Hot and Bothered
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Introduction
Introduction
Illustration
Who is that?
Joe Biden
Donald Trump
Tom Brady
Kolin Kapernick
Roseanne Barr
Elon Musk
Hillary Clinton
Ben Shapiro
Kanye West
Adolf Hitler
Ruhollah Khomeini
Lady Gaga
Pope Francis
LeBron James
JB Pritzker
Che Guevara
Whoopi Goldberg
Caitlyn Jenner
Joel Osteen
Kenneth Copeland
Tiger Woods
Nancy Pelosi
Martin Shkreli
Chris Brown
Gwyneth Paltrow
Kim Jong-un
Jeffrey Epstein
Osama Bin Laden
Charles Manson
Meghan Markle
Kim Kardashian
Justin Bieber
Saddam Hussein
Derek Chauvin
Bernie Sanders
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
Candace Owens
Carl Lentz
Ted Nugent
How does everyone feel at this moment?
Anyone up there you didn’t like?
Anyone up there you’d like to see something bad happen to?
Take a moment and picture the person you like least on that list...
Have they ever stirred up anger in you?
Have you ever wanted to see them punished?
Have you ever referred them as a moron, an idiot, or evil?
Have you ever once prayed for God to show them mercy?
I mean, before they’re “corrected” and start to see things your way
Have you ever felt compassion for them
Not in a condescending way - I feel sorry for you, I’ll pray for you, ya’ll need Jesus sorta way
Have you ever had a sympathetic thought for them?
It’s hard to have sympathy when you don’t agree
It’s hard to have compassion when you’re angry
Today we’re ending our series in Jonah
And it’s all going to be a matter of perspective!
And our ability to see from a different perspective...
Jonah recap
YouVersion: Hot and Bothered
Jonah 4
Ending series today - excited about this one from beginning!
Next week is Mother’s Day
Then we start a new series in Ephesians - Family Values
Let’s go back to the end of last week:
10 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.
Let’s see how Jonah responds to that:
1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry.
Normally a preacher is happy when someone repents
Not Jonah!
More more than that, he was EXCEEDINGLY angry!
The Hebrew word for anger means “to be hot”
We’re going to see just how hot Jonah gets!
Before that, let’s get something clear right away:
1. God can handle your anger
1. God can handle your anger
As we look at this interaction, watch God’s demeanor
No matter how mad Jonah gets, God stays patient, loving, and constant
All the while, he seeks to correct Jonah
The next verse will reveal why Jonah is mad...
But it’s actually going to blow open our entire story!
We’re going to see why Jonah has done everything he’s done
Why did Jonah ignore God?
Why did he flee as far the other way as he could?
Why did he ask the sailors to kill him?
Why did he not tell the Ninevites to repent?
And why is he now mad that God hasn’t punished them?
He reveals it all right here:
2 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 are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. 3 Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
What?!
Jonah says, “I KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO DO THAT!”
“DANG IT! I KNEW YOU WERE MERCIFUL AND YOU WERE GOING TO RELENT!”
You know what he’s doing?
He’s using God’s words against Him!
6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
Christmas Carol quote:
If they had rather die, then they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population!
You use my words against me!
God told the Israelites He was merciful, gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love
So Jonah throws it in God’s face as an INSULT
Would you rather have God be merciful or punishing?
For us, it depends on the target!
Be merciful to me, but punish my enemies!
It’s funny, unbelievers question why God doesn’t stop evil men
Why would God allow Nazis to kill 6 million Jews?
Then we look in Scripture and see that God destroyed the Canaanites
Then they call God a genocidal maniac
BTW He did it because they were sacrificing babies on a molten metal altar
Burning their babies to death and playing loud drums to cover up the screams
God sent messages to stop, and when they didn’t He destroyed them
Essentially, no matter what God does people make accusations!
That’s not a problem with God’s decision making, its a problem with our hypocrisy!
This hypocrisy is exactly the boat Jonah finds himself in
Jonah is FURIOUS that God didn’t destroy them! And he knew it all along!
Usually in Bible stories people are shocked by what God does!
Not Jonah! He’s MAD because he knew EXACTLY what God was going to do!
I can’t believe You’re going to be kind and merciful to THOSE PEOPLE!
