But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.
2 And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.
3 Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.
4 Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry?
5 So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city.
And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd.
7 But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered.
8 And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live.
9 And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death.
10 Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:
11 And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?
In case you missed last week’s recording, “The Sin of Cynicism-Part 1”, you can find that here. Today’s recording is Episode 26-The Sin of Cynicism-Part 2.
The Sin of Cynicism-Part 2 Outline
Reflection on Part 1
Dissection of The Older Brother
Jonah’s Rights
Our Rights
Solution
Closing
Podcast Transcript
Welcome to Healing Our Brokenness Part 2. Today’s recording is episode 26: The Sin of Cynicism-Part 2. Just as a quick recap from Part 1, we discussed the fact that Cynicism has several factors that lead up to its brokenness as a state of mind:
Reflection on Part 1
Those factors
are:
You have experienced a lot of issues with betrayal.
There are historical patterns of things not working out in your
favor, or working out in a way that is undesirable to you.
You get to the point of seeing too much and hearing too much to
think that things will be different.
Most of the people that you trusted let you down.
The few times that you thought things would turn out good, they
turned out bad, and you lost faith in believing that things could be different.
In the case of the two stories that we are
going to look at today, the two biblical characters carried out the sin of
cynicism because of two main reasons:
The historical pattern of character of the authority figures.
The lack of legalism that existed for these authority figures.
The two men that we are going to dissect is Jonah
and the older brother of the prodigal son.
Their reasons for cynicism contradict the normal factors. Cynicism set in with both of these men because of the recognition of the good qualities of the father and God.
Dissection of The Older Brother
Let’s explore the story of the prodigal son first.
The dad was gracious, merciful, slow to anger, kind, forgiving,
accepting, non-judgmental, long-suffering, and compassionate.
After
the prodigal son returned home penniless, hungry, and exhausted from wild
living, the father could have greeted him with judgment, coldness, and
distance. Instead he accepted his son, welcomed
him with a grateful heart that he was safe and sound, and embraced him for who
he was.
The
fact that he ran to meet him to diffuse being shamed by the community was a
bonus. It showed the son that he was
going to be welcomed. There is nothing
worse than messing up big time, and not knowing what other Christians are going
to say as you reenter the house of God or run into them while you are in
public.
Luke 15 tells us:
But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had
compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.
And
the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight,
and am no more worthy to be called thy son.
22 But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe,
and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet:
23 And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and
be merry:
24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is
found. And they began to be merry.
The father knew that hitting rock bottom was enough of a consequence for the younger son. He didn’t need to enforce further punishment. He also possessed enough self-acceptance that he didn’t worry about being embarrassed in regard to the reaction of the community.
Oh Self-Pity
The
older son dwelled on his sin of cynicism that is evidenced through dialog that
is filled with scornfulness, bitterness, and resentment. He felt that he had been failed. He didn’t focus on his younger brother’s
condition of going from “lost to foundâ€.
Along with his cynicism, he was filled with self-pity and envy: Luke
15: 28-31 reads: “28 And he was angry, and
would not go in: therefore came his father out, and intreated him.
29 And he answering said to
his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any
time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make
merry with my friends:
30 But as soon as this thy
son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for
him the fatted calf.
31 And he said unto him, Son,
thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine.
32 It was meet that we should
make merry and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and
was lost, and is found.
The father tried to get the older son to go
in twice. We are left wondering what
eventually happened. Did he stay outside
and continue to sulk? One thing this
clear about the brother’s dialog is that not only is he resentful, but he is
filled with broken thinking. Two words
suggest broken thinking when resentment is present: “always and neverâ€.
Our dialog goes something like this:
“I always have to clean the house.â€
“She always gets to do something special.â€
“I never have the opportunity to do anything.â€
Nine times out of ten, these statements aren’t
true. If they are true, there is some type
of dynamic that has been setup that needs to change. Or, perhaps, the financial situation has
changed that allows you to do more for the younger child than you were able to
do for the older child. Whatever the
case may be, broken thinking is present.
First-born children tend to be
rule-followers. With that thought in
mind, the older son definitely felt that he was cheated since he was the “rule-followerâ€. However, one thing about rule followers is
that they can get caught up in being legalistic because they follow the
rules. God is more concerned about our
hearts than checking off boxes to say that we did something.
Let’s explore the story of Jonah.
Jonah was told to go to Nineveh to warn them about
their sin and God’s judgment for their sin if they continued going in the
direction that they were going.
