Joy or Judgment

We are continuing a 6-week sermon series on The Book of Jonah by Eric Mason on RightNow Media. Jonah is one of the twelve minor prophets. The book is small in size but it is power-packed to impact your life.

Read Jonah 4: 1-4.

1. Why is Jonah so bitter and angry in today’s passage? Is his bitterness and anger legitimate?

2. Have you ever been bitter and angry when you thought someone didn’t receive the punishment they deserved? Why did that make you feel that way?

3. Eric Mason says, “Bitterness corrodes our theology.” Pastor Mick took it one step further and said, “Bitterness corrodes our souls.” Do you agree with these quotes? Why/why not? What is it about bitterness that is so corrosive?

4. Jonah reveals in verse 2 the real reason he initially ran and hid from God. What is the reason? Does Jonah’s reason make sense? Why/why not?

5. How does Jonah describe God in today’s passage? How has Jonah benefited from these attributes of God? How did the Ninevites benefit? How have you benefited?

6. Are there situations in which anger is an acceptable response? If so, give some examples. How should such anger be expressed?

7. Pastor Mick picks up on how the original Hebrew describes God’s initial anger toward Nineveh and Jonah’s anger toward God as “burning.” What does it mean for anger to “burn” inside of you? What is the impact of that kind of “burning”?

8. Read Ephesians 4: 26-27. What does this tell us about anger and how we need to handle it? How can you put this advice into practice in your own life?

Prayer For the Week:
Gracious and loving God, thank you for the grace, mercy and forgiveness you offer to each of us, in spite of all of our sin. Help us, Lord, to be gracious, merciful and forgiving to those who wrong us and harm us. Help us to have appropriate responses to things that anger us. Help us to fight for justice without becoming bitter when things don’t go the way we desire. Through the power of your Holy Spirit, cleanse our hearts of corrosive bitterness and don’t allow anger to burn within us. Help us lay the things that threaten to burn within us at the foot of the cross, so that we never give the devil a foothold. We confess that we cannot do any of this on our own. We need you, O Lord. So we pray all of this in the strong name of Jesus, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, One God, now and forever. Amen.