Jonah 04: Let's Go to Work

Mercy that disrupts our comfort is hard to celebrate. When Nineveh repented and God relented, Jonah didn’t throw a party—he threw a fit. We unpack why a prophet who experienced rescue himself struggled to accept rescue for his enemies, and how a leafy plant, a hungry worm, and a scorching wind became God’s masterclass on compassion, priorities, and calling.

We walk through the tension between justice and mercy, and why reframing “bad people” as “people in spiritual darkness” shifts us from outrage to mission. That shift doesn’t excuse harm or erase wise boundaries; it locates our work: carrying light to those who can’t yet see. Along the way, we tackle envy—why someone else’s fast growth can provoke our slow resentment—and we learn to recognize grace as abundance, not competition. The conversation grounds these big themes in relatable moments and practical steps: noticing where we prize personal shade over human souls, choosing presence over distance, and praying for courage to enter places that unsettle us because that’s where the harvest is.

If you’ve ever wondered why God’s kindness to “them” bothered you more than it should, Jonah 4 will read you as much as you read it. We end with a simple question that lingers long after the episode: should God not care for that great city—and will we join Him in that care? Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs fresh eyes for hard people, and leave a review to help others find the show.

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Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT).
Copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:01):
Hey everyone and welcome to the Bible Breakdown
Podcast.
In this podcast, we will bebreaking down the Bible one
chapter a day.
Whether you are a new believeror have been following Christ
for a while, we believe that youwill learn something new and
fresh every single day.
So thank you for joining us andlet's get into breaking down the

(00:22):
Bible together.

SPEAKER_01 (00:23):
Well, hello everybody.
Welcome back to the BibleBreakdown Podcast with your
host, Pastor Brandon.
Today, Jonah chapter four in thefinale, and we're going to call
this Let's Get to Work.
Let's get to work.
I don't know if you've ever donethis before, but have you ever
been in the place where you wereso happy that God had really

(00:44):
moved in someone's life?
But if you were honest, you're alittle bit jealous.
Because it feels like that Godwas moving them along a whole
lot faster than you.
You've been faithful for years,and God's doing more in their
life in like a weekend.
You know what I mean?
Well, if you've ever felt thatway, you're going to have a
little bit of an understandingto a little bit of what Jonah is
going through here today.
Except his is for very differentreasons.

(01:05):
And we'll get into all that injust a second.
But if you have your Bibles, youhave your popcorn, have your
coffee, you're ready to go.
Make sure you open them up toJonah.
And while you're doing that,also make sure you take just a
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(01:27):
And you can find all of thatinformation at the
Biblebreakdown.com.
Well, if you've been joining usover the past few days, we've
been talking about the beauty ofsalvation in the book of Jonah.
And all throughout this book,there are just amazing moments
where God is just showing hissalvation to so many people, not
the least of which is Jonah.

(01:48):
And you imagine Jonah yearslater writing about his
experience of getting toNineveh.
Because if you think about it,Jonah is an Israelite.
And the Ninevites, you know,from Assyria, they hate one
another.
And so you wonder, okay, yearslater, if he's living in
Nineveh, let's say, and somepeople are asking him, man,
how'd you get here?

(02:08):
Like, like we're better and all,but we still don't like each
other.
And eventually, by the way,spoiler alert, Assyria takes
over Israel, you know, yearsdown the road when all this kind
of goes south again.
But they're like, How did youeven get here?
And so you imagine at one pointJonah tells the story so much
that eventually he writes itdown.
And so one of the things thatmakes the book of Jonah so very
unique is it's one of the fewprophetic books that focus more

(02:32):
on the story of Jonah, not justthe message of Jonah.
And it's just the idea ofsalvation over and over
throughout this book that isjust so very powerful.
And so in chapter one, we sawhow Jonah got thrown over the
side of a boat and eaten by afish.
Chapter two, he prays and asksGod for forgiveness.
And he said, You, you are myonly salvation, and I will

