Today I have a question for you. Have you ever felt like you were
the wrong person for the job, Like, what did you get yourself into
You didn't have the right experience or the right skill set. Well, I
know I have and you probably have too. This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope,
the audio broadcast ministry of Pastor Rick Warren. Okay, today we're going
to continue with the series the Manifestation of Your Life Mission. Rick is showing
us that no matter how big the thing is that God is calling us to
do, we don't have to run away from it. We can actually run
toward it. This is such a good message, and I hope you'll invite
a friend to listen along with you as we discover how to embrace God's calling
on our lives and how we can live according to the purpose and plan that
He has for us. And let's get right to Rick as we start with
part one of a message called what to Remember When Things don't go your way.
Today, we're ending a series we've been in for several weeks on the
Life of Jonah. We've been looking at your life Mission. I've said this
every week. You weren't put on this earth simply to live for yourself.
No, no, no, you were made for a much greater purpose than
you. You weren't put here to just make money, retire and die.
God has a plan and a purpose, and he actually has what's called a
life mission for your life. Only you can fulfill your life mission. If
you don't fulfill it, you just missed the whole purpose of your life.
So what we've been talking about is extremely important, and we've been looking at
the manifestation of your life mission. Now I told you there are three ways
you can learn about something like, for instance, your life mission. You
can learn by explanation. You can learn by example. You can learn by
experience. You don't have enough time in life to make all the mistakes yourself.
It's wise to learn from experience, but it's wiser to learn from the
experiences of others. Then you don't have to make those mistakes. You can
learn from people who are more successful. You can also learn from failures and
go I don't want to do that. In the Bible, there's this little
book called the Book of Joonah, only four chapters. Jonah does almost everything
wrong in his life mission, and what we're learning from this story are what
not to do with your life. It's in there as a warning saying,
don't do it this way and save you a lot of heartaches, save you
a lot of pain, save you a lot of frustration. But you were
made for a mission. Now, this guy, Jonah, he is a
rogue prophet. He is a reluctant prophet. He is a resistant prophet.
I told you earlier he was a bigot. He was racially prejudice. And
when God told him, I want you to go to the city of Nineveh,
which was the largest city in the world at that time, the capital
of Assyria, and I want you to proclaim a message to them. He
goes, I'm not going to do it, though, are my enemy.
They're politically different from me. I don't like those guys. I hate them.
I don't want you to bless them. I don't want you to use
them. I don't want you to forgive them. And so he runs the
opposite direction. Instead of going east to Tarsha's, I'm east to Nineveh.
He heads west to Tarsha's, a seaport on the coast of Spain. You
know, they have the big ship, a storm in the ocean. He's
thrown overboard. He's swallowed by this giant fish that the Bible says God had
prepared, uniquely prepared. He's there in that fish that he turns them around,
spits him out in the right direction. And we've been following his life
learning what not to do now so far, here's what we've learned. In
chapter one, up here on the screen, we saw Jonah rebelling and running
from God. He goes, God, I don't want to do your plan.
I want to do my plan. I don't want to go with your
mission for my life. I want to just kind of do what I want
to do. Chapter two, we see Jonah repenting and running back to God
and goes, Okay, I'll do it. Then last week we looked at
chapter three where he's restarting and he's running with God. It goes, okay,
I'm gonna do He has a bad attitude, but he's doing at least
doing what God tells him to do. Now, in this last chapter,
we're going to see Jonah regretting and resenting because God changes the plans and Jonah
doesn't like that. What we're going to look at today is quickly, I
want to review the mistakes that he made that we've seen up to this point,
point out a couple more mistakes that he made in this chapter, and
then look at what to remember when things don't go your way. Because you
figured out by now most of life doesn't go your way. Everything in the
world is broken because of sin. Economy's broken, the weather's broken, relationships
are broken, your body's broken. Nothing works perfectly on this planet. And
your plans don't work perfectly. A lot of times you make your plans and
what happens is the exact opposite. Jonah had his plans for what he wanted
God to do. God had his plans, and when God did his plans
instead of Jonahs, Jonah gets resentful and regretful. Now we're going to look
at what to remember when things don't go your way. But first I want
you to see, for so far, we've seen five mistakes that Jonah made.
