Jonah 4 | When Life Doesn't Go How You Planned It

Sunday Morning | February 2, 2026 | John C. Majors | Louisville, KY

Jonah 4 shows what happens when life doesn’t go the way we planned and our hearts react poorly to God’s grace. After Nineveh repents and God spares the city, Jonah’s own plans “fail,” and he responds with what the sermon called the three Ps. First, Jonah becomes perturbed—angry and offended that God would show mercy, reminding us that human anger does not produce God’s righteousness (James 1:20). Second, Jonah turns to prayer, but his prayer is more complaint than repentance, revealing how easily we can justify ourselves instead of humbling our hearts before the Lord (Joel 2:12–14). Third, Jonah pouts, sitting outside the city, hoping for judgment, while God uses a plant as an object lesson to expose Jonah’s misplaced compassion and selfish priorities, much like Nathan’s story to David or Elijah’s despair in the wilderness. Through Jonah’s stubbornness, God patiently pursues His prophet, teaching that His mercy is wider than our comfort. The chapter leaves us with lasting lessons: to have ears to hear God’s correction, to trust that God lovingly pursues His people, to take Jonah’s story as a warning against hard-heartedness, and to remember we cannot fix our hearts on our own. Jonah sat outside the city longing for condemnation, but Jesus went outside the city to die for salvation, showing that only the gospel of grace can make sinful people fully accepted and joyfully secure in God’s love.

*Unfortunately part of the sermon was not recorded at the beginning. We apologize for the error.

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Transcript

0:00

Well, I guess you do. You may not start out that way of thinking. I would really like to become a very angry person. But over time you give it just a little more purchase. You give into it a little bit more. I would encourage you, if that's a struggle, which means everyone in here we've all struggled with it at one time.

James 1: 0:21

20 I put in your notes. That's a great gut check. That verse, the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Is my anger the anger of man, or is it a godly anger? Is it for his glory or for my glory? It's a real healthy exercise to pause in the midst of your anger and ask, what's going on here? Why am I angry? Is this angry? Is this honoring God? Is this a righteous anger or is it all about me? And where's this going to head? That's Jonah's first response. It's just anger. This didn't go the way I thought. How dare you, God! Now what's his next step? What does he do next? Look at verse two. 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, merciful, slow to anger, 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. And the Lord said, do you do well to be angry? So Jonah starts off with his anger. But his second response, I think we could say, is a good response. And Jonah's-- the second letter P, Jonah prays. Even in the midst of his anger, even in the midst of being overwhelmed by his anger, his response is to pray. That's a good thing. Now there's some challenges with this prayer. There's a big difference between this prayer and the other time he prayed is his reaction in chapter two to being swallowed by the fish was to pray, but there it was a prayer of thanksgiving. It was a prayer of praise of how great God is. And of course, as we looked at that, we saw he was still very self focused in the midst of that. But this prayer is still a bit of a prayer of anger. When you hear in this prayer that he's still upset with God. In it he says, I told you this is how it would turn out. This is why I didn't want to go here to begin with. Why didn't you listen? You hear his prayer. It's really one of those prayers that's a complaint disguised as a prayer. You ever had those? You might even pray it around the person you're next to. Oh, Lord, would you help my spouse to change, you know? I know they need you so much. Well, you've you've disguised a complaint as a prayer, and everyone loves to hear that kind of prayer, right? They know what's going on. They know what you're doing. Jonah's doing that here. It's still good that he turns to prayer. You can still come to God even when your heart's not right. Even when maybe you're not praying the right way. You don't use the right words. He still wants you to come to him. God didn't say, get away from me. Stop your nonsense prayers. How dare you? No. Jonah's reaction is to come to him in the midst of prayer. Interesting thing he does here. He did this in chapter two in his prayer, he quoted from the Psalms over and over again. Over. It was like one long quotation of various Psalms. He quotes Scripture again in the midst of his prayer. He, he, he describes God's character, which he knew to be true, which it was the thing he feared. I was afraid you do well who you said you are. He quotes from Jonah chapter two, from Joel chapter two. And we looked at this last week, but just look back at the quote in verse two. I knew that you are a gracious God, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, relenting from disaster. We looked at this last week because I keep saying last week we looked at this the last time. Just follow with me. You got it. You know what I'm talking about. Chapter three. When the King quoted from this same section in Joel chapter two. Hey, look back at chapter three. It says verse nine. This is the same passage. If you have cross-references in your Bible, you'll see they're both from Joel chapter two, verse 13. Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we may not perish. Both are quoting from the same section, and a lot of these phrases here, by the way, show up all kinds of places in Scripture. But there's a significant contrast here in the way they approach this scripture. The King was quoting it seeking mercy from God, and Jonah is quoting it out of anger, out of the lack of God's judgment. Sometimes we can even quote Scripture from a place where our heart is not right. But the good thing is, whether he realizes it or not, he is reminding himself of who God is, even if he disagrees. Even if he doesn't think God should act that way, even if he thinks God is misbehaving. He's still coming back to Scripture. And we see some contrast here, though we see the contrast between how God acts and how Jonah acts. He even says, God, you are slow to anger, and Jonah's quick to anger. God, you abound in steadfast love. And Jonah is severely lacking love right now. God, you relent. You turn from justice. You measure out justice at the right time. But you will turn when people repent. And yet, Jonah cannot stand that idea. You see a gigantic contrast between who God is, who Jonah is. He's the prophet that continues to be the nonprophet, the antiprophet. Everyone else is doing the right things except Jonah. And it's interesting to see how God responds to him in the midst of this, because he's off the rails. He's like the the toddler throwing a fit, and it seems there's nothing you can do for them. How's God going to respond to that? I think we can all think of ways we might respond to that. What does God do? Look at verse four. He just says, asks him a question. Do you do well to be angry? He just simply asks him this question. There's different ways to translate that. Some say it could just be translated more like are you good and angry? Another way. Are you right to be angry? Yeah. Jonah, I know you're angry, but is that right? Is your heart in the right place? Is this accomplishing anything? No. I appreciate that God just simply comes to him, still pursues him, asks him a question. Even in the midst of his anger, even in the midst of him being off the rails. But I think in this we get just a hint here as well, just an echo of previous conversations he had with angry people. Just some of the wording is very similar. If you go back Genesis chapter four, verse six, when God confronts Cain, who's upset because his offering wasn't received, and he says, he asks him as well, why are you angry? And when he asks him that, he also gives him a little bit of a warning. Watch out! Sin is crouching at your door. Be aware it seeks to master you. It seeks, seeks to overwhelm you. Be aware. And that's the great power of anger. It wants to take you over. God's trying to get him his attention by just simply asking him that. Are you good and angry? What is going on? Now, how does Jonah react to that? God asks him a question. What does Jonah do? We're going to see him do what he has done. He goes silent and he goes back to his old patterns, his old behaviors. Look at verse five. We're going to see how Jonah reacts to God's questions. 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 to 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. 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 the night, and perished in the night. And yet should not I pity Nineveh, the 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. This comment do not know the right hand from their left just means they are ignorant of what is true and what is right. They don't know God's law. They don't know him. Should you not also have pity for them? Jonah's reaction to God's question in verse four is it right to be angry? Are you good and angry? His reaction was silence, but I think a good word to sum up how he reacted was to pout, right? Jonah's reaction was to pout. He pouted with his actions. Mean he went back to the pattern we saw earlier. He fled when God asked him to go to Nineveh. He fled to Tarshish. Now that he's in Nineveh. And he did what God asked, kind of half heartedly. He flees Nineveh. I've done my part. I'm out of here. I don't have any words to respond. And we saw what he did. He went outside the city and he sat down. Now there's a couple of things going on here. There's some interesting. It's almost like he's coming out to see the show. Right? I came here preaching a message. In 40 days there will be destruction. It's not too late for you to act, God. It's not too late for you to behave. It's not too late for you to do the thing that I came here telling people you would do. So I'm going to go out here, find a nice seat on the great lawn down at the Ohio River, and get ready for the fireworks show. Get ready for the fire and brimstone to rain down like I know you will do. You- you still have time to act right. Jonah even builds himself a little shelter to make sure he's comfortable and ready. It fits right in with all the homeless people down on the waterfront. Just got a little shelter for himself. He's ready to go. He doesn’t know how long he will be there. I got 40 days to wait. You know some interesting parallels here between. There's parallels and there's contrast between Jonah's life. And I'm putting in notes. Elijah, because Elijah also went outside of the city where he had been preaching and was discouraged. And he set down outside of the city, and he waited 40 days. But the big difference is Elijah went out and he was discouraged because they didn't respond. The people had not responded to the call to repent and he was sad. Jonah is sad because they did respond. And you know, the I got to tell you, as a pastor, as a preacher, the crazy part of that Jonah had the thing happen that every preacher wants to see happen. He went and gave a half hearted eight word sermon, left early, and the whole city converts. I mean, that's what everybody wants to happen. You're like, yeah, finally. I mean, imagine it's crazy. Imagine. Have you heard of this guy, Zach