Introduction:
When I'’'m Blinded by Anger... (Jonah 4):
- I cannot see that God's plan is better than Mine . (Jonah 4:1-4)
- I cannot see that My Comfort isn't the Point . (Jonah 4:5-9)
- I cannot see any Needs of Anyone Else . (Jonah 4:10-11)
Matthew 12:40-41 - For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
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Well, good morning.
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What a blessing to be part of Baptism Sunday, amen?
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Can we give another round of applause to everyone who got baptized today?
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Wow.
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Let's start by going to the Lord in prayer.
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Lord, I thank you for everything that you have already done this morning, God.
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incredible testimonies that we witnessed. And God, I just pray that as we dive into your word, God, that you would open our hearts to that as well, Lord. We thank you for what you're doing, and we give you all the glory. In Jesus' name, amen.
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Well, for any of you who don't know me, my name is Justin. I'm married to the love of my life, Michelle. We actually celebrated 11 years this month. Thank you. But today, I'm going to take you back to just a few weeks before our wedding day. And as anyone who has gone through that knows, the last few weeks are exciting, but honestly, they can be stressful, especially for the bride-to-be, right?
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Plans and the final details, and you just want everything to be just right.
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Well, on this particular night, Michelle and I were at my parents' house, we were hanging out with my mom and dad, and we were about to have dinner.
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And out of nowhere, Michelle started to insist that she needed to go to Walmart.
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Now, I don't exactly remember what she needed, but I do remember thinking that it didn't sound urgent.
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So I said, "Okay, that's fine.
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Let's go after dinner." And she's like, "I really need to go now." Like I said, the last few weeks are pretty stressful.
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So even though I was very confused, I may have been slightly frustrated on the inside.
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By God's grace, I said, "Okay, let's go get what you need and let's come back." So we grabbed our coats, I opened the door, and this part is true, you can ask Michelle about it after service if you'd like. I took one step out onto the sidewalk and some guys jumped me from behind. They covered my eyes, grabbed my hands, took me off the ground, and started running away, but in that chaos I didn't fight back.
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Right? Because we all assume that if I did fight back it would have been over right then in there, right? But I didn't, because of two reasons. Reason number one, Michelle didn't scream. That's a little curious. Reason number two, as I was being carried away, I heard my dad yell goodbye to my kidnappers. Wasn't exactly what I expected.
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Anyway, on the way to the destination, my hands were tied, I was blindfolded, and at some point my shirt was removed, but the entire drive, everyone was totally silent.
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Then the car stops, and I heard sliding doors, kind of like at the grocery store, as I was led into a building and then it was freezing.
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They lifted me up and into something and I was thinking, "Am I shirtless in a trash can in the frozen food section right now?" And I was pretty close because when the blindfold came off, I was shirtless and I was in a trash can but I was in an ice rink.
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And now you know the story of how my bachelor party began.
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During the heist, they actually ran into the house and grabbed my skates and my hockey stick and my gear, and we spent the night playing hockey on the rink that they rented out.
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It was awesome.
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But what I'd like to call your attention to this morning is the part of that story when I couldn't see.
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And you're like, "Well, yeah, you were literally blindfolded." And I was.
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But do you know when I was even more blind than that?
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When Michelle was not at all acting like Michelle, and I couldn't see, something was up.
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I was confused, I was frustrated, I was concerned, and all of those emotions blinded me from seeing what was actually going on.
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Now, of course, in that story, me not knowing what was going on was the entire goal.
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But at different times, all of us have felt emotions take over in some way, haven't we?
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Our emotions can blind us.
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Like confusion or fear can blind you.
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Even happiness, it can blind you.
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I mean, really any emotion can.
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But maybe the most common one is anger.
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Anger blinds us.
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True or false?
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True.
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And so if you'll please open your Bibles with me to the book of Jonah, chapter four, that's exactly what we're gonna see today.
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While you're turning there, let's recap Jonah's journey up until this point.
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Flee, fish, forgiveness. In Jonah chapter 1, God tells Jonah to go to the city of Nineveh and tell them to repent of the evil they're doing, but instead Jonah flees on a boat to escape. He ends up thrown into the water and famously, timely testimony, is swallowed by a fish. Chapter 2, from within the belly of that that fish. Jonah sees his mistake, prays to the Lord, and is saved as the fish spits him back out on the land. And in chapter 3, God again tells Jonah to go to Nineveh, and this time he does. And Nineveh hears his preaching, and the entire city repents of their sin. And in his mercy, God spares them. Forgiveness.