You don't want to make these because these make your life miserable. Number
one, Jonah thought there on your outline. He thought he could ignore his
mission, so he runs from God. Now you can run from God the
rest of your life. But then what are you gonna do. You're gonna
run into God. You can run from God the rest of your life.
Then you can't run anymore, and you just wasted your life. Number two
Jonah was prejudice against people that God created in love. That's going to always
make you miserable. If you're prejudice, if you're a racist, you're bigot.
Number three Jonah cared more about his politics than people's salvation. God says,
I want to go save that city called Ninevah, and he goes,
no, they're the enemy. I don't want you to save them. He
cared more about his politics. By the way, anytime you make an allegiance
to your nation greater than your allegiance to God, there's a word for that.
It's called idolatry, and it breaks the first two of the ten commandments,
where God says you're not to have anything before me. I'm to be
number one in your life. Okay. Then he says Number four Jonah was
only interested in his nation, not the whole world. That's a mistake.
And number five Jonah reluctantly fulfilled his mission, but he does it with a
bad attitude. As we saw last week. He eventually goes to Nineveh and
instead of giving a message of love and forgiveness and God wants you to change
if you'll turn back to him. He walks in and goes, you guys
are going to die by not exactly positive popular message and not exactly expressing the
love of God. Now, in Jonah chapter four what would come to today,
we find two more mistake and both of them involve resentment resentment. Because
Jonah doesn't get his way, he gets resentful. Now, let me just
say here, resentment is the most worthless emotion in your life. Any time
you get resentful, you're gonna hurt yourself more than you hurt the person you're
resentful against. If I ask you to remember somebody who's hurt you, you
could probably pretty quickly bring up somebody in your mind who's hurt you, and
you've had resentment against them. You think by resenting them, you're holding them
accountable. But actually, when when you're resenting somebody, all you're doing is
make yourself miserable. They're not even thinking about you while you're thinking about them
all the time. There are people who hurt you a year ago, five
years ago, ten years ago in your life. You're still holding on to
that hurt that's dumb. They can't hurt you anymore. Unless you hold onto
the memory of it. That's called resentment. They're not even thinking about you
while you're stewing and spewing and go, I hate the fact that they did
that to me, And you're going over and over in your mind gets bigger
and bigger. They're out there cooking a steak on the barbecue, making homemade
ice cream, and playing golf. They're not even thinking about you. Who's
the miserable one you? Resentment never helps, it always hurts you. Gotta
let it go, You gotta let it go. Now. These are the
next two mistakes that Jonah makes. I don't want you because I care about
you, because I love you. I want your life to be happy.
I want your life to be successful. You got to get this resentment stuff
out of your life. No matter what people have done to you, they
can't hurt you anymore unless you hold on to it. The resentment now here.
Now. While resentment is is bad against anybody, the worst kind is
when you have resentment against God. And you may have never even thought about
this, but you have had times in your life. We all have where
we're resentful against God. God, why did you do that? Why didn't
you do this? Why did you let that happen? And you get resentful
against God? That causes all kinds of problems. Now here are the two
mistakes that Jonah may. I want you to write these down so you don't
make them okay in your life. Number one is resenting God's plan when it
doesn't fit my plan. That's what Jonah did, resenting God's plan for my
life when it doesn't fit my plan for my life. Have you ever done
that? Of course you have. You got mad at God when you had
a plan and your plan for graduation, for marriage, for that job,
for whatever didn't happen. Resentment is a deadly poison. It's like drinking arsenic
and hoping it kills your opponent, like aiming a shotgun at yourself and pulling
the trigger so you hit your enemy with a kick of the recoil. It's
always going to hurt you more than it hurts anybody else. But resentment against
God is especially bad. Now why was Jonah resentful? I'll tell you why.
Because he wanted his enemies, the city of Ninevah, to be destroyed.
God's going I want to forgive them, I want to warn them and
hope they'll turn back. To me, God, Jonah's gone. I don't
want you to forgive them, and so he doesn't want God to let him
off the hook. In Jonah Chapter three, verse ten, the last verse
the last chapter, and first verses of the next chapter, it says this
on the screen when God saw that the people of Nineveh had put a stop
to their evil ways, and they really were a pretty wicked city. They
were kind of like Nazis of that day. They were very, very brutal.