(02:52):
fulfill my vow to you.
In other words, you give meanother chance, I'm gonna do it
right.
And then God has the fish spithim up onto the land, throw him
up on the land.
Chapter three, yesterday, wasall about how he goes in and he
just tells them, Don't go anddie in 40 days.
But everybody, including theanimals, the cows and everybody,
dressed up in burlap andrepented.
And then the Bible said that Godchanged his mind and he forgave

(03:15):
them.
And you would think that wouldbe like celebration time.
Yay! Look, look at what God did.
But instead, Jonah had a verydifferent plan.
So look at this with me, Jonahchapter 4, verse 1.
And let's see if we can kind ofidentify with Jonah a little bit
here.
Here we go.
Verse 1 says this This change ofplans greatly upset Jonah, and

(03:36):
he became very angry.
So he complained to the Lord andsaid, Didn't I say before I left
home that you would do this,Lord?
That is why I ran away toTarshish.
I knew that you're a mercifuland compassionate God, slow to
get angry, filled with unfailinglove.
You are eager to turn back fromdestroying people.

(03:58):
Just kill me now, Lord.
I'd rather be dead than alive ifI per if what I predicted will
not happen.
In other words, remember, hepredicted that all of Nineveh
would be destroyed.
He said, Just kill me if you'renot going to kill them.
I mean, that is a bitter birdright there.
Verse three, just kill me now, OLord.
I'd rather be dead than alive ifwhat I predicted will not
happen.

(04:19):
That's bitterness.
All right, verse four.
Then the Lord replied, Is itright for you to be angry about
this?
Then Jonah, I just didn't wantto talk to God anymore, so then
Jonah went out to the east sideof the city and made a shelter
to sit under as he waited to seewhat would happen to the city.
Then the Lord God arranged for aleafy plant to grow there, and

(04:39):
it soon spread its broad leavesover Jonah's head, shading him
from the sun.
This eased his discomfort, andJonah was very grateful for the
plant.
But God also arranged for aworm.
The next morning at dawn theworm ate through the stem of the
plant so that it withered away.
And as the sun grew hot, Godarranged for a scorching east

(04:59):
wind to blow on Jonah, and thesun beat him down on his head
until he grew faint and wishedto die.
Death is certainly better thanliving like this, he exclaimed.
Then Jonah said, or God said toJonah, Is it right for you to be
angry because the plant died?
Well yes, Jonah retorted, evenangry enough to die.
Then the Lord said, You feelsorry about the plant, though

(05:23):
you did nothing to put it there.
And it came quickly and it diedquickly.
But Nineveh has more than ahundred and twenty thousand
people in spiritual darkness,not to mention all the animals.
Remember they they fasting too,right?
Shouldn't I feel sorry for sucha great city?
Wow.
That's called a divine mic dropmoment.

(05:45):
So let me explain to you whatjust happened because we're
done.
That was the end of the chapter.
Jonah gets really mad that Godwas good and that God forgave
his enemies.
And so he's like, I just want todie.
If they're not gonna die, that'sterrible.
And so he goes to the outside ofthe city and God has a plant
grow up that shelters him, andthen that plant dies, and he

(06:05):
feels pity that that plant died.
And God is like, so you can feelbad for a plant, but I'm not
supposed to feel bad for ahundred and twenty thousand
people that are in darkness?
Think about that for a minute,Jonah, and he realizes people
are so much more important thanhis comfort and his desires.

(06:28):
And what I love about this isimagine years later, Jonah is
writing this story down and he'srecalling all of this stuff, and
he gets to that point and ithits him.
Now maybe, I don't know, we'regonna use our imagination, it
doesn't say this, but maybe 20years later, he's writing this
down, and he writes down whenGod said, Shouldn't I feel sorry

(06:51):
for such a great city of ahundred and twenty thousand
people living in spiritualdarkness?
And that's the moment it hithim.
These are not evil people,they're in spiritual darkness.
They are acting according to therules of darkness, they're not
acting according to the goodnessof God, they don't know God yet.

