CCC Livestream - The Gospel Shaped Family - Jonah 3:10-4:4
Live Worship Gathering: 8.2.2026
Preaching: Glenn Ballard
Text: Jonah 3:10-4:4
Primary Audience:
CIT: Jonah’s anger is a result of God’s control and compassion on his enemies and his own lack of control over the events
Proposition: Christians should understand that our anger stems from our desire for control and lack of trust in God
Purpose: I want this church to understand that if anger comes from desiring control, the right response is remembrance
Title: The Heart of Anger
Outline:
· Good morning church. If you have your Bible go ahead and begin looking for the little book of Jonah.
o I’ve been so encouraged by these past few messages about anxiety, confrontation, and grace as it has been so practical and so helpful to my own heart this summer. And I’m excited to get to broach another hot topic with you this morning as we continue our summer study on relationships, families, singleness, marriage, and community as gospel shaped families
· When I was in college I worked for a season at the old governors mansion in Milledgeville GA that is a property owned by the school as a museum but historically was the governors residence of GA in the years when Milledgeville was the capitol of the state
· And every year the governor would hold his annual Christmas party there and so all of us who worked in the gift shop or as tour guides needed to work that party as servers, helpers, whatever was needed as all these important guests came to the mansion
· And I’ll never forget the year that was the first and only time I have ever used a fire extinguisher because around the house on each of the window sills, there were these wreaths with candles and one of them burned down so low that the wreath caught fire. As you can imagine, this is a big deal in a historical mansion made primarily of wood and plaster stucco and so after one of our other workers found a fire extinguisher she tossed it to me and I pulled the pin, aimed, and got to spray that white foamy stuff all over the window sill and put the fire out
o And I want to start by telling you this story because in the heat of the moment I don’t recall many other details but what I do recall was something going through my mind that you hear all the time when it comes to having to use a fire extinguisher and that’s that you always need to aim for the base of the fire
o Because when fighting a fire you’re not so much trying to put out the flames, you’re trying to put out the fuel that the flames are coming from
o Flames are a clear sign that something is burning but they are not the thing that is burning itself. They simply prove that something is in fact, on fire
· As we continue on in our series this morning we’re going to continue from the heart of anxiety to looking at the heart of anger
o It’s a sad fact that anger finds itself in just about every relationship we have at different times and places and while there are many things that can be said to cause it, its heart, its fuel so to speak, is usually found in the same place no matter the situation
o And its also true that whether or not we consider ourselves someone who wrestles with or is especially prone to anger, we all have at different times and places dealt with it.
· Because much like a fire, anger can be compared to the flames. The clear representation that something is burning but the flames themselves not being the heart of the fire
· And I’m both very convicted and also excited to wrestle together with this particular topic this morning, because of all the sins I personally struggle with, it may surprise you to hear that anger is often right at the front
· And as it has been something I have grappled with often over the years, I’ve come to understand that our anger isn’t something that ever comes alone but rather is accompanied by many other emotions and states of mind and is also driven by something deeper than just circumstances that arouse it.
o Like a warning light on a dashboard, anger is a sign that something is not right and so we cannot solve it by simply resetting the light but have to get to the heart of the issue that the light is designed to indicate to us
o This morning we are going to look at the story in the book of Jonah in which we see God’s task for Jonah, we see Jonah’s anger, we see his angry outbursts, and when we take it all together we actually get a glimpse into the heart of anger
· Now Jonah is a book well known for a whale and a prophet who is running from God but what is less spoken of in this story is the sovereignty of God and his heart for all the people of the world
o While we often hear criticisms that the God of the Old Testament is vengeful and out to annihilate any people who aren’t Israelites, the truth is that the book of Jonah teaches us something of the heart God has for all the nations
o And while we cannot cover all the material that there is to mine from Jonah this morning, we are going to see something of man’s anger when it comes up against God’s sovereignty
· So to quickly summarize, the book of Jonah tells the story that God calls the prophet Jonah to travel to the city of Ninevah to proclaim his judgments against the evils of that city. Well instead, Jonah tries to run as far as possible from Ninevah which is in modern day Iraq and flees to a place called Tarshish across the Mediterranean
o Well then a big storm comes, the sailors try to find out why this has happened, they wake Jonah up, they cast lots to see whose fault it is and then when they find out its Jonah, they throw him overboard to make the storm stop and then he is swallowed by a big fish that spits him out on land after three days and he stops running and actually goes to Ninevah
· When he gets there he walks around the city proclaiming that in 40 days Ninevah will be overthrown and in response, the king of Ninevah makes a proclamation and all the people of the city put on sackcloth, fast, and begin calling out to God and that is where we pick up in the story this morning
· Jonah 3:10-4:4
· “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. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly,[a] and he was angry. 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.” 4 And the Lord said, “Do you do well to be angry?””
