- Getting angry with God is Common and Irrational (Jonah 4:1-9)
- When I forgot the Grace the Lord has shown me.
- When the Lord doesn’t agree with my Judgments
- When my personal Comfort becomes my focus..
- God pursues the angry with a Proper Perspective (Jonah 4:10-11)
Is it ever okay to be angry with God?
I can get angry with God…
What do I need to know about coming to God?
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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All right, Bible is our middle name. So do you have yours?
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Harvest Bible Chapel you got yours. Do you have a cool one? That's actually on paper Or do you have one of those lame? It's on my iPod ones Grab your Bibles and turn Like I'm feeling so convicted right now Grab your Bibles and open up to Jonah chapter 4 What's that? You know what?
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It's -- I know. I was hoping nobody would notice.
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But am I speaking loud enough for you back there?
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(audience laughing)
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I was hoping nobody would notice.
01:00-01:11
They're like, "We need you to wear the microphone this morning." I'm like, "Why?" Because the microphone is going into the computer to record the sermon for the website.
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So, anyways, if you don't hear me broadcasting through a speaker as normal, if you need me to speak up, just like pull on your ear or something, okay?
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And by the way, I really don't think it's lame if your Bible is on your iPod, okay?
01:30-01:32
I have one on mine too, okay?
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It's just hard to underline and highlight things on that.
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Like "Oh, I have a program that does that." Okay.
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No, it's cool, really.
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Jonah chapter 4, are you there?
01:46-01:47
Let's pick up...
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Actually, I want to go back to a quick review.
01:50-03:13
been going through the book of Jonah and the name of the series is God is out to get you, right? Isn't that good news? God is out to get you. And we saw in Jonah chapter 1, even when you're, bless you, even when you're on the run from God, God says, I'm still coming after you. And when we're broken before God, he's coming after us. And even people that don't know God. He's out to get them as well. And then we get to Jonah chapter four. Well you know the story Jonah had after some persuasion in chapters one and two Jonah decided he was going to go to Nineveh and preach and there was this mass revival and this is how we closed last week Jonah chapter 3 verse 10 it It says, "When God saw what they, what Nineveh, all the way from the king on down, when God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that He had said He would do to them, and He did not do it." And I've got to tell you, I'm glad Jonah did not end after chapter 1, aren't you?
03:13-03:15
You remember chapter one?
03:15-03:17
God says, I want you to go preach at Nineveh.
03:17-03:19
And Jonah was like, that's not happening.
03:19-03:21
I'm going as far away from you as possible.
03:21-03:23
And God says, yeah, we'll see.
03:24-03:25
And you know the story.
03:25-03:30
He got on the boat heading to Tarshish and God sent the storm.
03:30-03:34
And the sailors, the mariners were like, what's going on here?
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Apparently somebody up there is mad at somebody down here.
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And they were casting lots and they were crying out to their gods.
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And they figured out that through the casting lots that Jonah was the problem.
03:48-03:58
And Jonah's like, "Well, just throw me overboard and the problem will stop." He preferred suicide over preaching to Nineveh.
03:58-04:05
Well they still tried to row to get the ship out of danger and they couldn't.
04:07-04:09
So they said, "All right, Jonah, you win.
04:10-05:11
you go?" And there was a revival on the boat, and as we said, they went on to plant Harvest Bible Chapel Tarshish. And I'm glad it didn't end there, right? Could you imagine if like that was it in your Bible? Like, okay, Jonah was thrown overboard, the end. But it didn't, because the Lord sent a fish to swallow Jonah, which was actually God's means of deliverance as Jonah was praying in chapter 2 he thought he was dead drowning and the Lord sent the fish to swallow him but I'm glad Jonah didn't end after chapter 1 but I'll be honest with you I I really wish Jonah would have ended at chapter 3 you know wouldn't that be great if that was like the end of the book when God saw what they did how they turned from their evil way God relented of the disaster he said he would do to them and he did not do it. I wish we could say that's amazing. Great story. Massive revival.
