Blessed and Bitter | Toxic Traits Part. 3 | Dr. Dharius Daniels

change the lecture and join change track. Jonah chapter 4 verse 1 through 3 says but to Jonah this seemed very wrong and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord and said isn't this what I said Lord when I when I was still at home. This is what I tried to forestall by fleeing the tautious. I knew that you are gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love a God who relents from sinning calamity. Now Lord take away my life but it is better for me to die than to live. I want to stop the reading of scripture here. One of the things that I teach and I don't do a lot of it unfortunately anymore but when it's to teach speakers a bit preachers particularly the text determines the way you should teach it. You don't make the scriptures a slave to your style. You submit your style to the scripture. So there are some scriptures, there are some texts that give room for more demonstrative and inspirational approaches and then there are other scriptures that require much more reflection and conversation. This is one of those things where we're gonna have to think together this morning and change churches of church for people who don't want to leave their brain in the car when they pull in the parking lot. Y'all aren't talking to me today and so I just want to lay that before you because I need to walk you through this today and I don't want us to get so caught up emotionally maybe next week but I don't want us to get caught up so emotionally that we miss the spiritual surgery that I think God wants to do in this spiritual family through this message. I want to talk from this subject today blessed and bitter. I want to leap into this lesson today by sharing a series of statements that are inspired by my reading of Jonah's story. You are not always responsible for your wounds but you are always responsible for your recovery. You may not have caused the injury but you are responsible for dealing with the infection and someone else can give you a temporary scar but only you can turn it into a lifetime subscription. I am simply suggesting family that God listen to me, has given you and I listen to me, response ability. God has given us ability to respond. He has given humans a unique kind of agency. We call it freewheel that we experience impulses but we are

different from the rest of God's creation because we don't have to be governed by impulses. Are you hearing what I'm saying? We have the ability to be impacted and in the midst of being impacted by something we have the agency to choose how we will respond. And this is incredibly important family as we're having this conversation regarding toxic traits because one of the axioms that we've anchored ourselves in in this series of sermons is that there are some traits in me that only come out of me when something happens to me. That we have a twin that only turns up when you and I are triggered and I am saying that God has given us the kind of agency and ability that when that twin peaks his or her head outside of the room we got the ability to close the door and say get back in there. And your ability to get up and to go up and to grow up is going to be tied and tethered to your willingness to tell your twin get back in there. Did you hear what I just said? That you and I will always have experiences where that twin is triggered but we determine whether or not the twin gets to come out of the room and how long you let that twin state and when you understand boy I need to teach this or if I had time I teach this when you understand the biblical concept of spiritual authority you realize that even this concept of dominion that God gave humans was never over other humans it was over you. It means that you and I have the authority to tell the twin get back in the room. in that room, you can tell the immature expression of you, your twin, get back in this room. Am I making sense? If not, you and I are always at the mercy of our triggers. It means we have surrendered our agency over to our impulses. So the question then that the Christian needs to ask if a question is serious about following Paul's instruction to live a life of self-examination, the question that the Christian must ask that is passionate about being perfected in the things of God. The question that the Christian needs to ask that is obsessed with the evolution into Christ's likeness, the question that the Christian needs to ask that is tired of first way and tired of second way and chasing third way is not just who am I in Christ.

The question this Christian needs to ask is who am I in crisis? Not who am I in Christ positionally, but who am I in crisis experientially? Who am I when I'm afraid? When I'm angry? When I'm attacked? When I'm abandoned? When I'm agitated? When I'm irritated? When I'm frustrated? When I'm intoxicated? When I'm exhausted? When I'm in control? When I'm not in control? Who am I not just in Christ but in crisis? Just a context in which my twin likes to show up. And so what we're doing is we're using biblical characters in the Old Testament as teaching tools to help expose and address what we're calling toxic traits. And in week one, we use the biblical character named Rebecca. And Rebecca begged us to ask the question, what comes out of me when I can't have my way? Do I allow my frustration to push me into manipulation? This is a quintessential question for the Christian who loves control because if I allow my frustration to push me into manipulation, then there'll be a mutation of my manipulation into something the Bible calls witchcraft. Now let me grab this thing, let me grab this because here's what happens, particularly for those of us in the Pentecostal community, there are terms that were thrown around frequently that are rarely explained biblically. So when I say witchcraft, very often people think of the occult and they think of a woman, they relegate it to a gender, and this is not relegated to a gender. But they think of the occult and the involvement of an individual with manipulative other spiritual