· Now in order to try and be fair to Jonah in this story, we do have to understand a bit of the history and significance of him being called to go and preach repentance to the city of Ninevah
o Ninevah was the capital of the Assyrian empire, the great enemy of Israel and actually the same empire that would wipe out the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 BC just a few decades after Jonah’s story. . .
o Israel has been paying tribute to Assyria for some time at the beginning of Jonah’s story and his people knew very well the power, the cruelty, and the ambitions of the Assyrians
o As a matter of fact, the Assyrians were notorious for their conquests and their mass tortures, horrible executions, forced relocations of peoples, and many other atrocities besides and so when Jonah was asked to go, his response to run away becomes a bit more understandable
· But as we take a closer look at Jonah’s story this morning, I want to submit to you that through his response to God assigning him this task, we see the heart of anger exposed through who is and isn’t ultimately in control.
· And as we follow that line of thinking we can actually see very clearly how our sinful nature is represented in our anger when situations go beyond our perceived control
o In his book the Heart of Anger author Christopher Ash says it well when he writes “The heart of anger is the desire to be God”
o In his rejection of God’s mercy towards Ninevah and his response, we see that Jonah unfortunately characterizes this very clearly for us this morning which should cause us all to stop and consider when we have felt that we should have control over all things according to our knowledge, our experience, or our preferences
· So our plan this morning is to examine 3 things from our text that lead to anger, and then 2 responses we must take in order to defuse our anger
· 3 Points on what leads to anger:
o So the first thing that leads to anger is the way things are
§ “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. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly,[a] and he was angry.”
§ Just as Jonah’s anger was a result of God’s relenting, so our anger often comes from being displeased with what is happening right in front of us
o Consider for just a moment how most of our anger has to do with things that just happen in a moment when our expectations were for a different result. Things that cause us to come face to face with our powerlessness
o And consider how it is often the unexpected events that expose our anger
§ We get cut off by someone driving recklessly
§ Maybe friends or family say or do something that doesn’t make us feel seen or loved
§ Maybe our children don’t listen and disobey the rule we have taught them many times not to break
o And now consider Jonah’s situation, where it is very clearly God himself in his sovereignty who relents of the disaster on Ninevah and we begin to see that our anger at the way things are can be boiled down at its core to anger towards God
o God didn’t do what Jonah wanted him to do. . . Which I think is something we can all relate to this morning because when we encounter things the way they are it causes anger to come forth if it violates some unspoken ideal
§ God is his sovereignty is in control and in our story this morning, Jonah doesn’t like the way things are because God’s the one in charge and he does what he pleases
§ The Bible makes this sovereignty very clear:
· Psalm 115:3 – “Our God is in the heavens, he does all that he pleases”
§ Yet how often is it that the way things are in a given moment or in a season of life is where our anger begins, and so one could argue it is anger directed at the one in charge, namely God
· Every little thing on a given day has gone wrong and its all piled up and ultimately the way things are becomes a reflection on God and his goodness which makes us angry because we so quickly begin to doubt his character as his plan unfolds in a way we didn’t expect
· Or in Jonah’s case, things unfold as he fears because he does know God’s character very well and that leads to our second point of what leads to anger:
o And that is the way we want things
o Look back with me at verse 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.”
