Jonah 4:6–11 - Revealed by Blessing

Often our sinfulness is revealed by God’s blessings. Our corrupt nature is shown as God gives us His good gifts. Let me give you some examples.

You finally get a restful day off. What a blessing, right? But when your spouse asks for a small favor – just a little bit of your precious time – you snap back selfishly.

Or let’s say you receive some unexpected money. That’s a blessing. However, when the money is in hand, instead of being excited to give generously, you only feel the urge to buy things or hoard it.

Or how about when someone in your life serves you by repeatedly handling a simple chore that makes your life easier. What a blessing! But the moment they leave it undone, you demandingly lash out at them in frustration.

Or imagine that you’re enjoying a somewhat calm and ordered season of life. It’s the fruit of your labors and good decisions – by God’s gracious blessing, of course. But when a troubled person (maybe a family member) disrupts your peaceful life, you seethe with anger instead of showing pity.

In each case, sinfulness brought to the surface by blessing. That was the case in Jonah’s life, and in the covenant community of ancient Israel, and that’s the case in the covenant community of the local church today: we’ve been graciously set apart and blessed by God, and we’re prone to sins that seem to grow out of His blessings.

To be clear, the blessings aren’t the problem. They just expose our corruption. This has always been the case for God’s people. We need Him to root out that sin, and He’s committed to that work. God changes us as we behold His glorious grace, and He providentially appoints circumstances that bring our sin into view. Jonah and ancient Israel needed to see the sin that grows in those set apart in covenant with God. And we need to see it too.

But what kind of sins?

Jonah is our case study. We should look at his life and think about our own. Notice the outline on page 6. Three sins tied to his covenant status are selfish enjoyment of God’s provision, overreaction to petty concerns,and lack of compassion for the godless.

Now at the beginning of the chapter, Jonah is appalled that God would have mercy on the wicked Ninevites, and God corrects his foolishness. But Jonah shrugs it off. He goes to the outskirts of the city and makes a shelter with whatever he could find, to sit in skepticism of the Ninevites’ repentance. He’s going to wait to see if it’s real, apparently hoping to see God destroy them.

It seems that his little shelter isn’t sufficient to keep out the hot sun. And so, graciously, God helps him out. Look at verse [6], “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.” This is a huge blessing! Imagine being in the hot Middle Eastern sun without good shelter, sunscreen, or AC!

God did a fine thing for him, especially given the state of his heart. The LORD God had looked out for Jonah and blessed him his whole life. Jonah was born into the covenant community. He was taught the truth from childhood. He knew the promises, the history, and the ways and morals of the one true God. God saved him from sin, saved him from death, and gave him a wonderful and holy calling to be a prophet.

Every good thing Jonah had ever enjoyed was a gift from above. But here was the reality: Jonah was sitting under this plant in sin. He enjoyed God’s shade with hatred in his heart. The first sin tied to his covenant status was selfish enjoyment of God’s provision. He doesn’t take the opportunity – out of the scorching heat – to consider his own ways. He just reaps the benefits of grace.

There’s one word that succinctly describes Jonah: entitled. In his mind, he deserves the blessing of the plant. But his mind is clouded by sin. And when sin clouds our thoughts, our discernment is hindered. Sin deceives us, our hearts grow insensitive to our sin, and we enjoy God’s gifts while being inwardly unaffected by His grace.

When grace is affecting us, it moves us out of ourselves. When we see our sin to a greater and greater degree, grace is magnified for us. And our self-centered enjoyment of God’s provision will begin to decrease. How have you been selfishly enjoying the gracious provision of God?

Now look at verse [7]. “But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered.” Jonah spent the night in God’s AirBnB. But just before the sun rises, God changes things up on Jonah. He takes away the plant; so, he takes away the shelter it gives. See verse [8], “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.”

Here Jonah goes again. wanting to die. But over what? A plant. If the sun is so harsh, go back into the city Jonah! Obviously you’re welcome there! But that’s the last thing he wants to do. And see God’s response in verse [9]. “But God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” In other words, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant dying?” Was it right, seeing as how it was a total gift from God in the first place?

The plant dying further reveals how twisted up Jonah is inside. His response shows that his idolatry in is deep. “And [Jonah] said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.” Talk about doubling down! He fires back this reply to God.

When we gather in worship on the Lord’s Day, God is speaking to us. He’s exposing our sins, showing them to us, opening our eyes to things great and small. It’s very similar to what God is saying here to Jonah. “Is it right for you to do that, to think that, to feel that?” God graciously, patiently, kindly puts it back to us to consider, as if to say, “Is that really how you want to live?” And here, Jonah boldly replies, “Yes, it is.”