Meerkreebs, do you know who he is? He preached the sermon at Asbury a couple of years ago. That then led to the two week revival that happened there. And Zach, even by his own admission, I read his little his story. He wrote a book about his whole experience with that. By his own admission, he said, I wasn't as prepared as I would like. I was kind of scooting in to come. He didn't know that revival was about to break out. This is just another message I gotta give. So he wasn't as prepared as he would like. And even as he sat down from giving the message his wife had texted, how did it go? And he just texted back. It was a real stinker. Real stinker. Not my best. One of my worst in fact. I gotta tell you, there's great encouragement in that. God used what he said was his worst to bring about radical revival on a college campus. But now imagine if he had been upset by that. How dare you! Snot nosed college students. Self-absorbed. You don't know what reality is like. How dare you act all sad and repentant when I gave that half hearted message? There's no way that could have meant something to you. You don't know suffering. You act like you're suffering. He had just lost a child not long before he gave that message. Let me tell you what suffering is. You've barely lived. You don't know. I mean, imagine if that had been his reaction. This is what we're seeing here with. With Jonah. And how many times have I been upset because God shows mercy to someone else? Well, you didn't do that for me. You didn't show me the love that I thought you would show me. And I'm blind to what he's already done in my life. Jonah pouts. But what I love is that God doesn't give up on him. He keeps moving toward him. He keeps coming toward him. And what he does is he shows him mercy in verse six. God appointed a plant and made it to come up over Jonah that it might shade over his head. And this phrase is so important here to save him from his discomfort. And if you're looking at the footnotes, if your Bible has them, that word is again the same word for evil. I think there's a little bit of a double meaning going on here, to save him from his discomfort, and to save him from his evil heart, to get his attention. Look, I tried to get your attention from the storm in the first chapter, from the whale. I tried to get your attention here, now, by giving you comfort. And sometimes it's the smallest comforts in life that are the greatest delight, the greatest pleasure, the greatest joy. I have-- this year I've been real intentional to never rush a good hot shower. I mean, you want to talk about one of the great delights in life. And I know parents are going, please don't say that. Right. My kid's already emptying out the Ohio River and the shower. Please stop giving them permission. No, I get it. In fact, I had a friend. This has nothing to do with the sermon, but I think it's funny, so I'm going to share it. He. He owned, like an electronic controls company. And so one day his kid would take eternal showers, you know? And so one day he just cut a hole in the wall, found the hot water pipe, put a valve in it with electronic control. He's laying in bed one night and thinks, I think that shower's gone long enough. Click. Remote control turns off the hot water. All sudden he hears screaming in the shower. You know, just don't like cold water. Shower. And I thought, yeah, that was kind of cruel, but do you sell those kits? Is there any way you could come install that at my house? We could. We might have those in the lobby after the service for the right price, installation included. I think you can make a killing off those. Point being, sometimes the small comforts in life. This is just the simple thing of a hot shower can bring you so much joy if you don't rush past it. And Jonah, it's just the little thing of a plant that has grown up over him in his little bitty shelter he built to protect himself. In a moment, in the fullness of his anger that doesn't get his attention. So God appoints. And then notice it says appoints. Appoints. Appoints. God is active in this. He appointed a plant-- that didn't get his attention. So what does he do? He appoints a worm in verse seven that attack the plant so that it withered. And then God appointed a scorching wind. The earlier wind that caused the storm didn't get your attention. The whale didn't get your attention. The plant didn't get your attention. The worm doesn't get your attention. I'm sending another scorching heat to get your attention. Jonah was faint. He asked that he might die and said, it is better for me to die than to live. Sometimes the smallest delight, the smallest comfort can mean so much. Sometimes the smallest pain can overwhelm you. Look. And if a worm completely derails your day, if something is small and as tiny as a worm, it wasn't. It wasn't the worm. It just reveals that you had no spiritual, no emotional margin in your life. I mean, when you're driving down the road, you leave margin hopefully around your car because you know, you've got to have time to react. It's the same is true in your spiritual life. If you don't leave any margin in your life emotionally, spiritually, it's the slightest tap of the brakes in your life that wreck you. And the worm reveals the anger in his heart, the lack of spiritual margin, the lack of emotional margin. And all this is God just trying to get Jonah's attention. Would you listen? I'm pursuing you. Would you listen? And it's. I think there's a lot of power here to the fact that God uses an object lesson to try to get his attention. He did this with David. You remember Nathan coming to David, and he uses a story. Look, can you imagine someone with hundreds of sheep stealing one guy's lone sheep? Yeah, that'd be outrageous. That'd be terrible. That