· Now this is fascinating because there are two words in this verse that reveal Jonah’s great fear when it came to Ninevah
· It wasn’t that he was most afraid of the savage Assyrians and that he might die. It wasn’t that he was most afraid of going to a far away place to speak to people he’d never met. It wasn’t even that he was being sent to the very people who had oppressed and hurt his people
· It was God’s character and how it would lead to a result different than what he wanted!
o “I knew”. . . He speaks of his understanding of God’s character in the past tense and to his credit he knows his God so well that before he even left to go to Ninevah he knew that God sending him in the first place was an act of mercy and that it would result in more mercy
§ I love this quote from his book that heart of anger when Christopher Ash writes “We all create our kingdoms and expect to rule in them. And we all get angry when the exercise of our sovereignty is opposed.”
§ In Jonah’s kingdom, good and bad, right and wrong were clearly defined as us good and right, them bad and wrong. We get mercy, they get judgment. We are your people and get your blessings, they are outsiders and get your wrath
§ Church we have to be aware that this desire for how we want all things our own way is present in all of our hearts and it is a powerful and sinful desire.
§ To try and exercise control over everything around us is to fall into the same trap that brought sin into our world. . .
§ Genesis 3:5 – “You will be like God. . . ”
· And that desire for control leads us all to have an ideal in our head for any given moment or scenario or space we may occupy.
§ Now funny enough we usually don’t think we have an ideal until something unexpected happens that we don’t like and then we get upset because our unspoken ideal was violated
· We feel we have a right to certain things and that we have earned that right because we have worked hard to create spaces where certain things happen a certain way
· A child goes from playing or reading very well on their own to breaking rules or possibly an item in your house
· A meeting you have worked hard and prepared for goes completely sideways
· A squirrel falls through your living room ceiling after chewing holes in your pipes
o And each of these situations break the illusion of our absolute control and show us that we cannot make things the way we want them
· We cannot control the perception of others so if we are criticized or spoken of in a negative light we feel shame and respond in anger
· We cannot control the actions of those we love and in our desire for their good we try to direct their every move but when they do something unwise we feel fear for them and respond in anger
· We cannot absolutely control the circumstances we are in or what those circumstances will lead to and so we lash out and respond in anger
o Squirrels in the ceiling do not belong in Glenn’s kingdom and this comedy of errors only serves to lay bare the roots of my own anger being found in a lack of control. . .
o I want things a certain way and they aren’t that way
· Which leads us to the third thing that leads to anger:
o Our attempts to establish control
o Our immediate response to those things outside of our control is lashing out in an effort to regain control that we never had in the first place
§ Funny enough when we pursue this course of action, we are attempting to become God and will be frustrated again and again when we cannot exert control over everything around us
§ Because we cannot control everything around us, the very attempt will lead to more anger as we realize over and over again that we can’t control everything
§ But that doesn’t stop Jonah from trying. . . Look at verse 3
o “Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.””
o Jonah sees the way things are, knows they aren’t the way he wants them, and in his attempts to somehow regain a measure of control over the situation asks God to take his life
§ Friends, when we approach God in anger, and make the measure of his love and goodness towards us a matter of his fulfilling our will, we aren’t approaching him honestly but in an attempt to take his place
§ When we approach him like that we seek to bend him to our will instead of allowing ourselves to be conformed to his
o And what else becomes apparent from our text is that when we attempt to regain control over a situation while we are angry, it tends to go towards extremes. Then when those extremes aren’t met it just leads to more anger
o And before we are tempted to think of this as not applying to our lives because we have never prayed the same words as Jonah, think of how often we have sought to take matters into our own hands to gain our desired result
o My own attempts always remind me of starting weight lifting senior year – was an attempt to take control and gain respect. Didn’t work and left me even more angry than I was before
§ My attempts to do things my way not only failed to establish any control but left me more broken and angry than I was before
· So what do we do with this? How do we respond to anger that arises from the way things are, the way we want things, and our attempts to establish control over situations?
