Mad at God - Week 4 - St. Peter - Pastor Tim Glende
Mad at God
Week 4 - St. Peter
Pastor Tim Glende
Welcome to week number four of our sermon series entitled Mad at God. Final chapter 4 of The Book of Jonah. Which makes me think of the question that might allow us to understand where we're going today. It's the question I wrote down. What I started thinking about. Today's sermon, what is the maddest you've ever been?
Think of a time in your life. That you got angry. What was it that caused you to be angry?
Like was it a minor irritation? Or maybe it was a week that things that built up and you blew up .
Maybe if your first thought, your first inclination of an angry moment, a mad moment, it was none of those minor things. It was probably a major thing like something big went bad.
And you got mad.
Like the first three things that came to my mind were personal stories.
Like, when I was in college and six months after the fact, But my roommate at the time. Well, he didn't tell me, but I found out that six months earlier when he was on a class trip with some other classmates. After we left high school made out with my girlfriend at the time. That didn't go well. Like, I got mad. And we stop rooming together.
We made up. He was still at my wedding a few years later. So it's all good but I definitely remember being mad. And my reaction wasn't very good because in the turn he got mad at my response.
Maybe it was relationally. Click, you got mad and angry because someone you loved or someone you cared about someone. You knew you invested in them. You tried to speak the truth to them. You tried to help them. You had their back but in turn, they didn't have yours and they threw you under the bus and caused relational chaos. Like, I forgot a friend like that. You talked about things you shared things and then behind your back, they did you wrong and you got mad.
Or maybe it's been work.
Like at your workplace, someone spoke poorly of you. They told rumors about you. They didn't tell the truth about you. Like they tried to undermine you. They attacked you.
We've been there, done that. And yep, mad
Like the truth is in our life. Unless you're the point zero, one percenters who doesn't have an angry bone in all of your body at some point somewhere, someone or something has caused you to get mad.
And I'll be the first to tell you that not in every time, but in some of those times My anger was not just at the person or the hurt or the pain. But it's spilled over spiritually.
I'll be the first in line to say that there have been times when I've got angry over real things and maybe could validate it in one-way shape or fashion that it no longer was righteous anger because the finger got pointed in God's Direction. And that's what we're going to find today in Jonah. I want you to think about the times in your life, the things that cause you to get angry, what is it and what happens when That anger rears its ugly head because he talked to experts we could have a whole Sermon Just on anger and what causes it to be an issue. Like someone wronged you. Someone spoke poorly of you. Someone did something wrong and hurtful to you. And there is trauma at that has been experienced as a result. But maybe it's because of things that are happening in your life, maybe work went bad and or financially you're struggling, maybe there's just stress and irritation.
Some of the other reasons why people get angry is because they begin to generalize everything. Like you know what someone is to generalize has everything? Like it's it's everybody who's out to get me. Nobody loves me and the world is against me and that generalization causes you to get angry.
Maybe it's your rigid worldview like you wonder why? There's been so much anger over the last several years in our country, whether it's covid, social, justice, injustice, and everything else. Because there are so many people on the polarizing ends of their views that there's no way we can come to the middle and have a conversation and we get angry. I need to tell you this like just go to your Facebook feed and see some anger. You'll find it. Or just wait until the election cycle, really kicks up. Then we're going to experience it. Like why do people get so angry? Because they have a very rigid strong viewpoint.
And that's really what Jonah had. Like it's nationalistic view of the people of Israel. His pride in his country that the things that he felt were right and wrong. We're a part of a lot of the actions that have taken place so far and they're going to see them spillover today. Like going to see Jonah, talk about being angry. But what were the real issues? What is it? That really is? The issue of anger? Where does it come from? And why we're going to dig into that? Dive into that and and see how sadly at times when we get angry? How comes back and also becomes an issue with God.
Before we get there. Remember where we left off last week, chapter three wrapped up with these words. Before we get there. Remember where we left off last week. Chapter 3 wrapped up with these words.
Where Jonah goes through the city, he's preached the message, the Ninevites believed God, they repented and when God saw that, what they did, they're repentance and their actions. How they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them. The disruption he had threatened.
Now on it just bring you back to that point because I want you to understand the significance of what transpired When we talked about it last week, think about it in these terms. The Bible tells us that the angels in heaven rejoice They celebrate.
The angels in heaven Rejoice over one sinner who repents one like one.