05:11-05:17
And they all lived happily ever after. But the story goes on in chapter four.
05:18-05:24
So let's look at that together. It says, but it displeased Jonah exceedingly.
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And he was angry.
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Is that is that in your Bible, too?
05:34-06:36
Like what? It displeased Jonah exceedingly and he was angry. Now, understand this, this is probably the greatest revival in history. The greatest revival event you could say in history. Would you agree with me on that? Can you think of a bigger one than this? Jonah going into the biggest city in the world at the time and everyone from the king on down and remember even the animals had sackcloth on, but fasting and repentance and crying out and there's this mass revival, biggest revival in history. What would you expect chapter 4 to say? And Jonah skipped all the way back to Israel and celebrated and they They had a party and they had this amazing worship service because of this revival.
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But that's not what your Bible says.
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And you know, I can.
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This was a hard chapter for me.
06:46-06:49
Studying this week because when I go through the Bible, I can identify.
06:51-06:54
Can't you identify with a lot of failures of people in the Bible?
06:54-06:55
Can you do that?
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Like, yeah, David.
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Yeah, Samson.
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Yeah, Peter.
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You can identify with a lot of the failures of some people in the Bible.
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This is one I just don't get.
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A preacher rolls into town.
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The whole city breaks out in revival.
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And notice he wasn't just a little miffed, it says he was displeased exceedingly.
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And he was angry.
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Verse two says, and he prayed to the Lord and said, Oh, Lord.
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Is not this what I said when I was yet in my country?
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Now, understand, he wasn't he was angry, right?
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This wasn't a now I lay me down to sleep kind of prayer, this was, I imagine, screaming at God.
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That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish.
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For I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster.
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Therefore, now, oh Lord, please.
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Take my life for me.
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For it is better for me to die.
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Than to live.
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So why was Jonas so mad? He told the Lord why he was mad. He said, "God, I told you so." He didn't want them to repent. And what you have going on here is sort of a national prejudice.
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That's why he didn't want to go in the first place. He didn't want to go.
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He wasn't afraid that they wouldn't believe him.
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He was afraid that they would.
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He wasn't afraid that they would mock God.
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And the God would still send judgment and that the mission was a failure.
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Jonah didn't want to go because he was afraid that the mission was going to be a success.
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Did you catch that? Can you understand that?
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I've been trying to wrap my brain around that all week, I just there's only one answer.
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It's that Jonah's hatred for Nineveh must have been so deep that he would actually get mad at God for being so gracious.
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Did you see that?
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I'm mad at you, God, why?
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Because you're gracious and because you're merciful, because you're slow to anger and you're abounding in steadfast love.
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God, you would rather relent from disaster.
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And that totally ticks me off right now is what Jonah is saying.
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And how bad did it get?
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Well, we saw in verse three, Jonah said, you know what, I just I just wish I was dead.
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God, you know what? Why don't you just kill me now?
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It is better for me to die than to live.
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Really?
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But look at this is this is grace right here.
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Just write that in the margin of your Bible.
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Or like type it on those really tiny keys on your iPod, and the Lord said, but this is just grace, you know, the Lord should have just said, OK, you know what, Jonah, you hate my grace and you wish you were dead.
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Fine. Here you go.
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dead. But this is grace.
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And the Lord said. Do you do well to be angry?
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Isn't that isn't that like a father?
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It's not like a father taking this pouting, irrational kid.
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Pulling him aside and saying.
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Hey, think about what you're doing here, kid, are you?
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Is it OK?
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Are you doing the right thing?
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Being so angry, do you do well to be angry?
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Well, on your outline, God is out to get you even when you are angry with if you are angry with him.
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Now. Number one, getting angry with God is.
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This is all I could come up with.
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First of all, it is common.
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Write that down. It's common.
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You hear a lot of people say that.
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I'm angry at God, I'm mad at God right now. It's common, but listen, I'm not going to make excuses for it.
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Because here's the other word, it's common and irrational.
