Jonah: Everybody is a Person

So this is our last week, our last Sunday sermon in the book of Jonah.

I think maybe it's been eight or nine weeks, and then the next few weeks I'll be out of town on sabbatical taking rest with my family.

And so we're always incredibly thankful for that, that you guys are church, and the elders uh do that for us.

And so we have three elders preaching for the next three Sundays, and then we have uh another gentleman in our church who's willing to uh take it on and be willing to stand up in front of you guys and uh be brave enough to do it.

And so uh that's what's going to be going on for the the next month.

But today is back finishing off the book of Jonah.

So uh perhaps you've had a neighbor or maybe a friend at school, a person at school, or um maybe somebody you know at work, and maybe they're bossy or they're braggy or they throw late parties, or or maybe the opposite, they're quiet and they're snobby, but you know, they said that thing or they did that thing to you, and she said that and he said that, and you just couldn't believe it, right?

Like you couldn't believe that they do that or they say that or they're like that.

You just it's unbelievable.

You couldn't believe it.

And whatever they are, or whatever they were, what you did know is you knew you are not that, right?

And so you're all judgy on them, right?

Like you like we do.

And so to you, uh they're they're those, right?

Like those people, like those, those, oh, those party people, or those conservatives, or you know, those liberals, you know, those people, right?

Like whatever it is, it's just you know you're not them.

And so they are the they're the those, those people.

And so what's clear when we do that is obviously what we do is we build a box, we put the person in a box, and we de we depersonalize them, really.

Like we we objectify them, put them in the box, and we we slap a label on that box, and when we objectify people, what this does for us is it it keeps things so simple, doesn't it?

Because then they can just remain that, like those people.

But then you know what happens is that person they bring you groceries when you're sick, right?

Or or the the kid in class that you you thought was just oh, is just she's just always so bossy, all of a sudden she drops you like a kind comment, right?

Like she forces herself outside of the box, and it gets more complicated, right?

Or you learn something about their backstory, you learn like they have a sick child, you learn about her wounded past, you learn about the difficult work situation, and suddenly a new feeling starts up in you, right?

Like a little bit of compassion or care.

And simply because, and here's the point, simply because, because when you quit seeing a person, when you quit seeing them as objects to judge, and you begin to understand them as people to love.

So when we objectify people, we love them less, always.

And when we de-objectify people, allowing them to be persons, we're enabled to begin to love them.

And this is why this last verse in Jonah is so interesting, what God just kind of drops in here, the very end, the last verse, the last thing he says to Jonah.

And here's the setup because maybe you hadn't been with us, you're visiting.

So we've been in eight weeks here of this book of Jonah.

Jonah's this religious prophet, religious guy, and God comes in and says, Hey, I need you to, I want you to go and preach to Nineveh.

And Nineveh was his enemy.

These were horrible people, right?

We've learned that.

Second Kings talks about these people they called terror.

I mean, they they caused it, they were horrible people.

He says, I don't want to go to them.

Like they've hurt me.

They've hurt my people, they've hurt people I know.

I don't I have no interest in that.

I want to keep them in a box, slap a label on them, keep them objectified.

It keeps it simple.

I can hate them that way.

I don't have to understand anything more about them.

And so he said, I'm not going to them.

So he runs the other way, he boards a ship, the storm happens, he gets thrown over into the sea, under the sea.

This is where we get that great miraculous story.

The fish swallows him, he's in the belly of the fish, finally, he's at the end of himself.

He has nowhere else to go.

He is at the bottom, right?

And he prays to God, okay, like I surrender to you.

Miraculously, he's thrown up out onto the beach, and finally he goes to Nineveh and he preaches.

And that's where we think, hey, they're gonna be best friends.

Everybody's gonna be a big family, they're gonna hug, they're gonna be all together, but no, Jonah still is not done with this, and so he is angry that God has been merciful and loving to them, and he pouts his way out of the city up onto the hill, and he is angry and he is full of self-pity.

And then God speaks, verse 11.

And should not I pity, have compassion on Nineveh, that great city in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?

So, not a hundred and twenty thousand Ninevites, right?

He switches the word here.

A hundred and twenty thousand persons.

Now that word persons is the word Adam.

This is the word that we get in the Genesis account of creation, Adam.

We get Adam, person.

And God's saying, those Adams?

120,000?

Those Adams come from the same place you come from.

You and them?

You're the same.

That's what would have registered in Jonah's mind when he heard Adam.

So point number one is this, and we've been reviewing these points kind of over, they've been cycling the past few weeks.

Point number one is this your enemy is a person also.

Your enemy is a person also.

You remember Brandon?

It's been a few weeks I told this story, right?

I was in the sixth grade.

Do you remember this?

I was in the sixth grade.

I had just finished lunch.

I got my ice cream.

I'm lined up on the cafeteria wall to go out.

We ate our ice cream out in the parking lot.

And so we were lined up on the wall, and there was an eighth grade class there, the table right there by the wall, and I knew this kid named Brandon through another kid in my neighborhood, and it's eighth graders.