When Ninave had put a stop to their evil ways, he had mercy
on them and he canceled the destruction he had threatened. Now, this change
of plans upset Jonah and he became furious. So Jonah complained to the Lord
about it. Now, I remember I told you last week. When God
warns you about something, you know, if you don't change this, it's
gonna be They're gonna be problems, They're gonna be disciplined, will be punishment.
Whenever God warns you, that's a good sign because the warning means I
don't want to do it. I don't want to discipline you. I don't
want to publish. I'm just warning you. When God warns you, if
you walk off that cliff, you're gonna fall. That's that's for your good,
not for your bad. So a warning actually is God's grace. God.
God just wanted to punish you. He just punished you. He doesn't
warn you, he just does it. And so God says, I want
you to go to Nineveh and warn them that if they don't straighten up,
things are going to change. Well, that's a symptom that I want to
forgive them, and that's what God wanted to do. Well, Jonah doesn't
want that. When God warns, Jonah's hoping that he has destruction. So
he gets resentful. Because God decides, I'm going to forgive these guys because
they've turned back to me, so I'm going to forgive them. Jonah blows
a gasket. He gets upset, He gets resentful against God. Now,
how do you know? You? How do you know when you're resentful of
God? You're going to find five emotions in your life. Write these down.
These are signs that subconsciously you are resenting God right now. Number one
is frustration. Frustration in your life is a sign that you're resenting God.
The Bible says, this change of plans upset Jonah he got very frustrated.
He got very upset, he got ticked off. Now, this revival,
when God said I'm going to forgive him, it's good news for everybody except
Jonah. When God says I'm going to forgive the whole city, everybody's rejoicing
except one guy, Jonah. Why because he's the guy who doesn't want them.
He wants them to be destroyed. So he's frustrated. Second thing is
anger. It says Jonah became furious. That word there in the Bible literally
means he lost his temper. He's in a rage. He's livid. He
is indignant that God did not destroy the people who had hurt him. Why
didn't you destroy those people? And so he's he's not only frustrated, he's
angry. Number Three self pity. When you have self pity, often behind
it will be resentment. It says, he complained to the Lord and he
goes, oh poor me. Nobody likes me, everybody hates me. I'm
gonna go eat worms. And he has a pity party and he invites me
myself an eye. Have you ever done that, had a pity party for
yourself? Oftentimes there's resentment behind that frustration, anger, self pity. Now
in the next verse, it's as this. Now Jonah says, I ask
you, Lord, please kill me. Huh, please kill me, for
it's better for me to die than to live. Oh, this guy's way
off. Now, okay, this guy is seriously are you kidding me?
This is extreme resentment. God, just kill me. I'd rather be dead
than alive. Now here are the two other things, depression and suicidal depression.
It's better for me to die than live. That's severe depression and suicidal
Lord, just kill me. Okay, I don't want to live. My
plans didn't work out, so I don't want to live. Just you know,
take my life. Now, how rational is this? Okay, this
is extreme resentment. Okay, Now it's not rational because think of all the
things that God has done for Jonah so far in his life, all the
stuff he's survived because of miracles. He survives a storm at sea, he
survives being thrown overboard by those sailors that we looked at a couple weeks ago.
He survives being swallowed by a giant fish. All these things have happened
that he's still alive, and he's going I just want to die. I
just want to die now? Why is that? This is what happened when
hate fills your heart. Hate filling your heart will cause these emotions. Resentment
filling your heart will cause these emotions. And actually they actually come in order,
because it starts with frustration because things aren't going the way you want them
to do. Then it goes from frustration to anger. I'm ticked at God
because things aren't going the way I want to do. Then it goes from
there to self pity, and I start feeling poor me, poor me.
Then it moves from there to depression, and then it could move to I
may as well just die. It progresses. That's what happens when you hold
hate in your heart. I am begging you, as your pastor, I
am begging you, whoever you're holding hatred against, whoever you're holding hurt against,
whoever you're holding resentment against, let it go. Let it go,
because if you hold it in your heart, hatred in your heart produces and
resentment in your art produces frustration and anger and self pity and depression. And
I remember many many, many many years ago when Kay and I first got
married. The first year, about six months in our marriage, we were
not getting along in our marriage, and we were fighting like crazy and we
were like brand new newlyweds. Kay thought she is having a nervous breakdown.