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Getting angry with God is common, and it is irrational.
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So the question is, is it ever okay to be angry with God?
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Is it ever okay to be angry with God?
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Usually, when does somebody get angry with God?
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Usually it's during a time of suffering.
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Maybe a disease on you or worse yet, on someone in your family, right?
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And you're angry with God.
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Or maybe it's through a divorce or a death.
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Some circumstances come into our lives and we're angry with God.
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Now when we talk about being angry, understand this.
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There's a difference between, this is so important, there's a difference between being angry at a thing and being angry at a person.
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There is a difference between being angry at a thing and being angry at a person.
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When we are angry at a thing, we express displeasure because of its effect.
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For example, I'll give you a personal example.
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Autism.
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Take a guess how I feel about autism. Do you want to guess?
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For those of you who are visiting, both of our boys are autistic.
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You know, autism is a spectrum. We got one on this end of the spectrum, and we got one on this end of the spectrum.
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Guess how I feel about autism. I'll tell you how I feel about autism.
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I said, you know, God, just grant me this.
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When everything is being thrown into the lake of fire, may autism be embodied somehow.
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and somehow when autism is thrown into the lake of fire, might it like somehow catch itself on the edge and oh Lord grant me the grace to walk up and be the one to kick it in. That's how I feel about autism. All right it's something that's you know been an uphill battle in our family. Is it okay to be angry at a thing like that or insert disease of your choice? You know maybe it's cancer.
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We're not saying you have to like those things, okay?
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And it's okay when there's a displeasure in you over those things because this is not how things are meant to be and it's not how things are going to be long-term by the way.
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Autism is going into the lake of fire as well as cancer and all means of death.
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Right? There's going to come a day that The Lord is going to be done with all of that.
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As well as everyone who has rejected him.
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And the demons who have rebelled against him and Satan.
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So it's OK if you're angry at a thing.
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OK, I don't like the effect that this has, but here's the difference when we're angry at a person.
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Understand this key difference when you're angry at a person You're expressing displeasure at a choice that they made and that's where it gets a little different When you're angry with someone for any reason here is the root of what you're saying I don't agree with what you did I don't like what you did. I think you made a wrong choice, right?
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Isn't that what happens when we express displeasure?
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anger at a person You made a wrong choice. You shouldn't have done that So, let me ask you have you ever been angry with God Because honestly at the very root of that that's what you're saying God you messed up Can we see how irrational that is Do we know some things about God all knowing all loving?
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Sovereign, you know, God's never said whoops, not one time ever.
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He's never he's never said it.
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He has never said it.
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God's never been like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
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Where was I on that one?
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He is sovereign over every single detail.
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Of the universe, Jesus said, he knows how many hairs are on your head for some, that's more than others, but he knows how many hairs are on your head.
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And if he cares about such an insignificant detail, how much more does he care about the things that are burdening you?
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God's never said, whoops, he's never shown up a minute late.
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There's times he's shown up early, but he's never shown up late.
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His timing is always perfect.
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Right. But when we're angry with God.
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Honestly, it's just it's it's being irrational because now we're calling into question if he's sovereign.
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if he's loving, if he's good, and if he's for me.
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Is God on your side?
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Well, we read this a couple of weeks ago, didn't we, Romans 8, if God is for us, who can be against us?
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Is God on your side?
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He sent his son to die for you.
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That doesn't sound like somebody that has your worst interests in mind, right?
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You know, I hear a friend of mine who's not a believer, a few weeks ago made a statement.
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He said, "I'm just totally convinced that God hates me." And I said to him, "Well, the cross of Jesus Christ says otherwise, right?" I have another friend who was telling me how mad she was at God because her mother passed away.
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And she said, "I used to stand at my mother's grave and just scream at God how angry I am at God.
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I used to scream, 'God, I'm so mad at you!'" Really?
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It's appointed for each of us to die, right?
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And I'm not making light of that, and it is hard, but it's part of this life.