I'm sixth grade, fragile little, you know, 50-pound sixth grader, and I'm standing there, and I think to myself in front of my classmates, man, if this eighth grader says hi to me, can you imagine what that would do for me in the status ranking of my sixth grade Mrs.

LaBeouf class?

This would be amazing.

And I'm standing there, and just when I think I'll be welcomed by Brandon, he calls me a name.

And I'm embarrassed, and so I mouth right back because I got some arsenal ready for that kind of thing, and we go back and forth a little bit there.

And I went out and ate my ice cream, but what is for sure what happened is I immediately turned him to an enemy, right?

Even to this day, still struggling, processing this Ella.

I transformed him from a person to an enemy so I could hate him.

Because if I do this, I can hate him, and I don't have to consider what is much, much more complicated and real, and that is that Brandon is a person.

Like he has a family, and like maybe that morning he has an older brother who yelled at him, or a dad that beat him, or something.

I don't know, but he has he has a story, he has a family, he's a person, and that's complicated.

So you know what's easier?

Just objectify the person so we can hate him.

It's much, much harder to go, oh, 120,000 Adams.

It's possible that the person you don't like is a person with a story.

And what I keep learning over and over again is that there's always a backstory.

Right?

There's always the story you see on the surface, but then there's always a whole nother story.

The story on the surface was Brandon's a punk and he used foul language to call me a name in front of my friends.

That's the story on the surface, but there's always a backstory.

You know the power of backstory because you watched American Idol one time, right?

Three of you still watch it, but all of us watched it at some point.

We all watched it.

And some girl came walking out, and she looked like a mess.

And we got all judgy on her, and we had our opinions, and you, whoever you're watching with your friend or roommate or spouse, and I just can't believe what she's wearing, and look how short that whatever is, and what she showed, and you have all those opinions, right?

And then they show the backstory.

They jump to her hometown and they show where she grew up, and they show the trailer that she lives in, and she walks eight miles to work at the huddle house to support her mom who's dying of cancer, and all of a sudden, this backstory is laid out for you, and all of a sudden the objectification that you put on her starts to disappear, right?

Right?

Because she's no longer an object, she's a person.

All of a sudden, once she's a person, she has a backstory, and when she's a person with a backstory, all of a sudden this thing called compassion begins.

Now, this works the other way around.

It doesn't always work in the socioeconomic ladder looking down, it can work in the socioeconomic ladder looking up.

So let's say you and your spouse, uh, it's your anniversary, and you're gonna splurge.

So you're gonna go to Bones Steakhouse and Buckhead.

It's your one big restaurant splurge of the year, and you get all specially dressed up for this, and you're there, and you're chowing down the bread and the wedge salad, and you got it going on, and you're all having a great time, and in walks the one wealthy, like really, really, really wealthy couple you know in your life.

And they walk over to you and they say hi, and she says, Oh, don't you just love bones?

And you say, Yes, we we do, yeah, we do.

And she says, and then she says, We come here every week, and you're like, Great, you know, you're thinking that makes us feel horrible.

And she says, We've never seen you here before.

And you're like, Okay, that's great.

And you say goodbye, and she says goodbye, and you go on with your meal, but your brain starts going, right?

Like, off you go, because what goes every Wednesday, of course they eat here every Wednesday.

Of course they do, and they've never seen us before.

Don't you like how she added that in there, right?

Like she made sure to add that, and they have no problems in their status and in their wealth, everything's just fine, right?

Off you go, objectifying, right?

Anybody do this?

Only me.

Okay.

And then you're going to bed that night and you pull your phone out and you start swiping through Instagram and you're scrolling up, and then you see that that same lady, after she finished bones, she got home, and what you didn't realize, she posted something on Instagram, and it's about how her dad has dementia and is living with him, and he had wandered off while they were at the restaurant, and you go, Oh my gosh.

And then you keep scrolling, and there's a post by her 18-year-old daughter who is rebelling, and she's an addict, and she's a burning man, and she looks like she hadn't eaten in six months.

Oh wow.

Like all of a sudden, she's out of that box, isn't she?

She's not just an object to hate.

She's a person.

She's an Adam.

Point number two is this we are called to love our enemies.

That's what God's doing here with Jonah.

Jesus tells it in the New Testament.

There's a story in Luke 19, right?

There's an interesting story, kind of a famous story we talk about a good bit.

Jesus is walking through a town.

There's this guy named Zacchaeus, he's a tax collector.

So what that means is this guy, he collects taxes in their area for Rome.

And so there's a certain percentage he'd be collecting, so automatically you don't love the guy.

But then these guys would collect even more because they hold power.

So they would collect enough for Rome and pay Rome, but then they would collect even more for themselves to get rich and wealthy.

So let's just imagine there's a guy like this in Marietta.

And not only does he collect the Marietta taxes, but he has so much power that he's circling around your house once a week and he's just demanding a hundred bucks every week.

Just because.

Just because he wants to.

And how do you feel about him?

Oh, you hate him.

Maybe not the first couple times, maybe the first couple times you kind of deal with it.

But eventually you hate him.

You guys four, that's$400 a month.

$400 a month to this man for no reason.

That hate just begins to conjure up.

And that's what's going on.