But the city of Nineveh believed God a city of maybe up to herds of a half a million people. Like I'm not saying every last one gave their lives to God. Believed in God, like that message. Broke down their hearts, the Holy Spirit created Faith but the Bible's very clear, the Ninevites the city as a whole believe God, we're talking hundreds of thousands of people repented. Like if the angels in heaven Rejoice over one sinner, who repents imagine the party that heaven I was and how loud the rejoicing of the Angels was that day, like I've heard some pretty amazing singing and rejoice in here in church when it's jam-packed on a holiday. But I don't think there was anything like that day or maybe not many days like that on the streets of Heaven and the angels rejoicing
But on the The roads outside of Nineveh, jodo Jonah was not joining in.
Like this what the Bible tells us after God relented. In Jonah, chapter 4 verse 1, he says, but to Jonah, this seemed very angry or seemed very wrong and he became angry. Two words in the Hebrew that really help. You understand what's going on here and they're going to play into later and I want you to understand what, what is being described in, Jonah? He was greatly displeased. This seemed very wrong. The word is Raja. To be greatly displeased is to be evil. To have an attitude, which rejects God's Authority. Like Jonah was greatly displeased. Like he was displeased about God's choice and he believed it was wrong.
And then you got the next word raw is followed by our, ah, which means to burn to be incensed literally when you see it today. When someone talks about that caused me to be on fire, I got heated up, I got on fire over something, I was angry. Literally Jonah was burning on the inside with frustration and angry anger. He became angry, he didn't just have anger for a moment. No, it was his current condition.
There's mad at God.
Which is why before we go onto the story and find out why I want have a little discussion with all of you on on why people get angry at God? I want you to think maybe of why it is that your anger is God, right now.
Like it's something missing in your life is something happening to you in, your life is something transpiring. And if you're honest today, there's a little bit of anger at God. You have a little bit of Jonah like, why is it? Or maybe when you got angry at God, some point, your life, why was it?
You can probably send off with one of three words or three phrases. Like, here are the words that maybe will help you summarize why people get mad at God, may be why you're mad at God or have been mad at God, they summarized in many ways. Why Jonah got mad at God. Number one, pain, Like, oftentimes people get mad at God because there's something that happens in their life. Whether physical relational or emotional pain that they're going through facing or enduring.
You know why people get mad at God when there's pain?
Why Christians get mad at God because there's pain.
But people in general, look at the world and say, I want nothing to do with God because if there was a god nd he's loving, why would he allow me to have to deal with and endure? This
Like I've talked to a lot of people who've gone through the loss of a loved one and the pain that breaks their heart and there's a part of him that he's angry at God for taking that person out of their life. I've talked to a lot of people who tragically have dealt with different issues in their life and they've struggled and got mad at God.
Pain is one of them and another one is sin.
Like When sin rears its ugly head and in their lives, we question. Where is God, we get mad at God.
Like we talked about this in her abuse series.
We've talked about this when people have to endure, natural disasters.
We have to talk about this when someone is eight clean their whole life. Never picked up a cigarette. Never cross the line really physically? And yet they're the ones who get that cancer. Like sin.
And, you know, if you'll get mad at God, When sin invades their life by that doing of others, or simply by the reality of sin being in the world, they blame God because he could have done something. He should have done something. He could have stopped something. And now I'm dealing with that something.
He'll get mad at God when they endure in face in
But when God doesn't take away that sin, that they wrestle with,
And then there's the last one, it's definitely be true of Jonah but let's be honest, the Christians in general people, in general, get mad at God because of Grace.
Like deep down somewhere in your heart. There's probably someone in your life in your bubble in our world at work or maybe in a broader sense that that in your mind you don't think is worthy of Grace. Like they've been so bad to you, they've done such bad things to them. They've heard so many people that at the end of the day, like 99% of people got, I could deal with, but if my Mansion is next to their mansion, I might not want to be there because I don't think that's right. And that's not good. We'll get mad at God for Grace, not to them personally, but to them people
Or maybe you could sum it up this way, those three things I like this because it helps us understand Jonah. Maybe it will resonate with you by the it kind of describes it. In the same way, people get mad at God for three reasons, one, because we get something, we don't expect.
I got the right expectation. We get something that we don't expect, and it paralyzes us. It angers us, we shake a fist at God. We get something. We don't expect. Second one is, we get something. We don't want.
We don't want that label, the blank. However, you would, we don't want to get divorced, we don't want that disease, we don't want Financial struggles. We don't want this that or another thing. We don't want it, but we get it.