I ended up in the hospital. I literally was in the hospital, and
I remember a psychiatrist came in. This is like forty five years ago.
Psychiatrist comes into me and he goes, so, what's your problem? I
said, well, I'm depressed. I'm depressing. So really, what are
you angry about? I said, oh, no, I'm not angry.
I'm just depressed because anger, depression is sometimes frozen anger when you swallow your
emotions your stomach. He's score. And I was so angry at Kay,
and I was swallowing it. I wasn't expressing or I was repressing it,
and it was causing depression in me. When you hold anger, when you
hold hatred, when you hold hurt, when you hold resentment in your heart,
you're not hurting the other person, You're just hurting yourself. You gotta
let it go. That's a mistake that Jonah made. I just want to
die. It always hurts you more. Now here's the second mistake that Jonah
made. First is resenting God's plan when it doesn't fit my plan. I
resent God because his plan doesn't fit my plan. The second resentment is resenting
God's mercy and goodness to other people. I mean, God is good to
people. I don't want him to be good too. Then I get upset.
When God is merciful and forgiving to people, I don't want him to
forgive. Then I get upset. And that's what happened to this guy,
Jonah. Jonah hates that God is forgiving people. He doesn't like that,
not only as political enemy. As I told you, he's racially prejudiced against
these people Jonah, Chapter four, verse two. It says this. Then
Jonah complained, Now, who's he complaining to you? To God? He
says, didn't I say he's talking to God? Didn't I say before I
left home that I knew you would do this, Lord, in other words,
forgive these people. That's why I ran away to Tarsius. You know,
he said, this is why I ran away from my life mission.
I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God. I know you're slow
to get angry. I know that you're filled with unfailing love. I knew
how easily you could cancel your plans for punishing these people. Now, Notice,
Jonah says, I ran from God, and I ran from my life
mission. I ran from what God had told me to do, because I
knew what a good God he is. He said, Notice the four things
that God knows about God. He says, I knew you're gracious and compassionate.
He says, I knew you're patient. In other words, you're slow
to get angry. God doesn't get ticked fast. He's patient, he's slow
to get angry. He says, I knew your love is unlimited, it's
everlasting, it's eternal. And he goes, I knew that you would rather
forgive people than punish them. And all this knowledge, what does it do
to Jonah? It depresses him, really, really, all these good things
about God and Jonah gets depressed. Why here's why. Because Jonah had a
problem that you and I have to. We want forgiveness for ourselves and we
want justice for everybody else. Thank you for listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope.
You know, I know that you would love to live a life of
significance. But have you ever wondered if you could make a contribution so unique
that no one else in all the world could do what you've accomplished. Well,
you need to stop wondering, because God created you to make a difference
in the world. He created you to fulfill a mission that only you can
accomplish. I know you may be thinking that God couldn't use you like that,
but you know what he can. And not only can he, but
he will. It really doesn't matter what you've done or what you've failed to
do. It doesn't matter how young or how old you are. It is
never too early or too late to start on the mission that God has planned
for you. And that's why I'm so excited to let you know about a
brand new Bible study from Pastor rig called Rising to God's Call a Journey through
Jonah. In this study, Rick is going to show you how God had
an incredible mission for Jonah and it went well beyond being swallowed by a big
fish. Jonah's story is really about second chances and redemption and the rescue of
an entire nation. And more importantly, it's the story of God, the
one who shows grace to everyone he created. You know, the story of
Jonah is really like a blueprint from God. It shows all of us how
He can use you to do significant things no matter where you are in life
right now, and just like Jonah, you're going to find that pursuing God's
mission for your life is the greatest adventure that you will ever go on.
And we're going to send you Pastor Rick's brand new Bible study Rising to God's
Call a journey through Jonah. To say thank you for your gift to Daily
Hope because it helps us share the life transforming Word of God with the world.
Just go to Pastorick dot cog or just text the word hope to eight
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We hope you'll join us next time when we look into God's Word for our
daily hope. This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and your generous financial support