Jonathan Swift poem:
We are God's chosen few,
All others will be damned;
There is no place in heaven for you,
We can't have heaven crammed.
That’s Jonah’s attitude
And ours is not a whole lot different!
Sure, sitting in church right now you’re thinking of the Jesus answer...
But what happens when you get home and turn on the news?
What happens when you get in your car and someone cuts you off
What happens when your social media feed shows a post about some ridiculously uninformed position...
I’ll bet you start to see things like Jonah!
Here is fact that we MUST accept if we’re going to follow Jesus:
2. Our human heart often gets things backwards
2. Our human heart often gets things backwards
Actually, you may have noticed a theme in Jonah...
Everything in this story is upside down!
God says “go east”
Jonah goes west!
In the fish Jonah praises God’s mercy
In Nineveh he’s critical of God’s mercy
In God’s storm, the prophet is asleep
The pagan sailors are awake
Jonah claims to worship the God who made the sea
He tries to flee on a boat
Jonah asks to be thrown into the sea, seeming sacrificial
But he never thinks of the guilt of the sailors or repenting
Jonah sinks to the bottom of the sea to die
But the fish is his passage back to life
Jonah speaks to Nineveh promising destruction
That message actually brings their salvation
Jonah says they’ll be turned over (to death)
But they’re turned over in morality
Then He quotes God’s Scripture which is positive
But Jonah quotes it as a negative
Jonah wants to kill the Ninevites,
When they live he asks to die
Several times actually...
Even all of the characters themselves are backward
The prophet of God is the rebellious one
The sailors, the evil king and even the cows repent!
Everything is upside in the backward story
There’s a reason - this story is satire, it’s poking fun
It’s full of irony and twists… I’ll explain why I think that is in a minute...
But first, let’s look at God’s response
Jonah says, “I knew you’d be merciful dang it! Now just kill me!”
Here’s God’s response:
4 And the Lord said, “Do you do well to be angry?”
What a powerful question!
Why are you so mad bro?!
Actually that’s not the question… the question is, “Is it good for you to be angry?”
I’ve talked before about the fallacy of “righteous anger”
It’s such an excuse for sin...
19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.
It’s funny that we take something that is almost always sinful - anger
And we attach the word righteous to it...
I find it interesting we don’t talk about righteous adultery or righteous idolatry
But we have “righteous anger”
Yoga Berra: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
Uh, take what?!
And yet righteous anger makes sense to us
Here’s my problem with it: we use the term righteous anger to justify the anger of man
Over and over Scripture warns us not to be angry, or to not let it rule you, or that it’s murder...
And we get that way and justify it, “it’s righteous anger!”
What’s the problem with righteous anger, IT REQUIRES US TO BE RIGHTEOUS!
But Pastor Dan, shouldn’t we stand for the oppressed? Shouldn’t we defend the weak?
Of course! But why do you need anger to do that?
Can’t you defend those in need because of your compassion for them?
Why do you need anger to motivate you?
It’s better to stand because we want to do the right thing...
Not because we want vengeance
Think about Peter in the garden, slicing off the ear of the soldier
Peter stood against them because of his righteous anger!
Jesus put it back on… says “Hey Peter, you want to operate out of anger?”
“How do you think your opponents will respond?”
What Jesus is doing is reminder Peter that he is not responding to the things of God...
He’s responding to the things of Peter, and ASSUMING they are the same as the things of God
What’s the lesson for us in that and in Jonah’s attitude?
3. We should always question our own motives
3. We should always question our own motives
As long as we’re dragging this flesh around with us, we have the ability to mess up
Sometimes we have to back up and question things...
Thomas Chandler Haliburton: “When a man is wrong and won’t admit it, he always gets angry.”
Interesting in Scripture: Jesus and the Father often correct with questions...
Adam and Eve - fruit: Where are you? Who told you you were naked?
Cain - murder: Where is your brother Abel? What have you done?
Saul - sacrificing: What have you done?
Jesus: Whoo do you say that I am?
Jesus: What do you want Me to do for you?
Jesus: Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?
When we’re angry, we should ask ourselves the same question God asked Jonah:
Do you do well to be angry?
