Jonah: Idols or Steadfast Love

So when I was 17 years old, I worked at a furniture store in our hometown called Cunningham's Furniture.

And I worked in the warehouse, and every day after school, myself and a couple of my friends, we would go to the warehouse and we would load the truck up for the next day deliveries and then we would break down cardboard boxes.

It was very, very thrilling work, but it was funny with friends.

And the warehouse was connected to a bigger building.

And the other part of the building was a factory.

And every once in a while you'd have to cut to the factory to go talk to the building managers for whatever reason.

And the factory was always going.

It was just a long assembly line of people.

Some were standing, some were on tall stools, but they would just assemble over and over again the same task over and over and over again.

And they produced caskets, is what they produced.

And just over and over again, casket after casket after casket.

People were dying to work there.

Sorry, I had to do that.

I just had to.

I wouldn't be a dad if I didn't go for that one, right?

It's low-hanging fruit.

Well, here's what I know about factories.

Factories produce something.

Maybe you've seen a factory.

Maybe they made backpacks or chairs or subaros.

I don't know.

But that's what factories do.

Factories always produce something.

That's what makes them a factory.

Now listen to what John Calvin, a French theologian back in the 1500s, said about people, about us, all people.

The heart of man is a perpetual factory of idols.

Idol after idol after idol.

So if that's true, if your heart is a factory of idols, it would be good to know what is an idol.

What does that mean?

Sounds like very religious Old Testament language.

An idol is anything in my life that occupies a place that should be occupied by God alone.

An idol is something that holds such a controlling position in my life that it moves and rouses and attracts me so easily that I give my time, attention, and money to it effortlessly.

So we've been going through this book of Jonah.

This Old Testament, this religious guy, this Old Testament prophet.

And he was a well-known prophet, and he was respected, but he gets this call.

God says, hey, go and preach to the Ninevehes, and that would have been his enemies.

People have done some horrible things to him and his people.

And he said, I want no part of that.

And so he runs the other way.

He quickly learns you cannot outrun God.

God will come after you in loving pursuit.

He ends up on a ship.

Eventually he says, I don't even want to live.

Like out of his shame and his guilt, he's causing all this havoc upon the other people on the boat.

And he says, just throw me overboard.

He goes overboard.

He goes into the sea.

Maybe you remember the story from VBS when you're little.

And yet it's under the surface that there's rescue.

That's the great story of the fish swallowing Jonah.

And then Jonah says that he is in the belly of Sheol.

So the belly of the fish is the belly of death.

And yet that's actually the place that he was rescued.

It was once he was under the surface.

So it's there in this belly of death that he prays.

That we sort of get this break in him, which is what happens to us.

It takes a break, it takes exhaustion or condemnation, or you're at the end of your self.

Finally, you need an outside source.

Finally, you need God.

And then there's some prayer.

And so last week we looked at the first part of the prayer.

This week we'll look at the second part.

I'll reread the verses, Jonah 2, verses 7 through 10.

Jonah 2:7–10

Now that you sort of have a setup about idols and how our hearts work and where we're at with Jonah.

And here's what Jonah says.

They're in the belly of the fish, belly of death, under the surface.

When my life was fainting away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you into your holy temple.

Those who pay regard to vain idols, or you could say worthless idols, forsake their hope of steadfast love.

But I, with the voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you what I have vowed, I will pay.

Salvation belongs to the Lord.

And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.

So vain idols, but we understand that as worthless idols.

And Jonah says, but there's hope.

It's just not going to be in those idols.

It's not going to be in those desires of our heart that we overly desire.

It's going to be in steadfast love.

And then verse 9 helps us connect that to the Lord, to God Himself that we know in Jesus.

I walk my dog on church street a lot.

And maybe you've seen me walking along there, and you usually you're not looking at me, is what I've learned as I walk along church street.

Nobody's looking at the people walking along the sidewalks.

It's just sort of a racetrack headed down towards the square.

And people are changing lanes, and it's chaos, basically.

And some people are on their phones, right?

I mean, some of us still do that.

That's going on.

I don't appreciate that when I'm on the sidewalk.

And that's going on.

Here's what happens every once in a while.

Every once in a while I get some real chaos.

And so what real chaos is, is you're walking along, and the red light up at the hospital's turned red, so all the traffic's backed up.

And you know, that's a two-lane one-way.

So that's confusing to people who don't live in our town.

And every once in a while, you get it where somebody turns up Church Street, and you're like, oh, oh no, it's coming.

And usually I stop to watch this.

I might wave, like every once in a kind of like a hey, like, and they they're like, hey, you know, they think they're on the right lane, headed the right way.

But then that red light will turn green and they see that wall of cars headed toward them.

That's that's where the chaos breaks out, and they they you know, they'll make zip up to an off-road, or they might turn into a driveway, or sometimes I've seen them up on the sidewalk into a yard or something like that.

But what is clear is the chaos will always break out, it'll always happen.

Here's what Jonah's saying about idols: desires which we desire too much.

When they become our functional salvation for wholeness, it will always eventually catch up to us.