forces. Even though that may not be incorrect, but it is incomplete because witchcraft biblically is connected to rebellion. Samuel 15, come on, rebellion is likened unto the sin of witchcraft, am I right about it? So it is not just the misuse of spiritual power, it is the misuse of your own. Are you hearing me? Yeah, it is seen and demonstrated, I don't even know why I'm on this and this service, but it is seen and displayed in the life of a biblical character in the Old Testament named Jezebel. Now I don't even know why, I don't even know why, when people think of Jezebel, I don't know where people got Jezebel in seduction. I don't know how you actually read the Bible and came to the conclusion that Jezebel is about seducing. When you read the Bible she wasn't trying to seduce the prophet, she was trying to control and manipulate. So what you saw it, what you call it, what you call it determines how you fight it. So you can call it a habit, you fight it one way. You call it a stronghold, you fight it another. And this is why, come on here, and this is why the devil gets involved in language because he wants to use this benign, unoffensive language to get you to reduce the intensity of what you're dealing with. Well sometimes you got to call that thing like it is, this a devil, this a devil. was manipulative. Oh, she's..." So talk to the show's up. Who am I when I can't get my way? Last week, we used Abraham as a teacher too, and Abraham begged us to ask another question. Is who am I when I am afraid? And a man of faith became a man of falsehood. A man of faith became a man of foolishness. But on today, we're not talking about Rebecca. I needed a Baptist church right there. That's called it. That's a pregnant pause. When I pause, you fill in the gap right there. Amen. We don't need to leave that in second way. That come the third way. Yeah, we enthusiastic about receiving God's word. Come on in here. Yeah, we enthusiastic about truth. Teaching me so I can be set free. I don't come to church to get a poem in a nursery rhyme.

I'm fighting too much out here for you to play with me, pass up, open that book and teach me. We're not talking about Rebecca. Today, we're not talking about Abraham. Today, we're talking about Jonah. And Jonah begs us to ask this question. Who am I when those who wounded me are winning? Who am I when I'm hanging on by a thread and they have in the time of their life? That's what this book, that's what this story, that's what this narrative, it's Taylor to teach us on today. Jonah is one of the most interesting books, in my opinion, in the Old Testament. It's situated in a section of the Bible called minor prophets. It doesn't mean minor because their impact is minor. It means minor because the span or the scope of writing about their prophetic ministry is not as large. So it's smaller books of the Bible. So you'll see Isaiah is vast and Ezekiel is vast and Daniel is vast. But then you'll see Zachariah and Zephaniah and Micah and Jonah, you'll see shorter. Okay, now he is unique not just in that he's considered, his writings are considered, minor prophet writings. It's unique in the sense that the content contained in the book of Jonah isn't about what Jonah said. You don't actually see any of his prophecies. Am I right about it? Yeah, when you read Jonah, we don't see what he said. The whole book is about what he did. Because for some people, God's going to use your sayings. But for other people, God's going to use your story. Did you hear what I just said? That some people, your testimony is not going to come from you holding a mic. For some of you, your testimony is going to be the mirror you are of what is possible for others when you publicly display what God did with you. That sometimes your purpose isn't just tied to your performance. Sometimes your purpose is tied to the picture that you are a possibility for others. Daniel had a lot of prophecy, didn't he? His picture is even if you go in a hostile environment that's like the din of lions, God knows how to close the mouth of a lion and when stuff should be tearing you apart, you come out put together. Am I talking to anybody who can say, I haven't been in a physical lion's den, but I've been in some lion's den where I should have been torn to pieces, but here I am whole and put together and you think I'm gonna be quiet on this road, you should have sat in another section when I think of the goodness of Jesus.