· 2 responses we must take towards our anger:
· Take a moment and slow down and realize what’s happening. The first step for some may be understanding that you are angry
o Anger can come with so many other things that sometimes it takes time to realize its there at all: Fear, humiliation, shame, guilt, depression, sadness, and so much more can come and mask the anger and make us have to be intentional to name it as being there
o Anger can also look different in different people and in different situations. It can be hot and explosive, it can be slow and simmering, or it can be frustrated and undefined
· In each case, we have to begin with ourselves and our own hearts before immediately naming and blaming the multitude of outside factors that have driven us to anger
· And this has to come from our own awareness and desire to deal with our anger ourselves because as we all know someone else pointing it out to us and giving that oh so helpful command to “calm down” almost always has the opposite effect.
o But when we take a moment to slow down, to allow the heat to die down and regain our composure even just a little, we can see more clearly
o The beauty of the relationship God has with us is that he meets us in his gentle mercy time and again by helping us to see our incomplete understanding and asking us to respond the same way he challenged Jonah with his question in chapter 4 verse 4: “Do you do well to be angry?”
§ Like a parent gently correcting a child, God calls Jonah to truly consider why he’s angry and if he has a good reason. Stop, take a breath, and think for a moment. . .
o When we deal with ourselves we take a moment to consider that question: Do we do well to be angry about whatever we’re angry about?
o Or in other words, is anger the appropriate response in this situation that demonstrates something of God’s priorities and his concerns and his lordship in our lives and not just our convenience or desires?
§ And that’s not to say that we cannot be real and raw with the Lord or even with each other as we deal with the very real things in our lives that lead us to be angry. We must always be honest with God and part of dealing well with ourselves can be in the crying out to him in the moment when the anger feels overwhelming!
· So we must understand our own desires and inclinations towards wanting absolute control, to understand the heart of anger, in order to temper that anger
· If the fuel of our anger is our desire for Godlike control then understanding that helps us turn away from acting out sinfully when we feel that anger
o We can cool and douse the flames by addressing the fuel
· But it doesn’t mean that we should never act on our anger! Rather anger is a great opportunity to invoke God! But only ever to invoke God by how he has dealt with us. . .
§ There are things we should be angry about! But we always have to make the measure of our anger a reflection of God’s own character and heart about how things should be and so when there are things that grieve the heart of God we allow anger to drive us back to him and pray that his kingdom would come and his will be done that one day these hurts and injustices would be no more
§ But we never try to take the outcome into our own hands even when we are right to be angry. There are certainly times when we can intervene in order to protect and build up and shield others from harm but not to cast final judgment and not to take control for ourselves
· This was Jonah’s error because what we read in the closing chapter of Jonah’s story is that it was God’s mercy that made him angry. So he doesn’t have a good reason to be angry other than his desire for judgment on those he believes should be judged. He is consumed with anger that leads to very faulty reasoning
· But God shows him his folly by causing a plant to come up and shade him one day and a worm to eat it the next and once again Jonah is so angry he asks God to die and that’s when he is challenged by God again
· Look with me at Jonah 4:9-11
· “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. 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?”
o When we deal well with ourselves, asking ourselves if what we are angry about aligns with God’s heart and his character as we see revealed in the gospel, then we shouldn’t be foolish as Jonah was to state that he did well to be so angry he could die about something so insignificant as a plant
§ But deeper still, to be angry at God’s mercy towards a city with 120,000 souls. . . He showed in his anger that he desired control rather than resting in God’s control
§ He doesn’t take the time to reflect on his own response but rather sits and fantasizes about the outcome he wants, namely the destruction of the whole city of Ninevah
o The very thing he was angry at to begin with, namely God’s merciful nature, is actually exactly what we ourselves need in our anger
· So second, we Remember God
o The great temptation in anger is to question why things happen the way they do. And it’s the same for big things and little things. If it were up to us, none of these minor inconveniences nor major hurts and injustices would happen at all
§ And we feel this way because in our limited knowledge, experience, and understanding, they have no place or helpful part to play in the story we would write for ourselves
o But when we are honest, most of the things that happen to us in daily life that we tend to get angry about are things that inconvenience us and are unwelcome reminders that we are not masters of our own world
o Yet this is God’s mercy to us as we are reminded that he is in control and that he is good and desires our good!