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And actually for the believer, death is crossing over into glory.
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So to be angry at God for a life to be gone, He's the giver of life in the first place, isn't He?
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I'm not saying we don't mourn over a loss, but to blame God and to be angry with God, it's disapproval.
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God, You did something You should not have done.
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Genesis 18.25, "Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just?" What's the answer? Yeah, God can't help it. He will always do the right thing.
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Revelation 16.7, like Genesis, it said at the beginning, Revelation, it said at the end.
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"Yes, O Lord God, the Almighty, true and righteous are your judgments." Understand, the eternity, for those of you who know Christ, the eternity that you spend with God, you are never going to say to him, "You know God, I really think that you dropped the ball on this one.
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Looking back on my life, I really think you should have done this one different." The chorus you're going to echo is, "True and righteous are your judgments." God, you always do the right thing.
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Well, people feel guilty about being angry, right?
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And here's where the problem comes in.
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I'm mad at God, then I feel guilty about being angry, And then I think that God is now angry with me.
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Here's a quick remedy.
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Christians. If you're angry with God.
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I'm going to let you know a little secret, he already knows, OK?
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Right. Do you think he knows he knows?
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Just tell him, God, I'm struggling with anger right now.
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I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't feel this way.
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God, will you help me to deal with this?
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I know that you're good, God, but I'm wrestling with this.
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Can you just get honest with God?
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That's what you see in the Psalms.
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I'm just going to be honest with you, God.
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It's OK to be honest with God.
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Did you know that he knows what you're going to say before you say he knows what you think, even if you don't say it?
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Well, most people are angry with God because they question his goodness, because they don't understand some things about him.
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And here in Jonah, we're going to read through the rest of this text here.
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Jonah was angry with God because of his goodness to people that Jonah hates.
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Jonah was angry with God because he did understand some things about God.
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And the Lord said, verse four, Do you do well to be angry?
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What's the answer to that?
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Being angry at God.
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Good idea or bad idea?
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Yeah, I'm with you on that bad idea.
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Well, the Lord asked him, you know, you do well to be angry.
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And what was Jonah's answer? He didn't say anything.
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Look at verse five. Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there.
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He sat under it in the shade.
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Look at this. So he should see what would become of the city.
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What's going on here?
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Jonah was still hoping that God was going to bring the hammer down on Nineveh.
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That's what was going on.
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He's like, oh, you know what?
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Maybe there's a chance.
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Maybe there's a chance.
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He was still hoping.
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Verse six says, now the.
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Now the pages in my Bible are stuck together.
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Now, the Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah.
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that it might be a shade over his head to save him from his discomfort.
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So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant.
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Circle the word glad in your Bible because that's the only time you're going to see Jonah was happy about anything.
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Citywide revival! He's like, "Ugh, exceedingly displeased.
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Plant? Woohoo!
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Exceedingly glad.
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But when dawn came up the next day.
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OK, so check this out, God appointed the plant.
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Keep that in the back of your mind.
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But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant so that it withered.
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When the sun rose, here it is again, God appointed a scorching east wind.
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Notice. Great emphasis is being placed here that these weren't things that were happening accidentally.
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God was like boom, plant, boom, worm, boom, scorching east wind.
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He was doing all these things firsthand.
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OK, when the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah.
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So that he was faint.
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And he asked that he might die.
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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.
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Angry enough to die.
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Let's pause here for a second.
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Because you know the big lessons coming, right?
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Just jot these things down in your outline.
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I can get angry with God.
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That's bad wording.
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I was like so anxious to get the outline to the bulletin.
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I looked at that again.
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I'm like, that's really bad wording.
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it's not like, "Brace yourself, I'm about to give you permission to be angry with God." That's not what I mean. What I mean is, these are occasions in which I am tempted to get angry with God.
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That's what I meant. That sounded very awkward too. Maybe I'm glad I went with this one.
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Okay. These are occasions we can get angry with God.
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Letter A. Just jot these down because this is going to happen to you if you're not on guard.