He's a picture. The Hebrew boys, picture, go in the fiery furnace and the text says, watch this. Here's the kingdom distinctive. The kingdom distinctive is not just their survival, which means what makes this experience God honoring and God glorifying isn't just they came out of fiery furnace because there are people who come out of fiery seasons who don't have a relationship with God. It's people that survive hard stuff that use their own will and not necessarily their faith, but the text says that's a pregnant pulse. I said the text says, they came out and they didn't even smell like smoke. See some people came out of it, but they smell like it, or you smell like betrayal, you smell like you've been hurt, you smell like you've been triggered, your attitude, your disposition, your energy says to me, but is there anybody here that's thanking God that you don't smell like what you've been through? That's a picture. But one of the most dangerous press a believer can pray is use me. When we say use me, God may say, okay, I'm going to let something die like Lazarus, and I'm going to let it stay in the grave for days, and I'm going to make sure the same audience that was around when it went in the grave is the same audience that's a rep. Did you hear what I just said when you come out of it? Jonah's narrative isn't really about his sayings, it's about his story. It's a story of a proven prophet, because the book of Jonah isn't the first time we're introduced to Jonah. This is really important for this story. Jonah was a prophetic voice used by God during the reign of King Jeroboah. Jonah is actually mentioned before the book of Jonah in the Bible. Jonah is actually mentioned in 2 Kings, chapter number 14. The Bible says he was the one who restored the boundaries of Israel from Labo to Haamav to the Dead Sea in accordance with the Word of the Lord, the God of Israel, spoken through his servant, Jonah, the son of Amatiah, the prophet from Geth. So he's a proven prophet, he's not inexperienced, he's not underexposed, he's not new to this.

He true to this. So God, from the halls of heaven, looks at a particular group known as the Assyrians, who had historically been exercising military dominance and exploitation and aggression and had a history of hostility towards the Hebrew people. And God says, I need to change the trajectory of these people. I need to shift the social climate and the moral fabric of that nation and I need a man that I could use to bring a message to those people. And so he picked a man named Jonah because he's not inexperienced, he's seasoned. And he says, Jonah, I want you to go down to a city in the Syria name Nineveh. Jonah say, "Go where?" "Go where?" So I want you to go to Nineveh. So here's what the text says. This proven prophet. This experienced instrument for the eternal purposes of God. This seasoned sage named Jonah gets a word from the Lord to go to Nineveh. And the Bible say, "He goes in the opposite direction." Jonah 1 says, "He goes down to a place called Japa." Because whenever God says, "Go in one direction," and you go in another, you might call it East West, but you're going down. Mind is going down. Joy is going down. Peace is going down. Goes down to Japa, finds a port, and pays a fare to get on a ship going in the opposite direction. My God. So you think that your physical proximity is going to rescue you from your obligation to obedience.

So you think if you go far enough and stay away long enough, God's going to change his mind. Now, I'm going to have to do some digging on this. So I don't want to irresponsibly unpack this, but I will share that which I am a bit comfortable with. Now, Jonah's life is a powerful picture of the sovereignty of God in terms of how God chooses to display grace toward his people. In other words, he says, "I have mercy on whom I have mercy." I call it the theology of the chosen. It doesn't mean you're better, but you can't be intellectually honest and not see that God handles some people differently. Those that he uses greatly, he handles differently. And so he says, "Other people," in other words, other people, "may have been willing, able, to go in the opposite direction, and they be OK." But I refuse to let you get away with. It's quiet now. What other people get away with? They do it, and they have the time of their life. You do it one time, your whole life all apart. You choose it. So you may as well go ahead and obey in chapter 1, because if not, and the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, you're going to have to obey in chapter 3. God's not changing his mind about you, and he is not altering his instruction. You still got to do it.

After you run, you still got to do it. After you hide, you still got to do it. After you cry, you still got to do it. After you pout, you still got to do it. Some getting ready to break off you in here. He goes in the opposite direction. Pays a fair, because it's expensive to go in the wrong direction. [CHEERING] It costs time. It costs money. It costs peace. It costs sanity. He gets on a ship going in the opposite direction. Bible says, and here's God, a gracious God. A gracious God, he sends warnings. He sends the wind. So he's on the ship, and the ship runs into a storm. It's a sign. It's a warning. And here's what's scary. He doesn't know the people, because remember, he paid a fair. So you got people who are trying to get to a destination. And they're dealing with some adversity, because they got the wrong person on their ship. [CHEERING] Y'all missed it. The narrative says the ship starts taking on water, so to lighten the ship, they start throwing cargo over. Now, this is a cargo ship, so they