was you. There's something about that that finally pricks his heart, that finally gets his attention. He's been blind to his sin. And there's something about the object lesson that gets his attention. And God tries to clearly point this out to him in verse nine when he said, you do well to be angry. Verse ten, you pity the plant for which you did not labor. You did not make it grow. Should I not pity Nineveh, that great city? You have so much pity for this little plant, and yet you begrudge me showing pity to human souls. The people I created. And he leaves Jonah. He lets this question just lay on him. It's a very frustrating ending to the Book of Jonah. It's like a song where they play the wrong note at the end and it doesn't resolve. You just want it to have some resolution. That's how the book ends. Now why why would he be so cruel to end this book this way? This book we've talked about as standing out amongst the Minor prophets, this book that is clearly meant to get our attention. Well, I think there's a few things here he's trying to highlight. One is the fact that Jonah is an ungrateful steward. We get an example of the reality that he's been forgiven so much like the ungrateful steward in Matthew 18, he was forgiven so much wouldn't extend forgiveness to others. Jonah forgiven so much. Rescued by a whale. Rescued from the whale. Forgiven so much and didn't want to see others receive that. It shows that he had not repented. Show that his heart was still dark. I think there's a few lessons for us here. Number one, make sure that you have ears to hear. Be listening for God, trying to get your attention when the wind comes. When the great fish comes. When the scorching wind comes. When the plant. When the good things come and the bad things. What is he trying to say to me? How is he trying to speak to me through this? Have ears to hear. Be looking. Be listening and be praying. God, would you open my ears? Would you open my eyes to see the wonders of what you're doing? Number two. Know, trust, believe-- however you want to say it. Know that God pursues his people. I love this, I love this picture. God did not give up on Jonah. I think I would have very early in the story personally. But God kept coming after him, kept pursuing. That is my prophet. I'm not going to give up on him. I've got a plan for him. I'm going to use him. Even if he doesn't want me around. I'm going to keep coming after him. And listen, there are people in your life who don't want you there and you got to keep pursuing them. There are people who have said, I don't want to hear about your faith anymore. And it look, it'll take wisdom for how you approach them, but don't give up on them. God didn't give up on you. Don't give up on them. You never know what he's doing behind the scenes. You never know. Nineveh. The last place Jonah thought God would move. Don't give up. He doesn't give up on his people either. And for those that have strayed from him. And the encouraging part for you is you can be honest with God. I think there are times where you feel like I'm feeling this thing. I'm feeling it deeply, and I know it's awful, I know it's terrible, I know it's ugly. And I got to hide it from God. So he doesn't know that. That's in my heart. Like he doesn't know. He knows it's there. It's like a kid who has lied to their parents, and the parents already know they lied, and they're waiting for the kid to come and say it. We know you've lied. They think they're hiding it from them. We already know. Come tell him what's in your heart. Do it the best you can with reverence and respect. Do the best you can become. Share what's there. Be honest. He knows it's there. Acknowledge it and come to him. And then, number three, I think the story serves as a warning to God's people. Let this story serve as a warning to us. And it's a warning to us in a very specific way, because many believe this letter is primarily written as a warning to Israel. Stop thinking you're special when you're running from God. Be like Nineveh. The people you thought who were so far from God but yet turned quickly to him. Repent. Let this serve as a warning. And look, in the church. Let this serve as a warning to us, because Jonah here he is really displaying. We talked about how this story hints that has parallels to the story of the prodigal son. And of course, he's like the younger brother who's running from God. Clearly that's a clear parallel, but he's also now playing out the older brother, because the older brother was the one who said, I've done everything right. I've done everything the way I should. And yet you're not acting the way a father should. Look at you. You're running after him, after all, that he's done to you. Jonah, you're not acting the way you should towards Nineveh. As bad as they behaved, you're going to let them back. You're going to let them in. After all I've done to follow you, I've been the good one. It's easy to try to save yourself through your own good works. In fact, that's probably our greatest temptation in here. Look at all I've done. God, look at all the ways I've tried to serve you and follow you. Look at how good I've been. I'm going to save myself through my own goodness. Let this be a warning to us. This reminded me of a story, and Tim Keller talks about this in his book. If you have this book on Jonah. But I've I've enjoyed reading Flannery O'Connor for years. Her short stories. I don't know if you're familiar with her or not. She's well known for just kind of the gripping nature of her stories. They're just 10 or 20 pages long, but you get to the end of it. And there's something about the ending that, man, that just hits you all at once. And she has this, this one story, one of her main characters. She loves to point out hypocrisy and