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flee, fish, forgiveness. And while that's how the story of Jonah is most often remembered, that's not the end of the book. It's not the end of Jonah's story.
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Now, after the entire city repented, you would expect chapter 4 to be a celebration, right? Let's look at Jonah chapter 4, verse 1. This is after Nineveh was spared.
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It says, "But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry." Wait, wait, wait. Jonah was angry about what happened. Verse two, "And he prayed to the Lord and said, 'O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that you were a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live." Flee, fish, forgiveness, furious. Jonah is furious.
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And as we dig into the scripture this morning, we have to ask ourselves, when I'm tempted to be furious, do I actually respond any differently? Or do I act just like Jonah?
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Because reading that, our first reaction is probably, "I don't get angry like that!" Right? Are you sure? Because for some people, anger leads to yelling and screaming, but some people go completely silent. And some people rush into wild and crazy reactions, but others retreat and isolate and start to grow bitter.
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And while there are things that should make us angry, some people think that their anger is always righteous anger. And I got to tell you, that's almost almost never the case. So it shows up in different ways, but any one of us can be blinded by anger. And in this passage, Jonah couldn't see anything. So, on your outline today, when I'm blinded by anger. Number one, I cannot see that God's plan is better than mine." So beyond reading about Jonah's hysteria, these verses also revealed why he initially ran away. Did you catch that? He said, "That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish. For I knew that you were a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster." And this is bananas, because Jonah ran away not because he was scared for his own safety and not because he thought Nineveh would ignore him. The prophet Jonah ran away because he knew if Nineveh repented at his preaching, God would forgive them. What is that about?
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The short version is Jonah, honestly, didn't think that Nineveh deserved it. Israel was God's chosen people, and Nineveh was Israel's enemy. So Jonah wasn't just a little bit upset about this, he was losing his mind. Like, I knew it, God. I knew once they repented that you would forgive them.
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I knew you would let him off the hook. Just take me now. I can't even handle this another second.
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Sorry, that was matching Jonah's intensity.
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How do you think God responded to that? Let's look at verse four.
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And the Lord said, "Do you do well to be angry?" We serve a patient God. Amen? God is asking Jonah, "Does it benefit you to be angry?" This question could also be translated, "Do you have a right to be angry?" You know, if you somehow tracked all the anger that I've ever felt, I bet probably 75% of my lifetime anger happened while I was driving.
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Does anybody else know what I'm talking about?
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I remember one day years ago, we were driving home, and just before we got there, the driver in front of me, extremely dangerously, in my view, of course, cut me off.
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And as Michelle and I walked into the house, I was still heated.
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And, to my shame, I said, "You know what I wish?
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I wish that every year, everyone got a free punch at anyone else.
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You get one punch per year, no consequences." I'm not proud of that.
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But after I said it, Michelle looked at me and paused and said, "Justin, the only problem with that plan is that multiple people would use their punch on you."
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[laughter]
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That happened almost 10 years ago, and I'm still thinking about it.
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Not because I'm upset, but because she was so right.
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Because my plan for judgment presumed that I was always innocent.
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Now, OK, was I actually going to go start throwing haymakers around Route 19?
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No.
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But I hope you see that in my anger, I was Jonah.
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Because just like I forgot that I'm neither a perfect person nor a perfect driver, Jonah forgot about his own rebellion.
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And Jonah loved God's plan of mercy when he was inside the fish.
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But when God's plan was to save people that Jonah didn't think deserved it, then he wasn't on board. Now maybe you're thinking, "Well, okay, Jonah was misguided, but I support God showing mercy to anyone." And I hope that's true. But even if that's true, there are always aspects of God's plan that are hard for us. Like Jonah, when something doesn't go the way that we want, it's hard for us to trust God's plan. But it is easy to get angry about it.
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When we don't get the job we thought we would, when we don't get a spouse when we thought we would when we lose a loved one. We're like, "God, how can this be your plan?" Or when we're in the middle of a health issue and it's just not getting better, "God, how can this be your plan?" Or when we look around and see people who glorify sin thriving, we ask, "God, is this your plan?" Because we wonder if God is orchestrating things versus allowing things versus tolerating them.
