If you are a follower of Jesus, share God’s heart by loving what He loves, valuing what He values, and going where He sends. When God’s heart captures our heart, His mission becomes our mission, and His vision becomes our vision.
Jonah 4:5-11 – 5 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. 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. 7 But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. 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.” 9 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.” 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. 11 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?”
When you think about your priorities and things you care about the most, what rises to the top? Is it your personal comfort, your career, your possessions, your politics, your religion, your reputation, or the eternal destiny of the people around you?
For me, growing up as a Christian young person in Pakistan, I never cared about the eternal destiny of the millions of Muslims around me. If anything, I felt bitter anger toward them for oppressing us, treating us as unclean, persecuting us, and even killing us while taking whatever they wanted with no one daring to resist for fear of blasphemy laws. God had to radically transform my heart to align it with God’s heart so that I could care about their souls, their eternal destiny.
The Problem
Our fallen nature naturally prioritizes personal comfort and self-preservation over the spiritual restoration of broken people. People need to know that when our hearts are consumed by immediate, here-and-now problems, we justify our misplaced priorities, rationalize our rebellion, and convince ourselves that our self-centered desires are reasonable.
We saw this exact dynamic last time in Jonah 4:1–4. When Nineveh repented and God relented, Jonah was so furious that he begged God to take his life in Jonah 4:3 because he didn’t care about the eternal destiny of the Ninevites. His priority was his prejudice rather than his prophetic calling; he saw them through the eyes of an enemy rather than through God’s eyes.
The Big Idea
When our priorities are not in order, we value our comfort over God’s calling, our concerns over God’s convictions, and our preferences over God’s purposes. So, the question is: what do we need to do so that what matters most to God matters to us? The answer is, align our hearts with God so that we may see others through His eyes.
In Jonah 4, God does precisely that with Jonah by addressing three heart problems that pull us out of sync with the heart of God: misplaced anger, misdirected affection, and misaligned attitude. Last time, we looked at misplaced anger and how it reshapes what we feel; today, as we conclude our series on the book of Jonah, we will examine how misdirected affection corrupts what we value, and how a misaligned attitude leads to who we become.
Misdirected Affection
Jonah 4:5 outlines a progression: “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.” Notice what Jonah does— He walks out. He sits down. He builds a booth, and he waits “to see what would become of the city.” Thousands have repented; instead of celebrating, the prophet who brought the message has turned into a cynical spectator.
Before we judge Jonah, we must examine our own hearts. Jesus declared in John 20:21, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” Yet so often, we would rather watch people struggle from a safe distance than enter into their suffering. We see a marriage falling apart, but we don’t want to get involved. We know a coworker is hurting, but we avoid the awkward conversation. We know a neighbor is spiritually lost, but we never invite them into our lives. We see someone wrestling with addiction, loneliness, depression, or grief, and we think, “That’s so sad,” and then we keep moving.
We have become experts at observing brokenness without entering into it. Jonah was close enough to see Nineveh, but far enough away not to care. That is us, too, because many of us while physically near people remain spiritually distant from them. Like Jonah, too many of us sit in our comfortable booths— our temporary sanctuaries— watching a dying world drift into a godless eternity and do nothing.
To expose Jonah’s misdirected love, God uses an object lesson in Jonah 4:6, “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.”
Notice the dramatic shift— in Jonah 4:1, Jonah was exceedingly displeased. Here, Jonah is exceedingly pleased. Nineveh’s salvation made Jonah angry, but a plant’s shade made Jonah happy. His emotional thermometer was measuring the wrong climate because he valued the wrong things. He loved his personal convenience than the conversion of a city. That forces us to ask: What makes us happier— the salvation of others, or the comfort for ourselves?
God’s providence, however, doesn’t stop with comfort. Notice the repetition of the word, “appointed.” In Jonah 1:17, God appointed a great fish to preserve Jonah. But look at verses Jonah 4:7-8, “7 But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. 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.” The fish wasn’t an accident. The plant wasn’t an accident. The worm wasn’t an accident. The wind wasn’t an accident. Nothing in Jonah’s story is accidental, and nothing is outside of God’s absolute sovereignty. The plant provided temporary physical ease, but the worm and the wind exposed Jonah’s deep spiritual disease.
