Relinquish your Anger

Jonah 4:1-11

Living in the Light

Relinquish your Anger

Volcano – buried within it is vast amounts of lava, that produces heat, overtime that pressure begins to build and there is an explosion and the volcano erupts. High into the sky will this large cloud of ash and smoke will come and it blocks the light from shining through.

I give you that illustration, because within many, there is something building, something that if we don’t relinquish, will burst forth and stop the light from shining in our lives, what is it that can do such a thing? Anger.

Friend, if there is one thing that prevents the light of Christ from shining forth from our life more than any thing else, it is the anger that we hold inside.

You see, holding onto anger is like pulling the shades down of the Lord’s Light, inside of our lives is not the light of Christ illuminating, but the darkness of anger.

The sad thing for many, is that we hold onto our anger, and we suffer because of it, and others suffer because of it. But friend, God wants us to let go of that anger.

If we are going to shine the light of Christ into this world, friends we have to relinquish the anger that we have been holding on to.

(Read Scripture)

Now Jonah was an angry man. I mean, when you read this book, you find that Jonah held onto his anger and you see it resonating in his words and actions.

But the Lord says something to Jonah, that he is saying to many of us, doest thou well to be angry?

Friend what good is coming from your life if you are holding onto anger? Think about these four things we draw from this passage. The first is the …

Cause of Anger

What is it that makes you angry? Well if you think about it, there are three things.

1. People (Ninevites)

· Now we live in a world where people don’t always think like you and I, and sometimes the way they behave, carry themselves, or respond angers us.

· If you are older than 1 year old, you have been angry at someone.

· Maybe you have been angry at your spouse, angry at your children, angry with someone you work with, or just angry with the stranger who has crossed your path.

· There is a lot of evil in the world, and we look at people and it angers us in how it affects us.

· This is how Jonah felt, I mean we look at Jonah and think that he was acting childish, but we must remember what the people of Nineveh were like.

· These people were known for their cruelty, they slaughter those around them, they paraded their sin openly. This was a horrible place and people.

· I mean this was a people that if Jonah was alive today, would have said we should just nuke them. Better off without them.

· Jonah was angry with these people, and to the eyes of man, he had the right to be angry at them.

· And that is how we often see our anger, as justified. When someone wrongs us or hurts us, or disobeys us, we become angry.

· Nineveh was different than Israel, and we are going to encounter people that are different than us, and it may anger us with how they act.

2. Surroundings (Gourd)

· The second thing that can anger us is our surroundings.

· We want things to work like they should, we don’t want things to delay us, or cost us time or money, we want to be comfortable, and when our surroundings throw a kink in our life we get angry.

· Think about it, you are planning to go out with your friends and something breaks at home, and you try to fix it, you are already angry that you are doing something that you weren’t planning to do.

· But then, the repair is becoming complicated, and what’s happening? The blood is beginning to boil. You start mumbling and using choice words, you know the ones that would make a sailor blush.

· I mean, you are just getting angry at everything around you.

· Well, that is what happened to Jonah. Jonah is sitting out there looking at a people he didn’t like and the sun is shining down on him. So, he builds him a little hut.

· But the angle of the city and the sun allowed for the light to shine right on his face. But a gourd grew and it blocked the light and gave him some shade.

· But then, what happened? The gourd withered up and how did Jonah respond? He got upset. He got angry.

· And that is how you feel, you’re angry because the gourd withered. Your surroundings change and you got angry about it.

· You see there are things in life that we become comfortable with, but then when they are gone, we just get upset.

· Maybe it was a job that we lost we got angry about it, maybe it was a change in our neighborhood and we got angry, maybe it was something that has been with us for a long time and we got comfortable with it and for whatever reason it was removed and we got upset because of it.

· You see friend, sometimes our surroundings make us angry.

3. God

· But there is another thing that makes us angry, and we see it here in this passage, and that is God.

· Do you realize that the way God does things makes people angry. We think God should do things in the way we think they should be done.

· And sometimes, God works somewhere, where we don’t agree with it. We may have the mindset, that instead of doing a great work there, that God should just destroy it.

· But when he doesn’t and instead blesses, we get angry at God. And friend there are a lot of people who are angry at God.