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And the honest truth most often is, we don't know. Now, please understand that God is sovereign and nothing is a surprise to him, but we are not God. And there's a bigger picture that we just can't see. So sometimes we can look back at what God was doing, but in the moment, how? Why?
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And just like Jonah, in our anger we're tempted to think that our plan would be better, because we are Jonah. We forget. So I encourage you today to pray to the Lord to remember When you get frustrated by someone else's sin, first remember how God forgave your sin.
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And when you're frustrated by a circumstance, remember another time that things looked bleak, and it was only later that you could see how God was working. Because that's going to shift your prayer from, "God, I can't possibly see how this is your plan," to, "God, I know that you were working for my best then. So even though I can't see it right now, I'm choosing to trust your plan because I know it's better than mine. Do you see that difference?
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Unfortunately, Jonah didn't see that difference. And that leads us to point number two today.
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When I'm blinded by anger, I cannot see that my comfort isn't the point.
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So let's go back to the text. Jonah chapter 4, verse 5. It says, "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." Okay, so at this point Jonah has left Nineveh, and he built a little hut overlooking the city. Verse six, "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 plan. But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant so that it withered. 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.
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And he asked that he might die and said, "It is better for me to die than to live." So Jonah goes to a very dark place again. And the Bible doesn't say exactly how Jonah's hut was built, but we can infer that he didn't have a great roof, right? Because he was absolutely thrilled to get some shade, but then thrown into despair when God took it away.
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The sun was hot, the wind was scorching, and Jonah was melting. And how did God respond time. Let's look at verse 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!'" Jonah was melting, and Jonah was melting down.
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So what's going on? What was God's point in creating and destroying this plant?
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We'll get there in just a minute because first I want us to see that whatever God's point was in this miraculous object lesson, Jonah completely missed it.
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And why did he miss it?
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Because Jonah was so angry about being uncomfortable, he couldn't even see the point.
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Now, I'm not saying that everything that happens to us is an object lesson from God, and I'm not saying that God doesn't give us comfort, because he does, both now and eternally.
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But what the text is saying is following the Lord is not always comfortable, just like trusting God's plan.
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Sometimes it's hard.
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And while comfort in itself isn't a sin, it can become an idol, something that we pursue ahead of God.
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And I mean, that shows up all over the place.
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Like one example, some people choose a church based on comfort.
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They want minimal participation, they don't want to serve, they don't want any difficult or convicting passages, like this one, to be preached.
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The priority is comfort instead of what God's Word says to do.
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Or another example, as a parent, there are about 500 things today that are uncomfortable to talk about with your kids, but at the appropriate time, they need you to talk with them.
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Are you willing to be uncomfortable then?
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Or ask anyone here who's been on the mission field, locally or abroad, the first thing that you have to let go of is your own comfort.
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So don't let comfort become an idol or you're going to miss the point.
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You might be asking, "Well, Justin, do you have another story of your own failure that perfectly reflects Jonah's sinful attitude?" And to my shame, of course I do, because I am Jonah.
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At the church I attended in college, we had an event every year where we gave away a bunch of donated furniture to incoming international students, who obviously have a much harder time bringing large items with them.
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So it was a big outreach to serve a need and make connections.
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And one year, a man, Mr. Bonetti, came up to me around that time and said, "Justin, are you coming to the student furniture thing on Saturday?" And I replied, "Oh, Mr. Bonetti, we already have furniture for our apartment." Church, I'm telling you, in that moment, he almost used his one punch for the year.
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He said, "Not for you! So you can meet the students, so they know someone on campus, and you can invite them to church." I wasn't angry that time, but you see what happened.
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I was so focused on my own comfort, I completely missed the point.
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I wasn't even considering what other people might need.
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And that's the heart of our third point for today.
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When I'm blinded by anger, number three, I cannot see any needs of anyone else.
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So let's see what God meant by the live-action parable.
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He sent the plant that shaded Jonah, and then he took it away.
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Let's rewind to verse 9.
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"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.' 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.
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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?" So God laid it out for Jonah. That plant that shaded him, Jonah didn't put seeds in the ground.