And God didn't stop it.
Last one, we believe God owes us something.
Like I think at the end of the day, one of the most difficult things for Christians, for bible-believing Christians, We Believe God's owes us something.
Guilty.
Like God, I'm a pastor like, God, I don't get to go out and party on Saturday nights. Like God, I have to go to bed early like God, I've done a lot for you like God, like I'm at the top of the list, probably the chief of Sinners of of, whether I say it out loud, which I just did forgive me or I think it like God owes me.
For the Christian who gives back to God out of their wealth and does it in a Godly way, like, when your finances go upside down, when it doesn't go well for you like, put God like I've done it the right way. Like I know or believe that person over there. Is really tight with their money when it comes to you. God. But I'm not and but, but they keep getting and you keep taking But you owe me.
Like, are you mad at God? And why? Because he didn't stop something that you didn't want because you got something that you didn't expect that, you believe, God owes you something like that. I've experienced this and seen this from the time. I was young till I'm now 51.
Like, I, I know the lady, who lost her husband, when I was maybe about 7 or 8 years old, when I lived in Columbus, her husband who was a doctor who helped people who love people went to the drugstore to pick something up but he never walked out because a robber came in and shot him.
I like my brother's best friend in grade school, spending a day with his grandparents as he's driving for, for an activity, to get some ice cream after they're done. But that guy drank too much in blew the red light and plowed right into the side of the car killing him.
It's pretty hard, not to get mad at God when that happens to you.
It's no different than what I've experienced here over 17 years either. But people get mad at God. Maybe you're mad at God. God wants us to understand the issue and God wants us to learn from Jonah today. When we struggle with that and wrestle with that, let's see why Jonah got mad. But to Jonah that seemed very wrong and he became angry. Here's his why he prayed to the Lord I would encourage you not to pray this way to God, isn't this? What I said Lord, when I was still at home, this is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate, God, slow to anger, and abounding in love a God, who relents from sending Calamity now Lord, take away my life. For it is better for me to die than to live like from the belly of the fish. Jonah prayed to live but now he's mad at God now. He would rather die because he knows the truth about God and God did what he knew. God could do.
Like, this isn't Jonah getting upset because he was confused. No, this is Jonah getting mad because he knew like he was knowledgeable about God, he knew the scriptures about God, he proclaimed the truth about God, he had first-hand experience, those very things from God. Jonah knew, very clearly when he made the first step toward Tarshish, when he ran in the other direction, The why? Behind the? What of his issue? I knew God, I just knew it like you might just save these horrible people because that's who you are.
So, I'd rather die.
Like Jonah, got it.
But he truly didn't grasp it.
Remember back in Chapter 2, Jonah talked about worthless idols.
Like, one of the things that oftentimes causes us to get angry at God.
Are the idols of our life.
And when something, Surrounding that Idol. That belief that thought, that person that thing. When that goes Haywire, we lose it. Get angry with God.
Like, if something happens to your spouse unexpectedly and you lose them and you get angry at God over it because you didn't see it coming. The hurt and the pain are real, but maybe just maybe that Idol of your heart has taken the place on the throne.
When you get angry at God, because your resources are gone, maybe? Just maybe the idol that you have is his money. And when you find happiness in it, when you have it, but when it disappears, you're angry at God because you think he should do better by you. That's Jonah.
His self-righteous Pharisee attiitude was no different than what Jesus dealt with in his day like the Pharisees love to look at other people and they got angry at God and Jesus claimed to be God, because he hung out with the tax collectors and the Sinners, the adulterers and the bad people. Like they didn't like Grace, Jesus, definition of it. They love their position on it.
They believe got owed them something because the righteous life, they lived
Till the end of the day is you look at Jonah what he reveals in him and what it reveals for you. And for me, no matter where we're at on, on, on the why, behind the, what of our anger at the end of the day? Anger boils down to this. It is a heart issue. Something else has your heart and when it's gone, when you don't get what you want, when you get what you don't expect, when you think God owes you something and you receiving nothing that is an issue of the heart.
That's an idol. That maybe it's causing it. It's an issue of the heart that maybe you think, you know, better than God, Jonah is greatly angered.
Believe it was wrong like Jonah believed God's decision was not the right decision. He got angry.
Like, if you know better than God or think, you know, better than God watch out.
But the issue is is not always the external issue. The issues a heart issue.
Like the issue wasn't that. God spare Nineveh. The issue? Was that Jonah didn't like it.