religious people, and she was that she was a devoted Christian. She wasn't doing it to be mean. She just saw it lived out all the time around her, and she had this one character, Hazel Motes. Hazel Motes understood this. Hazel Motes understood how I will save myself for my own goodness. In fact, here's the quote that Flannery O'Connor used to describe her. I loved how she worded this. She said she knew the way to avoid Jesus was to avoid sin. You got to chew on that one for a second. What? Yeah, she knew if I want to avoid Jesus, I better avoid sin. Meaning I better be very good so I don't have to actually be confronted with who he is. I'll be so good myself that I don't need him. It is really quiet and still in here right now. I think I'm feeling it as well. And I think our temptation, like Jonah, is to say I've done the right thing. Let this be a warning. Maybe you have. And look, I hope we're all seeking to honor God in the way we live. I hope we're seeking to live a life that honors him. I do, I hope I do, but I'm not going to put my righteousness in that. God, I'm going to do my best, and I need you to show up. I'm not doing it on my own strength. I can't do it on my own strength. Would you show up and save me? Let this serve as a warning. But also let this be a reminder. Just like the father came to the prodigal son and came to the older brother and came to Jonah, that we need God to show up. In fact, if you've been in a really dark place where you're ate up with anger, number four is where we'll draw to a close, and it's a final reminder you can't fix it on your own, can't fix it on your own. And if you've been completely ate up with anger or off the rails or distant from God, you know how that is. God, I don't even know how to get back to you. I don't know how to get out of this dark place. I don't know how to get out of this bad spot. Anybody been there before? I don't know, I can't get out of my own head, I can't change. Would you show up? You can't fix it on your own. Jonah couldn't go from Jonah, the younger brother who's-- who's fleeing from God. Jonah couldn't go from Jonah, the self-righteous older brother, to Jonah, the faithful prophet without God intervening. And God knew that. That's why he kept coming after him and coming after him and coming after him. And where this all ends up, where this all points out is that ultimately with Jonah, who was the imperfect prophet, this points to the fact that we need a perfect prophet. Jonah wanted to see destruction of the city where he was sent to save. He went outside the city and prayed, this is a city that received him and welcomed him. But the contrast is to Jesus, who came to the city of Jerusalem, who rejected him. And he prayed, and he wept over them. And he went outside the city and died. In fact, this quote is so good from Tim Keller. I put it in your notes. I think we'll have it on the screen as well. He sums this up. Jonah went outside the city hoping to witness its condemnation, but Jesus Christ went outside the city to die on a cross to accomplish its salvation. All of this is pointing to the reality. Jonah, the imperfect prophet, leaves us longing for a true prophet. And so, in the midst of being distant from him, we turned to him. We turn to Jesus. We trust that he will give us the strength to repent. He will change our hearts. He will make you new. He will give you new life, new birth, regeneration. That's where you'll find that strength. I was talking with someone the other day about whether or not we felt that Jonah was saved or not. The story sure doesn't seem that way, but it ends with a question. Much like with the older brother. Would you come in? Come in to the banquet. Don't stay out. Don't stay out angry God is pursuing him. Come in. Don't stay distant. Repent. But I love what Tim Keller had to say. And I put this quote in here. It's long, but it sums it up, because how could we know what Jonah was praying inside of the fish? There's no way anyone could know that. Except I'm going to read this quote the only way we could possibly know these things. And by the way, this gives us a glimpse into what was really ultimately going on with Jonah. The only way we can know these things, like the prayer inside the fish, is if Jonah told others, that's the only way we can know. What kind of man would let the world see what a fool he was. Only someone who had become joyfully secure in God's love. Only someone who believed that he was simultaneously sinful but completely accepted. Someone who has found in the gospel of grace the very power of God. And that's the end of the day. That's the message of Jonah. That's where we find his grace. It's in the power of God, no matter how hard you've run from him and no matter how self-righteous you've been, the solution is the same to come to him to find that healing grace. Let's pray. God, I thank you for the book of Jonah. Thank you for all the surprises we've seen in it, all the ways it points forward to a greater prophet to come. Would you help us to lean on Jesus more and more today? Help us to be like the Ninevites who were quick to repent, to be like the King in Nineveh, who sat in sackcloth and ashes seeking mercy, rather than one who sits and seeks judgment. And no matter where we've been with you, with we've been running from you or we've been self-righteous, I pray today, each of us right now would just bring the condition of our heart before you and repent. Would you stir? Would you give us new life today? We want to see you move like you moved at Asbury, like you moved in Nineveh. We know you can do that here. We know you can do that in South Louisville. We know you can. Would you stir like that today? Jesus, we love you. We thank you that we can gather. It's in your name we pray. Amen.