Rick Warren - What to Remember When Things Don't Go Your Way — Part One

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

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