Yeah, angry at Grace.
So maybe it would be good for us as we consider anger being a hard issue to see how God dealt with it. Like to Jonah’s statement, I'd rather be dead. Here's what God did the Lord replied is it right for you to be angry. Jonah. Like everything you said is true, the Lord is compassionate and gracious slow to anger, abounding in love. Is it right for you to be angry about Grace? Because I'm pretty sure when you were drowning, I'm pretty sure when I heard you prayed in the belly of the fish, I'm pretty sure when you get vomit up on dry grass, land, you were pretty. Thankful for it.
But now you're not Is it right?
Just got, oh, you
Is God being unfaithful to his promises to you or others?
Here's where you kind of see that Jonah. Like, he's the one who understands the word, he knows, God, you know, he didn't do talk back. Like, unlike most children might do to their parents when they don't like that, they got something that they don't think they deserve. Like they come up with an excuse like Jonah. Just goes outside of the city and sits down like this is not the time or the place to own a new. Probably this heart that he was wrong, but he wasn't going to confess it. He wasn't willing to deal with it like he did in Chapter 2 yet. Jonah went outside sat down at a place east of the city there. He made himself a shelter said in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. So, Jonah, 40 days hasn't come up yet. God didn't wipe them out. Initially maybe, just, maybe, Jonah wanted to stick around and see if God, will change his mind again. Like, maybe the Ninevites would mess up. Maybe they would go back to their old evil ways and Jonah would get what he wanted, right? So he goes outside sets up, camp doesn't want to leave because of a heart issue that he has. So the Lord God provided a leafy plant and me to go ripe over Jonah to give shade for his head and to ease his discomfort. And Jonah was a very happy about the plant. But at the dawn of the next day, God provided a worm which chewed at the plant. So that it withered, when the sun rose the next day, God provided a scorching East Wind and the sun blazed on Jonah said, so that he grew faint like something interesting in this section is the name of the Lord. The saving God. The one that used in Chapter 2 chapter 3 first, part of chapter four changes to almighty God creation. God all powerful God which is And the one who's dealing with Jonah right now can do anything and we'll do everything he uses his power. He is Almighty Creator, God. So the differentiation is important, but even in the midst of it, three times, God provided
Like some experts say it almost is like, God is playing with Jonah.
I would argue that no God is teaching Jonah. God is disciplining Jonah. Remember chapter 2 God uses discipline for a loving purpose, not to punish us but to bring us back not to pay us back but to bring us back and here, God is using very clear object lessons to help Jonah unpack. The issue of his heart. Like Jonah wanted a God who would make life easy for him. Joanna wanted a God who saw things his way, Joanna wanted a God, that loved God when things were good for Jonah, Like he was happy when the plant came up but now he wanted to die and said it would be better for me to die than to live.
Like, I don't know about you.
Yeah, I don't know about you. It's not true. Me, I plant nothing, but if I did most of it dies, And usually when the plants die that you might raise up, you might get frustrated. But if you ever said God, my tomato plant died, take my wife.
Like Jonah is on fire because of the plant. Jonah is on fire because he lost his shade Jonah's on fire because a plan, which he had nothing to do with coming up that strung up miraculously, to provide that much shade in the desert, made him happy that when it disappeared, when the scorching wind came, he'd rather be dead because his heart issue. His Idol. What pushed him over the break with God?
Was this very truth if you're feeling to notes, Like anger, is it a heart issue that often times comes back to a contentment issue? Like, I liked it when things were good gobble, when things go bad, it's your fault. Not since fault, not my fault that the sad reality of the existence of sin or someone else's sins fall, like it's yours.
Like when My life doesn't go the way I want and I'm not comfortable, God's fault. Like contentment is a major anger issue when things don't go my way. When my life is in a good place and Jonah didn't like it Okay, I get it, like I've been out in places like St. George, Utah, where my son lives in the dead hot middle of summer, like it's 30 degrees cooler in the shade. You just step in the shade and you go. Can you walk out into the Sun and you sweat in a second. Like I get it was uncomfortable. I get it, it wasn't great. But you know what? God never said to Jonah. Hey, go sit outside the city and let the sun beat down on you and watch the city for a while. This wasn't God, this was you and your heart.
His lack of contentment was revealed at that moment.