When have you replied to God that way? We all have – undoubtedly, on many occasions. In particular, notice Jonah’s pettiness here. He wants to die because the plant is gone. Does such a small thing justify wanting to die? Absolutely not.

Another sin tied to our covenant status and blessings from God is an overreaction to petty concerns. Getting bent out of shape over trivial matters – over things of little importance. It’s a common human experience: unimportant things seem larger than life,
while the things that truly matter seem unimportant and expendable. In Jonah’s case, things like God’s mercy on wicked people, things like an evil city of people being reconciled with the God of grace, things like ruined lives being restored by the power of the only true God, things like people coming to a saving knowledge of the truth.

How have petty concerns begun to consume your thoughts and energy, while the things that truly matter according to God’s kingdom work are an afterthought? This happens to all of us who are set apart and blessed by God. Without honest reflection and repentance, we get sidetracked.

Now look at these final verses with me. God has the last word. 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.” This ties together what God means to teach Jonah. The LORD says Jonah had “pity” for the plant. Jonah suffered inwardly over the loss of the plant, which is to say, he had compassion for the plant.
By the way, Jonah did nothing to earn or produce the plant. God gave it, and God took it away. It had always been an undeserved gift.

But notice verse [11]. God adds, “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?” Jonah pities the plant – but he doesn’t pity Nineveh. He’s worked up over something minor, but couldn’t care less about something monumental.

Notice again the phrase, “who do not know their right hand from their left.” This foreshadows what Paul says to the Ephesian church – to Gentiles like these Ninevites. Paul tells the new Christians in Ephesus, “Remember that you were…separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.”

The Ninevites were not just disadvantaged. They were godless. Their morals were completely upside down. They were to be pitied. They had no foundation of God’s truth. They had no knowledge of His ways. Like a city full of blind people, they groped along in the dark!

Titus 3 in the NT comes to mind, where Paul writes, “We ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.” God asks the prophet Jonah – a member of the covenant community – “Should I not suffer inwardly for Nineveh, like you do for the plant?” “Should I not have compassion for Nineveh, like you do for the plant?” “Should I not show them grace, like I’ve done you, Jonah?”

The members of the true church need to take this message to heart. Like Jonah, we observe people toward whom righteous anger is valid. In our country today, there are various repulsive ideologies. There are many systems of belief that are contrary to God’s truth. Do they please us? Absolutely not. Do you affirm them? Absolutely not. God did not affirm or tolerate the wickedness of the Ninevites. He said that morally they did not “know their right hand from their left.” And He pronounced judgment on them if they didn’t turn from their evil.

So He didn’t validate their ignorance or depravity. Neither should Jonah, and neither should we today. But at the same time, we must have pity in our hearts. Another common sin of those in covenant with God is a lack of compassion for the godless.

If you’re in Christ, and God has brought you out of the condemnation for your sins, called you out of darkness into His marvelous light, have you become an uncompassionate elitist?

Have you become ingrown, numb, unconcerned about the plight of the godless because you’re just better than them, in your mind?

Is Christ your Savior and Lord, but you find yourself becoming preoccupied with petty things, having lost sight of the big picture, becoming skeptical of people professing faith or beginning to change?

Have you begun to justify your grudges? Have you developed a miserable mindset born out of self-absorption? Do you value trivial things over people – over what truly matters? Have you become centered on yourself and your temporal needs and desires?

If you answer ‘yes’ to any of those, congratulations – God has opened your eyes! If you answer ‘no’ to them all, pray that God would open your eyes, because if you don’t see these kinds of things in your life, you don’t see Christ. You don’t see Him who was lifted up for the sins of His people – who was lifted up for the corruption in the hearts of the very people that He came to save and sanctify!

God is set apart and holy in His character. He sets His people apart in and with Christ to make us holy. Christ is our righteousness. Therefore, we can acknowledge that like Jonah and ancient Israel, we have selfishly enjoyed God’s provision, we have overreacted to petty concerns, and we have lacked compassion for the godless –
all because we have loved our God’s blessings more than we have loved our God.

But there is plenty of grace for us today. God’s grace abounds to sinners. At every point we fall short, Christ succeeded in our place to fulfill the law of God for us. Will you renew your trust in Jesus now and follow Him? Will you trust in Christ today if you never have, and turn from your sins? Jesus imputes the fullness of His perfect righteous record to those who trust in Him. He brings us in and blesses us, and even as those blessings reveal more of our sin, He gives us more grace and knowledge of Himself.

Let’s bow in prayer.