got paid for transporting cargo from one place to another. So the cargo is their valuables. So they got to throw their values over, boy, to keep Jonah on. And if you got to throw your values over to keep them home, you are harboring a few-- If I got to lose you, if I got to lose me, to keep you, you shouldn't be on this boat. If I got to lose God, to keep you, you shouldn't be on this boat. If I got to lose my standards, to keep you, you shouldn't be on this boat. (audience cheering) I'm almost done, here it is. (audience cheering) And while all of this is happening, Jonah is asleep. How am I in a storm that you cause and you sleep? How am I in a mess that you made and you sleep? Because some people who create your inconvenience won't take responsibility to help you fix it. (audience cheering) Sleep. And these men start worshiping their gods and casting their eyes, like, "Who God is it, somebody in trouble?" And after all that, Jonah say, "Me." (audience laughing) They say, "Lord, how mercy." And then this grown man is gonna say, "Throw me off the ship." You grown.

(audience laughing) Even in acts of nobility, you're demonstrating your immaturity. (audience cheering) Did you hear what I just said? It seems like him saying, "Throw me off," is an act of nobility. But when he says, "Throw me off," he's telling grown men to help him do something he could jump off, you grown. But even his act of nobility is demonstrating immaturity. I'm gonna have time to bother that. Yeah, those are people, those are people who will be generous to you and then try to use their generosity to you as manipulation against you. And so in your act of nobility, you're demonstrating your immaturity. (audience cheering) We got to go. But verse 17 says that they throw him overboard. Now the Lord had provided. (audience laughing) Hallelujah. This provided here. It's an expression of God's providence. The Lord had provided. Here it is. So this means this whale, which has been historically presented as punishment,

is actually divine provision. (audience cheering) Look at the text. The Lord provided. The God who speaks whale. The God who has no language barriers. The God who created everything with ears that have a frequency tuned to his voice. The God that can speak to a rock and make water cry out, come out. Come on here. The God that can speak to ravens and make takers become givers and take care of the prophet. That God spoke to a whale and started God and the whale in the same direction. (audience cheering) In the sea. That the ship was going. So that at the exact time that Jonah was thrown off the ship, the whale was in proximity. Hallelujah. See, the whale is a picture of God's grace. And when you don't see the text this way, you won't see what there are situations that have consumed you that you are saying is punishment. 'Cause you knew you shouldn't have been on that ship.

And you knew you shouldn't have been going in that direction. And God's like, no, the water would have been punishment. (audience cheering) But the whale was grace. I sent the thing you in to protect you from the thing you would have drowned in if I hadn't sent this in your direction. So sometimes God will knock you down to keep from having to knock you out. I got to go. But I wanna know is there anybody at this service that'll take 17 seconds and praise them for a whale. I should have been dead and gone. I should have lost my mind. I shouldn't be here right now. But God sent a whale. I thought it was a breakup, but it was a whale. I thought it was an internment, but it was a whale. [MUSIC] Everybody that's never done anything and always went in the right direction, you be quiet. But for those of us who know, we shouldn't be here today. I want you to thank him for the way. [MUSIC] I'm almost done. So Jonah in the belly of the whale makes a decision. I'm gonna complete my assignment. [MUSIC] As a foreshadowing of Christ's resurrection, he's in the belly of the whale

three days, like Christ was in the belly of the earth three days. And the Bible says, God speaks to the whale, and the whale spit him out. I got to go. God speaks to the whale, and the whale spits him out. Because it doesn't matter how long a thing has consumed you. When God tells that thing to let you go, it's got to spit you out. Depression has got to spit you out. [MUSIC] And Jonah goes and preaches to Nineveh. And they listened, they repented. And chapter three, verse 10 says, when God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways. He relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened. [MUSIC] That's where the story is often stopped, but that's not where the story stops. [MUSIC] Because the text says in Jonah 4-1, but to Jonah, this seemed very wrong. [MUSIC] And Jonah became very angry. [MUSIC] Now wait a minute, they hurt us, you're not gonna hurt them? >> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. >> They did that to me, they did this to my people. You're not gonna do anything to them? They wounded me, they wounded us. And they just get to repent and everything's all right. >> All right, all right. >> All right, all right. >> Hey, hey, go well. >> And these are words coming from a man who just got out of will. >> [APPLAUSE]