(07:12):
That's why God sent Jonah.
So it's almost as though that'sthe moment when he got it.
I am not here trying to ra wagewar against evil people.
I am here sharing the goodnessof God again with broken people
that only God could save.
And so he finally got it, and hegot up and he went to work.

(07:34):
And I'm telling you, that madeall the difference is when he
started to see that these werenot broken, or these were not
bad people, these were brokenpeople that needed the light.
And it changed everything.
And can I tell you, so manytimes in life that's what
happens.
We spend so much of our lifelooking at people for all of

(07:55):
their bad qualities.
We see people who are who lookdifferent than us, act different
than us, have different culturesthan us, all these different
things.
And and maybe sometimes some ofthe criticism is earned, some of
it most of the time it's not.
But we see them and we see themas bad, and we see them as
dangerous, we see them asdifficult.
We want to isolate from them andwe figure out, God, why in the
world would you bless them?

(08:15):
Why would you do that in theirlife?
You know, he's like, I'm I'm soangry that God, you would
forgive them.
But then God turns it and he'sgoing, What do what if they're
not bad?
What if they're not evil?
What if they're in spiritualdarkness?
They're blind.
They they don't know any better.
It reminds me of when I was um,I was in my early 20s, I was

(08:36):
watching this blind guy.
He'd come to church and he washaving to, he was being really
rough on everything.
And we'd we paid a lot of moneyfor these, these uh, it was pews
in this church, and he is justsmacking the mess out of these,
you know, these chairs, uh,these pews rather with his cane.
And when you first you hear itand you don't see it, you're
like, hey man, paid a lot ofmoney for these things.

(08:57):
Then you turn and look and go,oh, he's not bad.
He's not trying to, you know,you know, destroy our property.
He's he he can't see.
He's he's groping around indarkness looking for someone to
help him.
And so instead of looking andgoing, Man, you need to figure
that out.
Instead, our job was to go andhelp him to his seat.
How can we help you?
You're not bad.
You're you can't see.

(09:18):
You you need someone to show youwhere to go.
And Jonah sees, these peoplethat I have thought for so long
were my enemy, are not my enemy,they're just dark, spiritually
dark.
They need the light.
I have been honored with theopportunity to share the light
of God with them that theirspiritual darkness can go away

(09:40):
and now they can have spirituallight.
What would it look like in ourlives if we were to stop looking
at people as good and bad, butrather as broken and as healed.
And realize sometimes people areso broken that we can't help
them.
But God can.
Sometimes we have to put properboundaries in place so that the

(10:03):
broken people who only know howto live according to the rules
of brokenness can be can be in aplace where they can be
protected.
So it doesn't make them bad, itmakes them broken.
I don't think God can help them.
That's the beauty of Jonah.
Yes, he was swallowed by a fish.
Yes.
You know, he went and hepreached all this.
But the beauty is the salvationthat God shows.

(10:23):
God is no respecter of persons.
He can save all of us.
And he wants to.
And the beautiful thing is, it'sjust like God used Jonah, God
wants to use all of us to be theone to bring the light of his
salvation, the beauty of asalvation to everyone.
Let's pray together right now.
God, thank you so much fortoday.
Thank you, God, that in thisworld, intentionally or not, it

(10:46):
seems as though we're alwaysdrawn to isolation.
We're always drawn to our ourown circles, our own places, and
drawn away from one another.
But God, you send us intoharvest fields.
You send us into places thatdon't always feel the most
comfortable because that's wherethe harvest is.
It's in those moments.
I pray, God, that you will giveus the courage to step into

(11:09):
every opportunity and tocelebrate the chance to live for
you.
I'm thankful for you today.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
Anyway, what God's Word says inJonah 2, verse 9, he says,
Salvation belongs to the Lord.
I love you.
I hope you have a great day.
I'll see you tomorrow for thenext part of the Bible Breakdown
Podcast.