Let’s see what Jonah does then:
5 Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city. 6 Now the Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. 7 But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”
God is teaching Jonah a very important lesson here
God is taking the situation with the Ninevites, and then doing a metaphorical version on Jonah
It’s funny, God did this exact same thing to Tasha at work this week
Plant Illustration
Tash works at Plant Mum in Morton
Marvin wanted variegated optunia
Spend 45 minutes trying to decide on $100 cost
Talking about kids, just moved here, I’m a pastor
Asked “You have probably the only one in Morton - very special!”
“Would you sell someone a clipping for $20?”
Why, you want one?
No, I couldn’t ask that… you’re the only one who has one!
“Sure, I’d do it”
What? Why?! It’s $100 and it’s so special!
Because I couldn’t just be selfish and keep it for myself...
Really?! Gosh I would never do that! I just couldn’t
Daughter calls and he goes in another room
Lady walks in, OMGosh you still have it!
I told myself I would wait a week, it’s still here so I’m buying it
Marvin walks in and his mouth drops!
The guy JUST SAID he wouldn’t sell someone a clipping!
He says, “Would you sell me a clipping for $20?”
Lady says, wow I don’t know...
I get it, it’s very special… she actually said she’d sell one but she’s church people...
Well, I’m church people too. Here you go!
It’s funny how we can make a selfish stance when it costs us something
And then take another selfish stance when it costs someone else...
I’m sure Marvin is a great guy, Tash had wonderful things to say about him!
But all humans have an ability to only see things from our side...
here’s the lesson
4. Our own hypocrisy is easy to miss
4. Our own hypocrisy is easy to miss
God has sent Jonah a plant
Not because He had to, Jonah’s being a jerk!
He did it to be kind and merciful
And then God takes it away
Interesting, that Jonah is okay with God taking away His mercy for Nineveh
And then gets angry when God removes His mercy from Jonah
Even with something as petty as a plant… he’s so angry he cannot see the lesson!
Look at this:
9 But God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” And he said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.” 10 And the Lord said, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night.
God again asks Jonah about his anger - do you do well?
Jonah, completely irrational, says “YES! I SHOULD BE ANGRY! ANGRY ENOUGH TO DIE!
So God says, “Jonah, dude… you didn’t make the plant, you didn’t earn it or deserve it, you only had it a day, and when it leaves you want to die? Does that make any sense?”
Hockey stick illustration
I always brought 2 sticks
One week I let in a stupid goal - got so mad I broke my stick against the goal
I skated over to get my backup, only to find it was already cracked...
It broke on the next play...
I had to use the public rink stick - it was horrible
Did I do well to be angry? NO! It was stupid
For a momentary outburst, it cost me a very important tool when playing hockey - my stick!
What can we learn from this?
5. Anger has side effects
5. Anger has side effects
Anger often costs us more than we can afford
How many marriages have been lost over anger?
How many people have lost their jobs for getting angry?
How many people have ended up in prison because of their anger?
9 Be not quick in your spirit to become angry,
for anger lodges in the heart of fools.
It’s important that you don’t let your anger rule over you
It is very rare that good things come from anger
That’s why Scripture warns us that being angry and stubborn makes us foolish...
And then the story finishes with one final question from God:
11 And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”
If you’re so mad about the plant Jonah, so worried about keeping something valuable that you love...
Shouldn’t I care about these people? Aren’t they worth more than a plant?’
Really, the final question is this: Is God wrong to show mercy?
That is a DEEP challenge! Much more than on the surface!
Because there’s something we need to notice: there is no verse 12!
Where’s the rest of the story?!
You wanna know where the rest of the story is? I’ll tell you
Scripture doesn’t show Jonah’s response because the question really isn’t for Jonah...
The question is for you!
Personally, I believe Jonah went through this story, went home, and was radically changed
As such, I think Jonah recorded this story so we could learn what he had to learn
God’s grace and mercy are more valuable than you can begin to imagine
And that doesn’t end with you - it applies to everyone
Think about the faces you saw at the start
Think about the person you hate (even if you try not to)
The one you’re better than, smarter than, more righteous than...
That person you pray against, that person you want to receive punishment, that person that makes your skin crawl
And remember how God sees them
And remember that God chose to see you that way too!
Prayer
Prayer