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You'll be tempted to get angry with God, first of all, when I forget the grace that the Lord has shown me.
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We are so much a "what have you done for me lately" culture, aren't we?
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What have you done for me lately?
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I heard James McDonald a couple weeks ago in one of those email video things that I know many of you get.
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Did you see him talking about the one-strike Christians?
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You know, that they're with you through a lot of things.
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And then the one time something is said or happens that they don't agree with, they're like, "Okay, I'm done. I'm writing you off. On to the next church. One-strike Christians." A lot of Christians are like that with God sometimes, right? "What have you done for me lately?" Okay, you want to play a game? We played a game last week. Let's play a game this week.
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You ready? We're going to play, "How long would it take me to forget I was thrown in an ocean and swallowed by a fish.
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You ready?
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We're gonna play.
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How long would it take me to forget that I was thrown in an ocean and swallowed by a fish?
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Okay, how many people think in 30 years you would forget that that happened to you?
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All right, nobody.
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This game is turning out a lot worse than I thought it would.
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How many think that like in 60 years, By that point in your life, you might have forgotten at some point in your life you were thrown in an ocean and swallowed by a fish.
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Anybody?
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Sixty years maybe?
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Okay.
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Well, here's the thing with Jonah.
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This looked like a matter of what?
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A day?
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A couple hours, right?
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Like he's vomited on the shore and that fish was his deliverance, remember?
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And he's just like, he totally wrote that thing off.
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Totally wrote off.
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He was at death's door and God delivered him in the most amazing way possible.
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I wouldn't forget, I'll be honest with you.
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I would be the most annoying person you've ever met.
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I might be already.
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But anybody that stood still for longer than three seconds, I'd tell them, "Did I ever tell you about the fish story?" Like, "Yes." I'm going to tell you again.
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I was swallowed by a fish for three days.
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While he forgot, we have terrible memories.
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And, you know, kidding aside.
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You see people so content to ignore the Lord while he's pouring on grace after grace, upon grace and provision upon provision.
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But the minute any adversity comes, why, God?
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Right. Don't you see that?
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people that breathe God's grace every moment and the minute any little adversity comes.
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Why, God?
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The why might just be because we live in a fallen, decaying, cursed world that's going to eventually be burn up and replaced.
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It might just be the effects of sin in the world, but we blame God.
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Sometimes it's good to just make a list just to say, you know what, I'm just going to I'm just going to thank you for the things that you've done, start a list like that and call me in a couple of years when you're done with it.
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OK, so let her be.
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This was Jonah, when the Lord doesn't agree with my judgments.
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You'll be tempted to get mad at God when he doesn't agree with you.
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Oh, heaven forbid.
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God doesn't agree with me, agree with my judgments.
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I hope you smelled the sarcasm there.
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We already saw that Jonah was a prophet before all of this started.
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Good thing about Jonah, he loved Israel.
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But the downside of that was, again, he had a great hatred for the Assyrian Empire, of which Nineveh was the capital, even after the revival.
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And here's the foundation of the matter here.
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was saying, they don't deserve to be saved.
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Isn't that what he was essentially saying?
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They don't deserve to be saved.
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That's why I didn't want to preach, because I knew if they repented, you'd save them, relent from your disaster.
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And quite frankly, I don't think they deserve it.
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Isn't that what's going on here?
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I think they should be judged.
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And God says.
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You know what, I'm on a little bit of a different track here, Joan, and by a little bit different, I mean completely the opposite.
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Loving God means loving people.
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Jesus taught us you can't separate the two. You just can't.
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You just can't.
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Actually, John says in 1 John 4, 20, "If anyone says, 'I love God and hate his brother,'" Oh, you read that, right?
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He's a what?
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A liar.
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akin to the kind whose pants are actually on fire.
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If you say, I love God.
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But I hate my brother, you're a liar.
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It says, for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God, whom he has not seen.
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You're like, OK, well, that's like the brother thing.
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I get that. Well, jot this one down.