· You know we have these polls who give the approval rating on the president, well, if there was a poll on the approval rating of the Lord, we might find it shockingly low.

· Why? Because God does things that in our eyes we don’t agree with and it angers us.

· This is how Jonah was. He didn’t want God to do a great work in Nineveh, instead he wanted it destroyed, and when God didn’t destroy it but instead saved it, Jonah got mad at God.

· I mean we may think Jonah has lost his mind, but remember we are very much like Jonah in this passage.

· Think about it, we see some people and we don’t like them for whatever reason. And then we see God do something mighty with them, what do we do?

· Do we give God praise for what he has done? Or, are we just walking around and complaining. Are we being like Jonah, upset that God didn’t handle things the way we thought he should have.

· You see friend we get angry over people, over our surroundings, and even with God. What then do we need to do?...

Consider your Anger

· What you must do first is consider your anger. Notice what the Lord says in verse 4. “Doest thou well to be angry”

· At the end of the day, what are you accomplishing by being angry?

· Anger had consumed Jonah, he was so upset, that basically he wanted the Lord to take his life from him.

· But how did the Lord respond to Jonah, we wanted him to realize that his anger was not benefiting him.

· Friend, if you allow that anger to remain in your life, you are not accomplishing any good.

· If anything, you are causing yourself more suffering.

· You know doctors have study the affects of anger on the body, it can increase anxiety, cause high blood pressure, and bring on headaches. It stresses the heart and increases your chances for a stroke.

· People who are angry can have a weaken immune system and ultimately anger can shorten your life.

· These are the physical effects of anger, but friend it can have social effects as well.

· If you could think of three people from the Bible to talk too, other than Jesus. Who would it be? Chances are, Jonah is not on your list.

· Why? Because you can just read the anger on Jonah’s life in these verses. Anger has a way of warding off relationships.

· I mean if you are always angry and you express that anger in your conversation or actions people are going to avoid you.

· What does the Lord want you to do? He wants you to consider your anger. What is it that you are angry about?

· And then what does he want us to do?

Confess your Anger

· He wants us to confess that anger. Friend it doesn’t do any good holding that anger in.

· What you must do is hand that anger over to the Lord.

· Now the flesh wants to take that anger and explode on someone, but what really needs to take place, is that anger need to be given to the Lord.

· What did Jonah tell the Lord? He told him that he was angry. He didn’t deny it nor did he try to hide it, he told the Lord.

· And friend if you want healing from the anger in your life, what you need to do is just confess it to the Lord.

· Let the Lord know what has angered you, he already knows, but he wants to hear it from you. He wants you to talk to him about your anger.

· There are a lot of us who don’t like to admit that we get angry: “I’m a Christian, and I am not mad.” I mean, sweet, dear, little us: “Now we couldn’t get angry, could we?” Of course we can!

· And what we need to do is just give it to God.

· What we must do is confess it not repress it.

· Bring them to the Lord and say, “Lord, there’s something moving in me I don’t like.” And tell the Lord about it.

· Someone has well said that if you repress anger, it’s like lighting a wastebasket and putting it in a closet and closing the door. It may burn itself out or it may burn the house down. It’s just burning there. So, the very first thing you need to do is just open the closet door and say, “There it is, Lord—in there. That’s my wastebasket, and I set it on fire.”

· Friend confess it and then

Conclude your Anger

· Conclude you anger, when you give it to God, rise up and say I’m done being angry.

· I’m done with anger controlling my life, I’m done letting this fire burn inside of me.

· Well, that’s easy for you to say, but it is hard to let go. I mean, I have dealt with this anger for a long time.

· Well friend, that is why you need Jesus. To really allow him to handle that anger in your heart. Because you are incapable of handling it on your own.

· You see, the only real way to quit being angry, is to allow Jesus to touch that part of your heart.

· Friends, you don’t have to allow anger to rule in your heart any longer, today you can find the peace you are looking for through Christ Jesus.

· The book of Jonah ends with a question mark. It makes us wonder what happen to Jonah from there.

· Well, don’t leave here with a question mark on your life. Come and get final with Jesus today.