See, the car on church street is fine for a little while.

Cruising along, no problem.

Think they're going the right path, things are fine.

It works for a while.

Idols work for a while, but eventually it'll catch you.

Eventually, eventually you will be exhausted.

You will be condemned, or we'll just ruin our lives.

Here's point number one.

It's not the best news, but it's true.

Point number one: exhaustion and condemnation await us when we place our desire for deliverance on powerless objects and affections.

That's a long sentence.

Exhaustion and condemnation await us when we place our desire for deliverance on powerless objects and affections.

In Ezekiel 14, verse 3, God says to a group of religious men, the elders of Israel, God says to them, He says, These men have set up idols in their hearts.

Ezekiel 14:3

Now they would have responded, like, what are you talking about?

We're the guys in charge, we're religious, we're the good guys, we're the leaders.

We don't have gold statues in our houses.

But God's talking about the desires of their hearts, kind of like what Dr.

Martin Lloyd Jones was talking about in his definition.

It's the stuff that's under the surface, inside of us, that's driving our lives.

And for these men, it could have been something like being seen, being affirmed, being comfortable, being known, being powerful, being religious.

All of those things, if it's the ultimate desire of your heart that drives you, that's going to deliver you, that's going to absolve you or fulfill you or make you righteous, it's an idol.

Paul writes in Colossians 3, he writes this in verse 5 put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

Now, what I love about Colossians chapter 3 is that the chapter begins by telling us that we are hidden in Christ.

Colossians 3 · chapter mention

So we're totally hidden in Christ.

We're covered in the blood of Jesus.

Our sin is put upon him, we are fully absolved, we are fully righteous, we're fully beloved.

And then he says, in that position, understand, you still have idols in your heart.

Put them to death.

They're killing you, anyways.

Put them to death.

And then at the end of the chapter, he circles back around to make sure we really understand that we are holy and beloved, not because we're putting to death these idols, we're holy and beloved because we're God's chosen people.

He's chosen to love you.

Here's some questions to help you think it through.

Help me think it through.

What in your life do you think you need in order to be happy?

What begins to make you squirm a little bit if you think about losing it?

Where do you sense fear or anxiety?

Where do you feel exhausted or condemned?

Where do you find there's always another mountain to climb?

There's a good chance somewhere in those answers you'll find an idol, a thing in your heart that you feel like you need to be whole, to be delivered, to be absolved, to be affirmed, to be accepted by God, to be valued, to be worthy.

But Jonah prays that our hope would be in the steadfast love of God.

Now, steadfast means secure, never-ending.

It can also be translated as grace.

One-way love.

Love that comes to us though we entertain these silly, silly idols.

Point number two is this God's love to us is steadfast because God's love is all about his faithfulness to us.

Now it wouldn't be steadfast if it was all about your love for him.

It's steadfast because it's about his faithfulness to you.

That's the good news.

Verse 7 is very interesting here in that Jonah passage because Jonah says this when my life was fainting away, so he's in the belly of death, right?

He's in the belly of Sheol, he's under the surface.

I mean, he can't get any worse.

Full of shame, full of guilt.

Where is he going to be absolved?

How could he ever be righteous before God?

I mean, it's the end of himself.

He says, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you into your holy temple.

Now we could easily write that off as just like really religious Old Testament language.

But Jonah is saying something here because it was there in the Holy Temple on the Day of Atonement, once a year, that they took a blameless lamb in there and they sacrificed the lamb over the mercy seat, which was a gold slab on top of the Ark of the Covenant.

Inside the Ark of the Covenant was the Ten Commandments, the law.

And see, all this symbolism is going on here, even in this little language here, because what you have is you have blood poured out over the mercy seat, over the law.

So we have the grace of God poured out over the law of God.

We have the grace of God poured out over who we should be.

And that's really good news.

Because we all end up like Jonah.

I'm like Jonah.

You're like Jonah.

We all end up like Jonah, buried by a standard of rightness that we do not ultimately live up to.

We haven't achieved it.

Maybe in behaviors, maybe just in motives, maybe in the idols inside the heart.

And we need a love given to us from outside of ourselves.

We need God.

We need salvation from the Lord.

That's the good news.

Point number three.

We are messy, stubborn people with a forever pursuing God.

This past week, national news, went all over the national news.

Floyd Martin was a mailman in Marietta.

Did y'all see this?

Anybody have Mr.

Floyd as a mailman in here?

Anyone?

Okay, so Mr.

Floyd, just to fill you.

Anybody see it on the news?

Okay, some of y'all just were laying out in the pool, didn't watch anything.

All right, Mr.

Floyd has been a mailman off Kennesaw Avenue.

About 500 homes was his route.

He's been a mailman there for 20 years.

And Mr.

Floyd loves his route.

He loves his people on his route for 20 years.

He knew all his people.

Someone moved in, he introduced himself to the new person.

Our friend lives on his route, and when they moved in, they introduced you know to each other.

And then every time from then on that he delivered a package up to the door, he would put a dog biscuit for their dog.

He went to career day for a three-year-old on his route.