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Matthew five, verses forty three through forty eight.
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Jesus said, "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." And obviously, none of us can attain that in the flesh.
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He gives us that, right?
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Grace is God, what, giving to us what He requires from us.
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But in the context of that teaching, what Jesus is talking about is loving people.
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Like, yeah, loving the people I like, right?
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No, Jesus said even the pagans do that.
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He said, "You know what your father is like? He sends the rain on the just and the unjust." Right?
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God shows grace in equal measures, available to everyone.
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Available to everyone. Available to who? Everyone. Right?
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But let me ask you, is there anyone that you think deserves hell and you can't wait until they get it?
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I just want you to think about that.
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Can you think of, can you be more specific? Sure.
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What about a race?
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Is there a quote-unquote race of people, and you know there really is only one race, but you know what I mean.
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I too would say, I think they deserve hell.
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What about a demographic, like Hollywood?
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You know, those people parading and endorsing sin, someday they're going to get theirs, and I can't wait to see it.
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Have you ever thought something like that?
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What about nationalities?
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You know, maybe it's a particular group in the Middle East.
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You know, they've been doing nothing but causing problems, and I can't wait.
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Maybe it's a religion.
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You know, look at the effect Islam has had, and you know, all the jihads are being raised.
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I can't wait until the Lord throws them in hell.
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If you've ever had a thought like that, I've got to warn you, you're kind of walking down the path that Jonah's on here, right?
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Bad choice.
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Just, the thing now, church, keep this in the back of your mind, because we're seeing a big surging of the homosexual community.
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Just bombarded with it lately, have you noticed?
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You know, the big news last week, have you ever seen that show, The Big Bang Theory?
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Have you ever seen that?
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I watched it a couple times, but the big news on there was that the one actor had just come out of the closet.
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And more and more, you're seeing that as being promoted and pushed and politicians changing their views about what they used to say about it and what they say about it now.
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you're seeing more and more of it. To the point you're like well is there really a danger here? Well you know when I was a kid I loved comic books. I have like a ton of them in my closet. But I so it caught my attention they said a couple weeks ago that DC Comics has announced that one of its major characters that everybody thought was straight all the years is gonna be gay now I don't know if that's gonna be like Superman or you know but seriously no I'm not I'm not kidding and we might snicker at something like that but who are comic books mainly aimed for right let's teach children it's okay and I also saw you know there was a homosexual character in the other major comic company Marvel comics. They announced this past week that he proposed to his longtime boyfriend. So your kids can go down to the comic book store and buy a comic about a gay marriage. True. Sad. When I came back from a meeting out in Chicago concerning the elephant room last year, I was sitting next to a guy on a plane and just kind of sharing with him about our church and here's what I said in he was obviously coming back to Pittsburgh I knew you know there's a chance that he might live in the area I said hey you should come and check us out and he said I found that churches don't like people like me in them like I'm like why you seem like a nice guy and he said he was a homosexual but his mindset was, "The church hates people like me. I'm not welcome in churches." And somehow, just be on the lookout for this, but churches have a way of not knowing how to handle this kind of stuff, right? You have everyone from rubber stamping it to say, "Oh, it's okay." To the people that march in protests, you know, God's going to judge the homosexual, you know, sort of on the Jonah end of things.
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We're gonna have to deal with this. But heaven forbid our response to that would be, "Let them burn in hell," which is what a lot of Christians say. Quote unquote Christians, that's Jonah thinking.
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What's God's thinking?
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I desire for them to be saved, too, right, right.
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Just keep that in the back of your mind, it's coming bigger than ever.
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How dare those who received grace judge others as not being worthy of it?
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So like Jonah, we expect God to side with us, with our judgments.
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And we're angry when he sides with grace, please let us not fall into that.
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Let her see when my personal comfort becomes my focus on our getting all American here, we can get angry with God when my personal comfort becomes my focus.
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As I said in verse six, the only time you'll see in the book of Jonah that he was happy about anything.