§ If the heart of our anger lies in our lack on control, then the cure for the heart of anger comes down to whether or not we trust God and his control and good sovereignty over all things.
§ Now, the knowledge that God is good and in control may not help you to say hallelujah the moment you stub your toe on the coffee table. . . but it will allow you to not stay angry and harbor bitterness against your furniture
· How much more so when we remember Gods goodness towards us and it allows us to move on from anger and not stray into the danger of harboring bitterness towards others made in his image?
o Because in remembering God’s goodness, we are ultimately reminded of the gospel and the gospel makes room for both God’s kindness and his anger all in one
§ Isn’t it interesting that the single most unjust and unfair event in history is the means by which he chooses to save us?
§ By sending his son to die for our sins in our place, Gods plan uses the very thing that should anger all of creation in its injustice to exhaust his wrath on our sin
· But instead of you and me facing his perfect anger that we deserved, he poured it all out on his son. . .
· Church we cannot afford to forget that even in God’s anger there is goodness at work at the same time as all of God’s attributes are present at once. The mystery and majesty of his ways are such that even in anger, his love, his justice, his grace, his mercy, are all still present
· Thank God that he is sovereign and it is not our anger that dictates or establishes the way things should be
o But I also don’t want anyone walking away this morning thinking God is an inherently angry God. God’s heart and desire is for all that is good and right and holy and life giving, so his anger is meant to instruct us in those things for our good
§ By comparison, our anger is petty and selfish as we rage against those things that inconvenience us or that we think we can handle with more complete justice than God can
o Only by remembering God, remembering his complete and total goodness, his sovereignty, his anger, and his promises to make all things right can we put our own anger into proper perspective and allow it to be given to God’s far better judgments, timing, and justice
· Now I realize there are probably those among us here this morning who have wrestled anger for many years as I myself have, and probably those who are angry about something going on in their lives right now.
· I realize as someone who continues to wrestle with anger that hearing a message about how our anger is ultimately rooted in our desire for control and that the solution is as simple as remembering and trusting God can feel unsatisfying
o But the truth is that just like fuel for a fire, when faced with the prospect that we cannot control much, we remember that the one who is in control is perfect and good and righteous in a way we cannot be and so we address the heart of anger by delighting in Gods good and perfect rule
o This isn’t a quick remedy to each and every thing that tempts us to anger or a silver bullet to avoid it ever happening again. Rather it is a discipline of addressing our anger when it arises so that much like firefighters, we can quickly and effectively respond to put out anger that can otherwise burn unchecked
· Now, none of us will ever have perfect mastery or control over our anger until Christ comes again and all sin and sinfulness is dealt with once and for all so until then we continue to labor against anger in the hope of that final victory that Christ has already won.
o If and when anger gets the better of us and knocks us down, we run back to Christ and his grace and forgiveness in the gospel and we do not stop taking our anger captive to Christ.
o If you are here this morning and perhaps you don’t know that hope, you don’t know the grace of Christ, or brother or sister you feel overwhelmed and defeated by your anger, please don’t leave this morning without talking and praying together with someone
§ I would love the chance to speak or meet with anyone here who wrestles with anger as I also know that sin and struggle well or you can go talk with pastor Dennis over at the couches or with someone around you.
§ But don’t leave here thinking that your anger is always going to master you or that it will be something you never deal with. Let Christ deal with you as he always will, gently and tenderly to turn from your anger and to rest in him
,