He attended birthdays.

This guy was all in.

He loved his people.

And when Mr.

Floyd went to retire last week, the neighborhood decided to group up and all of them decorated their mailboxes for Mr.

Floyd.

There's all these decorations and all the mailboxes, and they had a huge neighborhood party.

And at the party, he gave a little speech and he said very simply that all he tried to do was love people the way that he would want to be loved, treat people how he want to be treated.

Very humble, humble man.

And in the conversation, he just sort of flippantly said, you know, one thing he'd always want to do is go to Hawaii.

So somebody sets up a GoFundMe page.

As of this morning, I checked it before I walked in here, is over$30,000 had been given to the, I think he can go to Hawaii a couple times over.

Delta picked up on it and gave free flights to him.

So this got picked up, this went viral, he's been all over.

He's been on the news, he's been on morning shows, he's been all over.

When Christie first told me about it, I almost teared up.

Like me, hard-hearted, you know, like selfish.

Think about myself most of the time.

I'm like, what are these?

What are the, you know, what's going on?

There's something about that.

You're like, that's amazing.

Wow.

What did a man doing that day in and day out, it's a glimpse of grace.

Like, why is it so captivating?

Why would it go viral?

It's a glimpse of grace on multiple levels.

Because here's a guy showing up for his job, loving people, never thinking, oh, I'm gonna do all this because that 20 years later I get$30,000 on a GoFundMe page, which didn't even exist when he started doing this, right?

And Delta's gonna find out about it via Twitter, via a social media platform that didn't exist when he started doing this.

He's not thinking about anything.

All he's thinking about, like, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna love people, nothing in return, right?

Glimpse of grace.

And then we get a double glimpse of grace because then the people on his route decide, hey, let's just lavish him with love.

There's this great story in Luke chapter 15.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

Luke chapter 15 is this great chapter.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

We get three parables, and it's Jesus teaching like this lavish love of God.

What is it like?

And the first one, Jesus says, hey, there's a shepherd.

This shepherd has a hundred sheep.

And one sheep wanders off.

And here's what God is like: God is like a shepherd who goes off to look for the one.

And when he finds it, he picks his sheep up and puts it on his shoulder and carries it back.

And when he carries it back, he's rejoicing all the way and he throws a party.

Now, we want to be Jesus in the story.

We want to be the heroes.

We're gonna do all this work, but we're actually the sheep.

Right?

We think that, oh, it'll be that path will fulfill us and solve our every problem, and off we go as the one she.

And the good news is that Jesus always pursues us, he's sufficient for us.

And then when the shepherd gets there, there's no lecture, there's no shame handed out.

What we actually get is a God rejoicing that he gets to be with you.

You see, the idol says you must do X, Y, and Z.

The idol will always make demand upon you before you're accepted, before you're righteous, before you're absolved.

That's what idols do.

Whether it's religious or worldly, doesn't matter.

The idol will always make a demand upon you before you are the thing you desire to be.

And that's why it exhausts you, that's why it condemns you, and you're handing power over to a powerless object or affection.

The gospel upends it, turns the whole thing around.

That there is love and redemption for you in Christ before you get your act together.

Without strings attached for you to get your act together, and it's possible you may never get your act together, and if you believe all that, there's a really good chance you will get your act together.

That's why it's steadfast.

It's not dependent upon you, it's dependent upon the giver giving it to you.

Author Paul Zoll defines grace this way in his book, Grace in Practice.

He gives five sentences about grace.

Grace is love, so steadfast love, same thing Jonah's talking about.

Grace is love that seeks you out when you have nothing to give in return.

Grace is love coming at you that has nothing to do with you, but everything to do with the giver of the love.

Grace is being loved when you are unlovable.

Grace is not dependent upon qualification, merit, measurement, gifts, or motivations.

Grace is one-way love.

And then he writes this the one-way love of grace is the essence of any lasting transformation that takes place in human experience.

It is true in life that grace, one-way love, has the power to turn despair into hope.

It is almost always some form of grace, some outside source of unexpected and unhoped-for compassion and kindness that creates the change from discouragement and despair to endurance and perseverance.

One-way love lifts up.

One way love cures.

One way love transforms.

It is the change agent of life.

My brothers and sisters, may Christ be the hope of your heart, not worthless idols.

And may you know this salvation and this healing and this wholeness that He brings.

May He being your change agent.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you for your grace and mercy to us that we are so captivated by worthless idols that we look to for acceptance and affirmation, for worthiness, for righteousness, for absolution.

We so much want to merit or hide.

Forgive us for this, and we thank you, God.

We thank you that you pursue us while we're hiding, and you pursue us while we are hell-bent on performance.

Thank you while we are pretending our way through life, that you love us, that you absolve us in the gift of Christ, that you make us righteous in the gift of Christ, and that your love pursues us in all ways.

Would you give us belief, belief we do not have, that you're sufficient, that you are enough, that the grace of Christ would be our salvation, our rightness with you, and would actually be our change agent in life.

We thank you for the full sufficiency of your love that is greater than all of our sin.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.