Jonah decided that he knew best,
and so, he skipped out on the trip altogether, and took a boat ride to a
different part of town. God had a fish
to swallow Jonah. And Jonah prayed
inside of the fish for God’s mercy and grace, and the fish released Jonah.
Let’s discuss the character of the authority figure in Jonah’s story.
In
Jonah’s story, this figure is God. Not surprisingly,
the dad in our first story is actually a representation of God.
What
are the characteristics of God that Jonah was familiar with?
God was gracious, merciful, slow to anger, kind, forgiving,
accepting, non-judgmental, long-suffering, and compassionate.
In Jonah’s story, Jonah was bitter, resentful, and cynical because
God proved that his heart was all of those characteristics that were just
mentioned. It was okay for God to have
all these attributes when it came to saving him. However, it wasn’t okay for him to possess
them when it came to saving the Ninevites.
God gave Jonah a chance to get it right. He sent him to Nineveh a second time:
Jonah 3 King James Version
(KJV)
3 And the
word of the Lord came
unto Jonah the second time, saying,
2 Arise, go
unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid
thee.
3 So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the
word of theLord. Now Nineveh was
an exceeding great city of three days’ journey.
4 And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
Part 2
5 So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast,
and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.
6 For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from
his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and
sat in ashes.
7 And he caused it to be
proclaimed and published through
Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor
beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water:
8 But let
man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let
them turn everyone from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their
hands.
9 Who can
tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we
perish not?
The
Ninevites didn’t have to suffer consequences because they repented right
away:
Jonah
4: 10 says:
10 And God
saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the
evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.
Like the older brother in the prodigal son story, Jonah was so
angry that he didn’t know what to do with himself. God tried reasoning with him. Unfortunately, Jonah wasn’t haven’t it.
His cynicism showed up in verses 1-2, when he basically said, “See,
this is why I didn’t do what you told me.
I know this is how you would respond.â€
Here are his exact words: “But it displeased
Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.
2 And he
prayed unto the Lord, and
said, I pray thee, O Lord,
was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before
unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to
anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.
God told Jonah that the people were lost, just as the father tried to help his older son to understand about the prodigal:
“7 But
God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd
that it withered.
8 And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God
prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he
fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die
than to live.
9 And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for
the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death.
10 Then said the Lord,
Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither
madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:
11 And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?
Jonah and His Rights
Jonah pouted outside of the city underneath the tree just as the
older brother pouted outside of the party celebration that was going on inside
for the prodigal son. Both men felt that
they were right. Both authority figures
tried reasoning with them twice. Both
were caught up in anger, bitterness, resentment, and cynicism. And both missed out on blessings because of
it. But why? They ignored the sovereignty of God. We have all been in both of their shoes. WE know best.
WE know what justice should look like.
WE can play God and have mercy and grace poured out on us, and others
should not. When we don’t adhere to God’s
plans, his timing, and his will, we trade whole faith for broken pieces of bitterness,
resentment, and cynicism every time.
When cynicism becomes our brokenness, it becomes our idol, and we began to scorn God directly and indirectly because of our trials and other peoples’ success. This is how Satan works. If he can get us to lose trust in our faith due to our trials, others’ brokenness, and the hurt and pain of “church hurtâ€. Then, he has got us.
Solutions
So, the question is, how do we get out of this sin. Prayer.
Lots of it. Cynicism is spiritual
like all other sin. Getting grounded in
our identity. Getting rid of our broken
thinking. Changed thinking equals
changed talking and changed talking equals changed behavior. Accept that God is sovereign. Pray and ask God to help you to be able to trust
again, knowing that we can’t live in this world without it. It takes time to heal, but it is
possible. Trust God’s sovereignty and
plans for our lives.
I hope that you have enjoyed today’s episode. Thank you for listening, and if today’s episode
has impressed upon your heart, share it with a friend or coworker.
Are you tired of making excuses for everything that you did or didn’t do? How about hearing excuses from your kids when they didn’t follow through with their chores, or something you specifically told them to get done? In the beginning, it doesn’t seem so bad, but after a while, like anything else, excuses can get played out. Even with God.
Like the Israelites, we find ourselves in a vicious cycle. We end up begging God for mercy. saying that we’ll do better, and then going right back to continue the same sin over again. We end up cheapening grace until God steps in and causes a wake-up call! Listen to the podcast for this week to find out what happened to me when I ran out of excuses. Last week’s podcast episode can be found here.