>> You want God to be discriminatory in his grace. You just needed it, but you're mad that they got it. >> [APPLAUSE] >> I'm done, Ty, don't judge, Jonah. >> [INAUDIBLE] >> Don't judge, cuz some of us have been Jonah. >> [INAUDIBLE] >> The difference with Jonah is we actually get to see Jonah struggle. And in church, we mask ours. >> [APPLAUSE] >> But if we could just get delivered from religious pretension. And have a non pretentious, open, unashamed relationship with God. We could say, many of us could say, I could kinda relate to Jonah. Cuz I get triggered when you wounded me and you winning. >> [INAUDIBLE] >> I know David did, which is why he was saying the Psalms. How long are the wicked gone prosper? >> [APPLAUSE] >> How am I sad and they happy and they the reason I'm sad? >> [APPLAUSE] >> He's blessed. You are alive, you shouldn't be, and you're effective, and you shouldn't be. All that in your heart and none of us still repenting. >> [LAUGH] >> You get to be alive and you get to be used and you don't deserve to be either. >> [APPLAUSE] >> Jonah, you blessed, but you better. And that's not just Jonah's story, that's ours. What do you do when you feel blessed and bitter?

What do you do when you're struggling with the fact that Lord, I wanna pray for those that despitefully use me. But when I pray, I don't mean it. Let me go, that was two. I'm telling you to bless them, but in my heart I really don't care if you, I want to want the best for them. So I'm bringing you my heart, 'cause right now I don't. What do you do when I recognize man, I'm blessed and I'm bitter? Number one, repent. (congregation yelling) Repentance is a change of mind that leads to a change of direction. It means Lord, my repentance doesn't mean they didn't do me wrong. My repentance means just because I have been wronged, doesn't mean I can respond wrong. And I repent because I don't want you to give them grace, you give me. (congregation yelling) This man progresses like his anger progresses the bitterness we read in the text. He's like, I just, I want to die. I repent that I've been so focused on what you're not doing to them, that I've neglected to appropriately appreciate what you are doing for me. (congregation yelling)

Number two, reframe, reframe. It means put a different frame around this. It means that I can't change what I'm looking at, but I can change the way I'm looking at it. The greatest reframe in my opinion, in the Bibles in Genesis with Joseph, where he looks at his brothers and say, "You meant this for evil." But God meant this for good. And here's the reframe Christians, I think you just have to have in dealing with the stuff you're gonna deal with in life. God doesn't have to put anybody in a win-lose situation. That in his sovereignty, he can act in ways that the choices he makes are best for the both of us. So what you did for the Assyrians didn't come at my expense. That if you're gonna keep them around, you're gonna keep me protected from them. (congregation yelling) So I can look at it like you didn't do anything to them, or I can look at it like, "Man, you really used me." It hurt, but it drove you deeper. And it wasn't right, but he redeemed it. And you shouldn't have had to go through that. But he still takes what the intimate meant for evil, and he works it for you good. And he didn't cause that, but he will use it. You have to reframe even your view of vengeance. God is a God of vengeance and recompense.

But vengeance is not God, watch this, necessarily doing something to them. Vengeance and recompense is what God does for you in spite of what they did to you. (congregation yelling) Vengeance is not their failure, it's your success. 'Cause you gotta ask what part of you gets excited when somebody around you suffer. If I'm finding pleasure in your pain, what part of me is that? And then thirdly, I got a release. Texas, built a shelter sat on the hill to see what was gonna happen to them. You gotta release your desire to control outcomes. I can't control what happened with them. I can only influence what happens with me. Repent, reframe, and release. Here's your testimony, here's your biblical confession. It's working for my God. I say this working. I'm too blessed to be this better. Father, I pray that the God who puts broken things back together would heal the brokenness and the hearts of your people. I pray for every Jonah that's been wounded, betrayed, abandoned, exploited, under-appreciated. And I pray your promise over them, no weapon. Thank you, Jesus. No weapon formed against them shall prosper. Uproot, bitter roots. And may this season be the most peace-filled, joy-filled season of their life. Be prayed that it will be so.

It will not be another way. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Go in peace, and the Lord be with you.