Craig Groeschel - Taking Control of Your Emotions
In the frustrating cliffhanger ending of Jonah chapter 4, God confronts Jonah's anger over His mercy toward the repentant Ninevites, showing through a plant, worm, and wind that Jonah cares more about his own comfort than lost souls—revealing that we can obey God's will without having His compassionate heart, yet God's gracious, slow-to-anger, abounding-in-love character never changes and points us to the greater Jonah, Jesus.
The Frustrating Cliffhanger
I wonder how many of you have ever watched a movie or a TV series and then after the whole thing, it ended with no resolution. It didn’t make sense. You get to the end of it and you’re like, “Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I paid attention all the way through. I watched for the entire season. And we get to the end and it ends like that?” Who knows what I’m talking about? Raise your hand. Comment section: “I know what you’re talking about.” Type it there.
How many of you hate when something ends like that and there is no resolution? Raise your hand. Type it in the comment section: “I hate when that happens.” If you hate it, I got really bad news for you. You are not gonna like Jonah 4, because this has the weirdest cliffhanger ending you’ve ever seen.
Reviewing Jonah So Far
Jonah 4—today, we conclude the message series on Jonah. It is the most difficult chapter of Jonah for me to preach and it will be the most frustrating chapter for you to hear. Now that I’ve got you excited about Jonah 4, let’s review where we’ve been the first three weeks.
Chapter 1: Do you remember the word of the Lord came to Jonah and said, “Go and preach to the Ninevites, because their wickedness has come up before me.” What did Jonah do? He hated the Ninevites because they were evil. And so, he got on a ship going in the other direction. God sent a storm. The sailors got freaked out. They threw Jonah overboard and God provided a big fish that swallowed Jonah up.
Chapter 2 and 3
Chapter 2: Jonah prayed and God had mercy and the fish vomited Jonah up on the shore. We call that beach barf. God had mercy. Everybody say: “God had mercy.” Say it again: “God had mercy.” God had mercy because the fish vomited him out of the mouth.
Chapter 3: And the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. How many of you’re thankful for the God of second chances? Our God doesn’t just call, but our God calls back. And so, what did Jonah do? He finally obeyed the Lord. He wasn’t happy about it, but he preached a very short, very direct message—but basically turn or burn: you got 40 days to repent of your sins or God’s gonna destroy you.
Nineveh Repents, God Relents
And he preaches the message and all of the Ninevites actually turn. And how does the Lord respond to their repentance? How does God respond when the evil people turn from their sins? Chapter 3 tells us how they respond: “When God saw that the Ninevites did what they did and how they turned, how they repented from their evil ways, God relented and did not bring on them the destruction that He had threatened.”
What do we see? When they repented, God relented. When they turned from their sins, God had mercy on some of the most evil people who have ever walked the face of the earth, even when they didn’t deserve it.
Jonah’s Anger
But they repented, God relented. And the whole nation—from the king, the richest to the very poorest—turned to God. And how do you think Jonah responded? He was the preacher. And this national revival breaks out. I gotta tell you right now, if I preached and like all of you turned to Jesus, I’d be so happy. I’d be worshiping. I would break out M&Ms and I would eat a whole box full.
Jonah preached. They repented. And what did he do? He wasn’t happy. He wasn’t worshiping. He was ticked off. Jonah 4:1 tells us this: “But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry.” Now, the word angry is kind of a weaker translation in my opinion. The Hebrew word is a very, very strong word. It kind of means like ticked off, like raging. He was furious.
Jonah’s Complaint
He prayed to the Lord: “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That’s why I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish.” And he says this—now he’s gonna complain about the most beautiful attributes of God: “I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.”
And then he says, “Hey, I don’t like what you’re doing, God. So take away my life, for it’s better for me to die than to live.” Can we just slow it down for a minute and acknowledge there’s a lot of drama here? There’s a lot of drama here, right?
Doing God’s Will Without His Heart
Now, it’s really easy to throw Jonah under the bus until you put yourself in his shoes. Scholars say it’s very likely that some of Jonah’s family members were tortured and killed by the Ninevites or the Assyrians. And so when you’re looking at Jonah, you’re going, “There’s history. There’s history.”
So, we’ll give him a little bit of credit because we have to acknowledge Jonah eventually did the will of God, right? God told him to go and preach to the Ninevites. He did the will of God, but he wasn’t happy about it. And what did he preach? “40 days from now, you better turn or God will destroy you.”
Jonah shows us a problem that many of us have. He shows us it’s possible to do the will of God without the heart of God. It’s possible to do what God wants, but to do it with the wrong attitude or with the wrong motives.
Going East
And the story continues—Jonah 4:5 tells us this: Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city. There, he made himself a shelter and sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen in the city.
It’s interesting that this very specific direction is in the Bible. Which direction did he go? He went east of the city. This is important because in the Bible, anyone who travels east often represents moving toward exile or moving toward bondage.