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Jonah didn't water it, and even if he did, Jonah can't actually make it grow. It was there for one day, and yet it was so important to him, he wanted to die over it being gone.
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And God said, "If you're that concerned about a plant, should I not be concerned about a city full of people that I did create, that I did make grow, that have been there a lot longer than one day. A city full of people who are trapped in their sin and they don't even know how to escape.
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That is our God, church. He is gracious and merciful. He is slow to anger and He is abounding in love. And as God suggested earlier in the passage, Jonah had no right to be angry.
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The creation belongs to the Creator. And on top of that, Jonah had more compassion for a plant than he did for thousands of lives. And in our anger, we also miss what anyone else around us needs. We can't even see it, because the only thing we can see is whatever we're angry about at that time, because by nature, we are Jonah. But church, the glorious truth this morning is that our Savior, Jesus Christ, said He is Jonah.
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Jesus said, you'll have to check this out, "For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. See, like Jonah, Jesus descended and came back. And like Jonah, Jesus preached to a people in rebellion against God. But Jesus, the greater Jonah, didn't run from God's plan like Jonah did. He submitted to it.
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And Jesus didn't idolize his own comfort. He sacrificed it.
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And Jesus, the greater Jonah, didn't ignore the needs of his people. Through his death and resurrection, he fulfilled our every need. I mean, that's what we celebrated with baptisms today, right? We saw everyone identify with what Jesus accomplished through his death and resurrection.
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They declared, "The old me is dead, and it's Jesus, the greater Jonah, who lives inside me." Through Jesus, we don't have to be blinded by anger, we don't have to be ruled by emotion, because we're rescued from that. Because Jesus brought salvation, and not just to the nation of Israel, not just to people who look or act or think like us, but to everyone who believes.
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even Nineveh? Because as we prepare to close, that's the question that God leaves us with, isn't it? That last verse. "And should not I pity Nineveh?" One of the reasons the book of Jonah is fascinating is we don't know how Jonah answered that question. Instead, God poses that question to us.
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Now, reading this chapter, reading this whole book, and knowing what Jesus has done, how could we answer anything but, "Yes, God should pity Nineveh." But when Nineveh is the ancient city from these verses, It's a lot easier to answer that way.
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Who is your Nineveh today? Who blinds you with anger like Jonah?
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Bad drivers? No, Justin, that's just you.
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But seriously, is it terrorists? Is it criminals?
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If they truly turned to the Lord, how would you feel about them being forgiven?
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For some, it's a political party or maybe a political leader. You know, in some cases, I've heard they can make people upset. What about someone closer? A friend or a family member who deeply hurt you, have you ever thought, "I will never forgive that person"?
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When that's Nineveh, do we answer the same way? Should God pity them?
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Do we view ourselves as worthy of God's mercy while thinking they are not worthy of it?
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Whoever we think our enemies are, do we pray for them to come to the salvation that we know?
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Or in our anger, do we say, "You know what? I'm done with them." That's Jonah. And church, we can't be Jonah anymore, because as Jesus said, something greater than Jonah is here.
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See, Jonah took the mercy for himself and wanted to give judgment to others, but Jesus took the judgment upon himself to give mercy to others.
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And we all need his mercy, any and all of us.
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So will you pray with me, please?
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Lord God, we thank you so much for this morning, God.
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We thank you for the work of your son Jesus that we celebrated with baptisms earlier, and that same work, God, that we celebrate now because through Jesus' death and resurrection, you have given us everything we need.
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we need, you've given us the mercy that we all need, God. And so I pray that you would change our hearts to, instead of being blinded by anger, to have our eyes opened to see with your perspective, Lord God. May we reflect the character and the love that Jesus Christ demonstrated and that we celebrate. I pray that it would be real in our lives, God, this week and throughout the rest of our lives as we continue to serve you. We thank you and we give you the glory, Father. We pray this in Jesus' name, Amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read Jonah 4
What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
Have you ever found yourself frustrated by God’s plan? How would you encourage someone who’s going through that right now?
In what ways can the pursuit of comfort in the church today lead us to miss the point?
What are some areas where you need to be transformed from “Jonah” to “Greater Jonah” thinking?
Who is your Nineveh today? How is God calling you to view them with compassion?
Breakout
Pray for one another.