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Why was he happy?
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because he had personal relief.
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Oh, we have a little shade now.
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Life is great.
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Life was horrible just a minute ago, but now that I have shade, ah, I can be happy about that because I'm comfortable.
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Then verses 7 through 8, Jonah, he's like, he reminds me of Yosemite Sam, just like the slightest little thing sends him off into one of his tirades.
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So the worm comes and the plant withers.
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God sends some discomfort and he's back to the I wish I was dead sermon again.
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But the only thing Jonah really seemed to genuinely care about was his own personal comforts. He must have been a real treat to hang out with, right?
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He must have been a real treat, like party with the pastor, right, with Jonah.
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Could you imagine that? Go to the party with the pastor with Jonah?
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Oh, that must have been a blast.
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I'd rather be dead than preach.
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I'd rather be dead than see Gentiles converted.
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I'd rather be dead than hot.
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Would you like to join my church?
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But this is the American way, personal comfort is my priority.
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You'll see it real quick if I say, hey, you know what?
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We're going to let's get some people up for a mission trip.
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We're going to Africa.
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I guarantee you there's going to be a line forming of people to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second.
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Is it going to be hot there?
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Do they have bathrooms?
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Is there going to be a McDonald's?
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And am I going to be personally comfortable there?
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We're raised in a culture that says that comfort is king.
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As long as I'm happy, everything's great.
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But when your focus is comfort and you that God owes it to you, brace yourself, you're going to be really upset. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow, but it's going to happen. If you think that my comfort is the end-all be-all of my existence, you're in the wrong place, planet Earth.
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But let me ask you this, we're gonna play another game. This game is called "What What bothers you more?
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I want you to think about the, I'm going to give you these scenarios in pairs, and I want you to think about these scenarios and ask yourself, which of these has caused you to have a stronger stirring of emotion?
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Okay?
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Pittsburghers who don't know Jesus?
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Or when your Wi-Fi goes out?
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Which one has really bothered you lately?
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Thinking about the people in this city that don't know Jesus Christ?
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Has that stirred you at all?
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Or like your Wi-Fi goes out and you're like kicking the dog over it like, "Aww, life is miserable!" Okay, you ready for another one?
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How about Christians being attacked and persecuted in the Middle East?
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Or when you get bad cell phone reception?
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Which has bothered you most recently?
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Which one of those has bothered you most recently?
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What about your co-workers don't know Christ or sitting in traffic because they're never going to fix 28 North?
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They're never going to fix it.
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They've been working on 28 North since 1847.
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They're never going to fix it.
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Okay, I just gave my answer. But in my defense, most of my co-workers were saved.
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But which of those really bothers you? Well, there again, Jonah line of thinking, if I'm not personally comfortable, I'm angry. Meanwhile, God's big picture, God's big picture. Does anything stir in me at all about that? Last thing for today.
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Number two, God pursues the angry with a proper perspective. And that's again, this is grace. Oh God is so patient. He is so patient because if I was God, Jonah would have been like three verses long. Seriously. Hey, hey, I want you to go preach to the Ninevites. I'm not. Next. You? That would have been my version of Jesus. He is so patient. Oh, with me? How about that? He's so patient with me. So the whole thing happens with the plant. God's like, "Do you do well to be angry for the plant?" He said, "Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die." Here it is. Here's the whole point of the book of Jonah. Don't tune out now, you're gonna miss like the whole thing. What was that book about? Here it is. 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.
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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.
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OK, so first of all, let's just get this on the table.
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God does not need to explain himself ever to anyone ever.
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This is grace again.
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He doesn't need to explain himself.
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He is the holy, omniscient sovereign.
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He doesn't need to explain himself.
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But in his grace, oftentimes he does.
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reveal his heart. So there must be a powerful lesson here for God to be so patient, for God to keep this for us here today. And he says, "Jonah, you care about a plant which you had nothing to do with. It came, it went. Shouldn't I care about this massive city of human souls.
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And then to just show this compassion on an even deeper level.