Think about a skilled surgeon. A good doctor doesn’t just keep you comfortable; a good doctor cuts open the wound to remove the disease so healing can begin. God is not trying to destroy Jonah— He is trying to heal him. He is stripping away a short-lived comfort to expose Jonah’s deep affection for things that carry zero value in eternity. God’s divine discomfort is often His primary instrument of our discipleship. Yet Jonah is so consumed by his temporary comfort that Jonah 4:8 ends with his repeated cry: “And he asked that he might die and said, ‘It is better for me to die than to live.’” Jonah would still rather die than live in a world where he doesn’t get his preferred outcome.
Application
Don’t lash out when you don’t get your preferred outcome, and don’t let temporary pleasures distract you from eternal priorities. Jonah’s misplaced anger led directly to misdirected affection.
Misaligned Attitude
God speaks to Jonah again, in Jonah 4:9, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” Notice the connection back to verse 4. God isn’t asking if Jonah is angry; He already knows he is. God is asking whether Jonah’s anger is righteous. Instead of repenting, Jonah doubles down: “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.” Jonah’s issue is far deeper than anger. His defensive attitude simply exposes that his affections are completely out of order— he loves what serves him more than the people God longs to save.
Imagine standing in front of a home engulfed in flames. Inside, a family is trapped, pounding on the windows for help. But the homeowner is standing on the front lawn, utterly distracted and furious— not because of the burning house or the lives inside, but because the fire truck accidentally backed over his prized rosebush. The rosebush is ruined, and he is shouting at the firefighters while the house burns behind him. That sounds absurd, doesn’t it?
Yet that is precisely Jonah’s heart condition. He is mourning the loss of a short-lived plant while remaining entirely indifferent to the spiritual inferno consuming thousands and thousands of lost souls in Nineveh.
This is where the text turns a mirror directly onto us. We often convince ourselves that our main problem is what happened to us, when the deeper problem is what our reaction reveals about us.
Someone says something offensive to you. The question isn’t just, “What did they say?” The real question is, “Why does this trigger me so deeply?”
Someone fails to recognize your contribution. The question isn’t just, “Why didn’t they appreciate me?” The question is, “Why do I need their applause so badly?”
Someone disagrees with you. The question isn’t merely, “Are they wrong?” The question is, “Why am I so infuriated that they disagree?”
The circumstance may seem minor, but your reaction exposes the state of your heart. While Jonah throws a pity party, God provides a theology lesson in Jonah 4:10–11: “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. 11 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 cared deeply about a temporary plant that he did not plant, cultivate, or sustain. God asks, “How much more should I care about eternal souls made in My image?”
This is how the book ends. No resolution. No statement telling us what Jonah did. God asks the question and the book closes because the final question of Jonah is not ultimately about Jonah. It is about us. The book leaves God’s question hanging in the air: “Should not I pity Nineveh?”
Who is our Nineveh? It’s the people we dislike, despise, and disregard as unworthy of salvation. The truth is, grace does not depend on the worthiness of the recipient; it stems entirely from the character of God.
We don’t preach the gospel because people deserve it; we preach because Christ commanded us to go. People need to know that Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died the painful death we deserve. He bore the judgment of sin on the cross, rose victorious over the grave, and offers eternal life to all who repent and believe.
Application
Take a moment right now and picture that specific person. Maybe it is a coworker, neighbor, family member, political opponent, someone from another religious background, or someone whose lifestyle you strongly disagree with. When you encounter that person this week, ask God to break your heart for what breaks His so that you may start viewing them as an eternal soul in need of the same grace that saved you.
Closing Thought
As I close, think of your heart like the windshield of a car on a long journey of faith. The windshield is meant to give you a clear view of the road ahead and the people around you. But when anger clouds your heart, affection becomes self-centered, and your attitude becomes misaligned with God, it distorts your spiritual vision. You may see people, but you no longer see them as God sees them. You see their failures, their differences, and their offenses, but not their need for grace. Sometimes God removes what comforts us in order to confront what controls us whether love of self, personal comfort, possessions, or something else. This means, the same God who has the power to preserve you is the God who has the grace to confront you so that you may love what He loves, and care what He cares for.
Action Step
Learn to see others through God’s eyes. There are neighbors and coworkers who need the gospel; Muslims, Hindus, atheists, religious people, and even people sitting in churches who need the gospel. So, take one practical step this week and invite them to church next Sunday.
Appeal
If you are a follower of Jesus, share God’s heart by loving what He loves, valuing what He values, and going where He sends. When God’s heart captures our heart, His mission becomes our mission, and His vision becomes our vision. Only then do we see others through God’s eyes. If you are not a follower of Jesus, then take the first step and receive Him as your lord and savior today.
Read More
Jonah 4:1-4 Seeing Through the God’s Eyes, Part 1