This is how these people feel toward this man.

They hate him.

And Jesus does this bizarre thing and says, hey, uh, I best go with you to your house today.

And Jesus is teaching that Zacchaeus is not just a tax collector to objectify and hate.

Zacchaeus is a person with a home and a story.

It seems like for Jonah, thinking through this whole story, it seems like for Jonah, it seems like Jonah never really tried to understand the Ninevites.

It doesn't seem like he really forgave them.

He just kept them as enemies, even when he went to preach to them.

Because if they're objects, then we don't have to face that we're both Adams.

I read a quote recently from Minister Jacob Smith in New York City's minister up there, and his quote was this we are all three bad days away from ruining our lives.

And most of us are on day two.

I mean, it's just sort of a comical way of what St.

Paul, when St.

Paul says, I'm the chief of sinners, it's the same as the same thing.

And yet St.

Paul, he says, the chief of sinners, and other places he says he's a saint.

Isn't that interesting?

This is the brilliant foundation of the Christian faith.

It's why we say every week, hey, cheer up.

Cheer up.

You are more sinful than you originally thought.

Cheer up.

The diagnosis is true.

Right?

And then we also get to say, equally, cheer up.

God loves you even more than you could ever dare to dream.

So you're both humbled and relieved.

You're humbled into your sin, and you're relieved that all of that's been cast upon Christ on the cross and his righteousness given to you, so you're fully and always beloved by his work, not your own.

Now that's powerful.

It is powerful because we get to live both in our humility of a dominance, of being just a person who's not perfect.

And yet at the same time, we have this inner wealth of acceptance in Christ by Christ's work alone that nobody else can touch.

So we're sinner and saint.

Point number three is this overarching point.

It's been mentioned over and over and over again because it's just the fact that God just never leaves Jonah and He is steadfast certain he's gonna reach out and love these Ninevites.

And the point is this God never stops caring and redeeming you.

And this is not halfway love, like hey, God's gonna love you halfway, and you get, you know, pull your bootstraps up and you meet him halfway, and then maybe y'all can work something out.

This is God fully, unconditionally love without contingencies, love for you, secure.

Let's think about it this way.

How do you feel when you hear these names?

Mike Tyson.

You don't have to answer out loud.

Mike Tyson.

Lance Armstrong.

O.J.

Simpson.

Art Simpson.

You think certain things, right?

About all of them.

It's hard to regard them apart from their scandalous past behavior.

And sort of we hedge our love in that way.

Our love's affected in some way.

Our love, human love, to some degree is imperfect, even when we try.

But God's love is secure, it's totally different because it's not based on any of our merit.

It is full-on, unconditional, one-way love because it's based in his grace, not our merit.

One-way love doesn't see and objectify us.

One way love sees us fully.

That you can be fully known.

And because it is imputing, because God is an imputing God, He's imputing, giving to you His righteousness, and that's what His love is, He can fully know you and all your mess.

Paul Zall in his book, Grace and Practice, he writes this.

To impute means to ascribe qualities to someone that are not there intrinsically.

To regard somebody as a person that he or she is not.

Imputation calls bad things by a good name.

And this is what grace does.

This is what God's been doing the entire time through the Jonah story.

I mean, he should have left Jonah a long time ago.

He should have never dealt with the Nineveh if it had anything to do with merit for any of these people.

Yet God's been regarding Jonah and the Nineveh as his beloved children the entire time, never leaving them alone.

No matter how ridiculous Jonah got.

No matter how severe and scandalous the Ninevites' past behavior was.

I close with this quote.

I read it last night as I was laying in bed.

I was reading this book called Surrender to Love.

Great little book by a Christian psychologist.

His name is Dr.

David Benner.

And here's the quote: What a different relationship begins to develop when you realize that God is head over heels in love with you.

God is simply giddy about you.

He just can't help loving you.

He loves you deeply, recklessly, extravagantly, just as you are.

God knows you are a sinner, but your sins do not surprise him, nor do they reduce in the slightest his love for you.

Perhaps you find yourself wanting to believe that this is true of God, but still not convinced.

Fortunately, we do not have to be uncertain about God's attitude toward us.

It is clearly revealed in the life and teaching of Jesus.

My brothers and sisters, you are recklessly and extravagantly loved by God in Christ Jesus.

And he is always with you like he was with Jonah.

Always with you, always redeeming you, imputing to you your righteous standing in him.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you for your good grace and this great book of Jonah that has taught us that you are always with us no matter how ridiculous we are in mind, heart, spirit, or behavior.

And that you are constantly gracious, caring for us, leading us, speaking to us, guiding us.

For many of us, we have so much baggage for what we heard and what we think about who you are, rather than the God of love that the scriptures teach.

God, would you increase our faith and trust?

That you are a redeeming God who loves us without hesitation, without contingency, with no conditions.

That we are accepted by you in all moments by your grace and not our behavior or our merit.

Would this great redeeming love be the transformative power of our hearts that your Holy Spirit uses to create new life?

That our lives would honor you.

That we would live deeper and deeper in the great wealth of our acceptance we have in Christ Jesus.

We pray this in the power of Jesus.

Amen.