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Notice that the Lord points out there are one hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left.
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Like, who are those people?
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Who are those people?
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Aaron Bloomingdale, do you know your right hand from your left?
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Okay, so he wouldn't be talking about somebody like Aaron Bloomingdale.
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Dr. Whitcomb, do you know your right hand from your left?
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Okay, all right, where's Cade?
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If Cade were here and we asked him, Cade's my six-year-old, his right hand from his left, he wouldn't be able to answer that.
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I believe what he's talking about here is children, like Jonah.
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This city has 120,000 children in it.
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Shouldn't I care about that?
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You'd be content to just wipe an entire city off the map, not even thinking about the most innocent in the city, children and even mentioning the animals.
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So here's the lesson.
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Are you ready to write this down?
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Here's the whole lesson of Jonah.
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This is the thing that the Lord went through all this thing with the plant and the worm and the scorching east wind.
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And God says, "Here, Jared, I'm going to teach you a lesson now.
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And here it is.
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Write this down.
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God loves." That's the lesson.
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God loves.
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God prefers mercy over judgment.
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You know James 2.13 says that?
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Mercy triumphs over judgment.
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God, which one would you prefer?
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God, if you had your choice, which obviously He does, but which would you prefer to dish out?
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Mercy or judgment, what's God going to say?
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Mercy every time.
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Do you know that?
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Every time.
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He would prefer to give mercy.
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He prefers grace over punishment.
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He prefers pardon over condemnation.
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And how do I know that?
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Well Jonah tells me, but living in this period of history I know that because God came to this earth himself, taking the form of a man, and suffered the most brutal, humiliating, painful and shameful death that a human being could experience.
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God did that in Jesus Christ.
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So that whosoever would believe in him would not perish, but have everlasting life.
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Whosoever.
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Like, is that open to the Arabs?
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Whosoever.
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What about the homosexuals?
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Whosoever.
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God loves. This is the great thing that we've seen in Jonah.
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He wants us to receive his grace.
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You understand that God's not sitting up in heaven going.
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Turner burn. Makes no difference to me.
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Get right or get left, I don't care.
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That is not God.
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You know, before I was in pastoral ministry, I had a couple other jobs that, they weren't my favorite jobs in the world.
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One, one much more tolerable than the other.
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But when I worked at Walmart, and it pains me to even bring this up, but to be honest with you, when people would come in and shop at Walmart, we have people get mad because this fillet knife is 10 cents cheaper at Kmart.
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You know what I would say?
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Sounds like Kmart's a place to shop.
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If you're in the market for a fillet knife, I guess that's where you go is Kmart.
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I didn't care.
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When I worked for Anderson Austin News, I stocked magazines for four different Walmarts and Kmarts.
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I really liked that job.
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I made commission on that job.
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But I still totally didn't care.
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Like, hey, you sold this many magazines this week.
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I'm like, oh, whatever.
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You didn't sell as many this week. OK, I honestly I just didn't care.
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I was in Bible college. That was my job. And I did my job to my fullest.
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I really did. But I wasn't like passionate about people buying magazines.
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Just did that to pay the bills, but understand that God is not like that.
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God's not saying I just don't care. I just don't care.
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God's in pursuit. You see, God says, I have this gift for you And I am going to chase you down and offer you this gift.
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He's not going to drag you to heaven, but he's going to chase you down and say.
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This gift of eternal life in Jesus Christ, I want you to have it.
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He purchased our salvation.
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Chases us down to offer it to us.
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So the glorious message of Jonah.
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Even when you're in rebellion, guess what?
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God is out to get you, right?
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When you messed up, when you failed, and you're broken over your sin, guess what?
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God's out to get you. And those people that don't know God, have not received Jesus Christ for eternal life, God's out to get them too. And here we see, Even when we have a stinking attitude and we have the audacity to get angry at the sovereign of the universe, guess what?
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God is still out to get you.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Jonah 4
Breakout Questions:
Pray for one another.