gracious to us. You have made your face to shine upon us. We are not in a position like the psalmist who's looking forward to the Messiah coming. No. We are in a better position to look back and see that that Savior has come.

We praise you, our God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. You have blessed us, and you have made your face to shine upon us, not that we may hoard these blessings and not that we would hoard this grace, but that we would take and proclaim these blessings and this grace to those who need to hear it.

O God, may we, as a church, freely and joyfully proclaim this message, not just here in Dallas but to the nations. How we want to leverage everything we are and everything we have, that hundreds and thousands would go from here, that we would intentionally identify, raise up, mobilize, train, send, and support those to go to the nations to hear this life-giving message of the gospel. I pray that you would do it, that we would lay everything on the table and say, "Yes, Lord. Whatever it takes, I want to go where you go." We ask these things in Christ's name, amen.