Claiming God but Turning Your Back
When you look at it, Jonah was the prophet and he claimed God, but in this case, he turned his back to God. It’s possible to claim God yet live with your back to Him.
And I say this with a heavy heart, but it’s not uncommon to see that in the church today. People will say, “Hey, you know, Jesus saved me,” and they know Him as Savior, but they don’t know Him as Lord.
God Provides
So here we got Jonah—and I’m actually starting to understand him. He’s hurt. He’s got his feelings hurt. He’s mad. He’s uncomfortable baking in this hot sun. And Jonah 4:6 says this: “The Lord God provided a leafy plant and made it grow over Jonah to give him shade for his head to ease his discomfort.” And Jonah was very happy about the plant.
So first, God provided a fish to save Jonah. Then, God provided a plant to cover him, and he was very happy. This isn’t just like I found a $20 bill in my pants happy. This is exceedingly overjoyed—because God eased his discomfort. Because God did something for him.
The Object Lesson
Here’s what I’ve noticed: About the time you start to get comfortable is when God has a way of stretching your faith. The moment we start to get comfortable, God tends to teach us that we still need Him.
Verse 7 tells us this: “But at dawn the next day, God provided a worm, which chewed the plant so that it withered.” “And God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint.” Jonah again wanted to die and said, “It would’ve been better for me to die than to live.”
The Cliffhanger Ending
How does Jonah end? There is no season five coming next year. It just ends. “But God said to Jonah, ‘Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?’” Jonah’s like, “It is. I’m so angry I wish I were dead.”
But the Lord said, “You’ve been concerned about this plant, though you didn’t tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. And shouldn’t I have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than 120,000 people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals.”
God’s Unchanging Character
There is a main character in the Book of Jonah. Hint: it’s not Jonah who is the main character of the Book of Jonah. The main character is God, the Lord God.
Jonah had issues just like you, just like every single one of you. But I want you to notice this: Jonah’s attitude never changed God’s character. No matter what he did, no matter how he acted, no matter how he complained, no matter how he rebelled—God was still God.
Our God is always a gracious, compassionate God who is slow to anger and abounding in love.
Pointing to Jesus
Jonah actually points us to Jesus in the New Testament. And Jesus points back to Jonah in the Old Testament. Jesus said, “Just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights as well.”
And then Jesus said, “And now something greater than Jonah is here.” He is the Son of God. He is the perfect one. Jonah ran from God, but Jesus surrendered to Him. Jonah fought for his own will. Jesus said, “God, I want your will.” Jonah couldn’t stomach the sinners. Jesus said, “I came for them.”
God’s Second Chances
For some of you, you may be a little bit like Jonah. Sometimes you’re close to God and sometimes you ignore Him. And someone right now, you may be afraid, you’re worried, you’re anxious, you’re alone.
And maybe even I’m speaking to someone who’s a little bit like Jonah, when you’re not even sure if life is worth living. And I wanna declare it to you: you are never alone. Our God will never leave you and He will never forsake you. And even when you feel helpless—with our God, you are never hopeless.
Our God is the God of second chances. Every chance from God demands a choice from you.
Prayer of Worship
So Father, we worship you. We honor you. We give you praise. We thank you for who you are. Holy Spirit, would you do a work in the hearts of people today.
Turning Toward God’s Will
As you’re praying today at all of our different churches, I wanna talk to those of you who would say, “I am a disciple of Jesus. I am a follower of Christ.” There’s some area of your life where you kind of got your back turned to God.
How many of you wanna be right in the middle of the will of God today? To all of our churches—that’s you—what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna pray. If you wanna be in the middle of God’s will, if you’re not, you move. You turn toward Him.
Holy Spirit, just speak to us. God, any place, any area, any part of our life that is not surrendered to your lordship—convict us, God. Show us, God. Direct us, God. Reveal it to us, God. And we’ll repent. We’ll turn, we turn to you. God, we thank you that when we turn to you what we’re gonna find is a gracious, compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love. So, God show us any area of our lives not in line with your will and we will be faithful to obey.
Invitation to Salvation
As you keep praying today, I’m so thankful that on this day there will be those of you whose lives are changed forever. Who is God? He’s a compassionate God. A gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in love.
God became one of us. He sent His Son Jesus, who was perfect in every way. Jesus came for the broken. Jesus came for the lost. Jesus came for the sinners. Jesus took on our sin and died on a cross. And three days later, Jesus wasn’t there—He was risen.
Anyone who calls on the name of the Lord would be saved. Today at all of our churches, those who say, “That’s me. I’m turning toward God. I’m turning toward Jesus. Today, by faith, I give my life to Jesus.”
Heavenly Father, I surrender my will to you. I confess my sins to you. Jesus save me. Be the Lord of my life, first in every way. Fill me with your spirit, so I could know you and serve you, and follow you for the rest of my life. My life is not my own. I give it to you. My compassionate, gracious, slow to anger God, who’s abounding in love. Thank you for loving me. You have all of my life. In Jesus’ name, I pray.