3 And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying,
2 Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.
3 So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey.
4 And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
5 So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.
6 For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
7 And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water:
8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.
9 Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?
10 And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.
Part Two
4 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.
2 And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.
3 Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.
4 Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry?
5 So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city.
6 And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd.
7 But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered.
8 And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live.
9 And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death.
10 Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:
11 And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?King James Version (KJV)
Podcast Transcript
Welcome to the Valley of Grace Healing our Brokenness Podcast. And this morning, we are recording episode number 17 No Excuses.
We make
excuses for everything. We secretly wish
that we could do things as well as other people. For some of these things, we have the
resources and materials to do them. We
won’t put them on our calendars. And
when we do, we keep putting them off until the next day. I’ll get to it tomorrow. I’ll get to it on the weekend. The weekend turns into next week, then next
month, then next year, and then 5 years later we are still wishing that we could’ve
developed our skills in certain areas. We
trade our desires for time scrolling social media excessively or having Netflix
or cable tv marathons.
Here’s
another one: As soon as the kids are in
kindergarten, I will practice better self-care.
Instead of doing this, we become even more worn down from playdate
overload. Then, once the kids get into
middle school, I will get involved in small groups instead of isolating myself. Instead of getting connected, we become even
more isolated because we are running kids around 5 days a week for
extracurricular activities. A lot of
times our excuses is that we are tired.
And a lot of times this is the truth.
However, we miraculously find a way to get everything else done.
Here’s
another one:
As soon as
football season is over, we’ll start eating together as a family, having family
night, and the list goes on and on. What
happens is that the older our kids get, the more intentionality has to take
place, but also, the harder it is to plan because of conflicting schedules,
part-time jobs, girlfriends and boyfriends, and their desire to do more with
their friends than with their parents.
Before you
know it, we look up, and that time is gone.
Our children are young adults, and we are unable to get that time back.
Today, we
are going to look at one individual who made excuses in the bible. His name is Jonah. He was told to go to Nineveh to warn the
people of their sins and God’s judgment if they didn’t repent. Instead of going, he headed to Tarshish and God
had it where he was given a belly of the fish detour for disobeying his
command. Jonah felt justified in his
disobedience? Why? His excuse was that he knew that God would
forgive the people of Nineveh. Let’s
listen to the conversation that takes place between God and Jonah:
Jonah 3:10-4:5
“And God saw
their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the
evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.
4 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he
was very angry.
2 And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in
my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a
gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest
thee of the evil.
3 Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for
it is better for me to die than to live.
4 Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry?
5 So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the
east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the
shadow, till he might see what would become of the city.
We would
rather make excuses for disobedience to God’s instructions when we have our own
opinions of what God’s end decision will be.
When I was
at my last residence, it got to the point that I knew that I wasn’t receiving
the correct amount of child and maintenance support money. I didn’t want the stress of going back to
court. I didn’t want the additional
trauma either. However, I struggled,
playing the Robbing Peter to pay Paul game, trying to keep up with paying
utilities and rent, and scrambling to buy food.
As circumstances would have it, (God) I got backed into a corner where I
had to go to take him back to court as my kids and I were facing eviction.
The process
lasted three painful years, and unfortunately, more lies than before erupted in
regard to income. Everything that he was
doing was projected on to me. Before
leaving the courtroom, I almost ended up unfairly with a humongous amount of
money to pay him. The whole scene was
one that was out of a crazy Lifetime movie, except it was my life.
When I got
home after court, the anger erupted, I said to myself, so basically three whole
years for this end result? Really!!!
However, the
Holy Spirit had already spoken to me several months before the last court date
and told me, “Even if you never see a penny of that money, it was never about
the money to begin with. It was about
accountability and God wanting you to fight for what was rightfully
yours.â€
God knew the
only way that I would stand up for myself was to force me into a series of
events that gave me no choice.
And so the question that I leave with you tonight as food for thought is this: What excuse are you making that could be keeping you straddling the fence of disobedience to God?
Thank you for listening to Healing our Brokenness and have a wonderful rest of your night!
Call to Action
If you are ready to stop making excuses when it comes to living in survival mode, and dysfunctional patterns of behavior and coping mechanisms, check out my new online Teachable course. Remember: Healing, growth, and maturity is not a drive-thru service, it’s something that can take a lifetime. However, what are our choices: revolving door of stagnancy or thriving and freedom. YOU DECIDE! Click here for more information!
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