Which God wanted to address. But the Lord said you've been concerned about this plant that you did not tend it or make it grow. Like, you're hot, you're on fire, you want to die, but you had nothing to do with that plant. In fact, you know, better Jonah that no plan appears, that can provide that much shade overnight and then disappear the next day because a were made it and scorching wind will come up. Like, you know, whose hand is in this, you know exactly what you're saying. You're pointing the finger at me, you're angry because I did not provide what you wanted to be provided for. I did not do what you wanted done. And God uses the teachable moment. It sprang up overnight and it died overnight. I'm the one who actually has a right to be concerned about the plant because I'm the creator of the plant.
And should I not? Big point. Last verse has concern for the great city of Nineveh in, which there are more than 120,000 people. Those under the age of being able to discern right left and all those things who cannot tell their right hand from their left hand and also many animals. Like joint. You're concerned about a plan that you had nothing to do with. I'm the one who has the right to be concerned about the plant but Jonah, Jonah.
But your concern is over what you want.
By the end of the day, when I sent you here to do what matters more than anything. And all things, is that But I've given and want to provide what all people need. Like it's the Cliffhanger question. This is the end of the book. We don't know what happened next with Jonah. We don't know if you march back home. We don't know if he used his story. Is a teachable moment for all the Israelites. We don't know if he repented, he confessed we don't know. We don't know if God left him there and Jonah against has died out in the desert because there was no shade and and that was the end, we just don't know. Because I think that's the point of The story ends with what God wants you to know. If God cares about your smallest want like he did for Jonah like providing shade if God cares. Cast, all your cares on him. He cares for you.
The one who cares? This will provide for your needs. Shouldn't God care about their greatest need? Shouldn't got care about your greatest need.
Like when you think about all the things that God promises when you think about all the things that God says when you think about what Jonah said about God, at the end of the day, what God is all about is being slow to anger, which he was for Jonah and you and me abounding in love, which he was for Jonah and he is for you and me, compassionate and gracious, which she was for Jonah and he is for you and for me and the Ninevites like that's who God is. He does not treat us as our sins deserve. Like when you get mad at God for forgetting things that you don't think you deserve. Deserve that God is not being good to you. And when your anger is over, the fact that God owes you something, remember that God owes you nothing. But God gives you everything.
Like in this world filled with troubles, God didn't just wipe Adam and Eve out and start over. Have you ever been mad at God for that like, hey God like those two people? It's my fault that they messed it up so bad. Like you never want God to have wipe them out and started over No one's going to admit it, I will.
But that won't be God. God, one of them saved.
He wants you saved. Like that of the end of the day is the Book of Jonah. He wanted to deal with the issue of Jonas hard. He wanted to have Jonah to understand who God is and when it has Jonah, get his heart in the right place with God, he wanted Jonah to understand that God is a God for all, not just some not just the Israelites but all that God gives us what we don't deserve. And in the end, you know, the things that we get mad at God for what God wanted Jonah to learn is God wants you and me to come to a knowledge of the truth. So that we can enjoy a place where there is no No pain and there is no sin. But there's a hundred percent Amazing Grace that we get to experience in full. Like all the things we get mad at God for is what he wants. You to never have to deal with sit in pain, which is only possible because of Grace, when you get mad at God's grace, you get mad at the one thing that will change the sin and the pain. We just may be the ultimate point of why the story ends there.
Push me, what helps you? And I deal with our anger issues when our anger Is directed at God.
Just remember what God wanted Jonah. Remember.
And that's Grace.
That's what Jesus said in John 3:16 God. So loved the world. Nineveh, Jonah Pastor Tim 922 Appleton Wisconsin, the globe in 2023 for God. So loved the world that he sent his one and only son, that whoever believes in him, will not perish. But have eternal life. God wants that for you. And for me, and for all that's what he's passionate about. That's what he came to do. That's what he gives to you and me. So, maybe just maybe what God wanted Jonah to learn and for you. And for me to learn is that in the woman's win, this world, that's filled with trouble, which Jesus predicted, he wants us to remember to take heart that he's overcome the world. That Grace has rescued us from all our sins. That Jesus one day will remove all the pain.
And there'll be no more sin around the streets of heaven, but only rejoicing with all the angels and the Saints.
In this world filled with troubles, we will wrestle with anger. Remember friends, angers a heart issue to contentment issue. And so when it rears its ugly head, Remember who God is gracious, compassionate? Abounding in love for you and for me, for Jonah, for Nineveh for all until that day, when eternity comes, and we're all there at Jesus' return. So, they're getting mad at God. Remember the amazing love of the grace of God.
