Throughout this series, we’ve talked about some big themes of the Old Testament that keep showing up in this tiny book of Jonah. Everything we read in the Old Testament repeats over and again that we need God’s law. God’s law does have commands, but it can’t be reduced to just a set of dos and don’ts. Like a trellis for a vine, God’s law is a design and framework for life so that we can thrive. The recurring imagery of a life that is guided and guarded by God’s law is being like a garden. We see that Psalm 1.
PSALM 1:3 That person [the one who delights in God’s law] is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers.
The problem is that we keep mucking up God’s law. The biblical word for that is sin. Instead of a garden, some parts of life are more like a desolate wasteland. The reality and consequences of sin pervade everything and cut us off from God. So, we need someone who can close the relational gap, and bring reconciliation and compassion to us. Who is that? It’s Jesus. Everything in the Old Testament points us to Jesus so we will humbly repent and trust in him.
What we will look at in the final chapter of Jonah points us to Jesus so that we will humbly repent and trust in him. I’m going to invite you to do that today. That’s going to come later. Before we get to that moment, let’s look honestly at a nongarden-like part of life.
QUESTION: What are your unhealthiest tendencies when stressed, depressed, or overwhelmed?
This may come as a surprise to some of you, but I’m not sunshine and rainbows when I feel stressed, depressed, or overwhelmed. Heather and the kids would never know when it was going to happen. I would walk in the door, and out of the blue, with no warning whatsoever, I’d decide that I was no longer going to tolerate disorganized shoes in the entry way.
I would organize those shoes like it was an Olympic sport. But it didn’t stop there. I needed everything organized. I’d interrupt the kids from whatever they were doing. Explain to them the urgent nature why we needed to do chores right now. They never seemed to feel the urgency I felt about it. And Heather was confused. It wasn’t all the time. It happened from time to time, but unpredictably.
Until one day, I walked in and it was obvious to Heather that I was going for the gold medal in shoe organization. And she asked, “Is there anything that feels out of control right now?” And it’s like a light went off. I discovered that when I felt out of control with something at work, I’d compensate when I came home by over-controlling silly stuff. I’m sure we all have our idiosyncrasies. I’m not pick on those. My problem was not an idiosyncrasy. This is just the truth about me. I’m vulnerable to the lie that if I’m in control, I’m secure. That is an idol that I have to intentionally let go of.
When things are not going the way we want or expect, when things are not going the way we perceive that we need them to go—we all have a response to that. There is a way to respond those experiences that comes from delighting in God’s law. And there are ways of responding to those experiences that doesn’t come from delighting in God’s law.
I’m not saying that organizing the shoes in the entryway is a sin or that getting the kids to straighten things up around the house is a sin. I do know this. That was my reaction to feeling out of control, instead of remembering that God is sovereign, and my security is found in him being in control. Instead of taking a breath and getting honest with God in prayer—I unloaded my anxiety on my family. That may not be the worst behavior you think of, but it wasn’t a garden, was it?
I want a thriving, garden-like life. I want it for me, and I want it for you. What keeps us from that? I’m convinced this is both the answer and the keystone verse of Jonah.
JONAH 2:8 Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them.
What is an idol?
An idol is anything other than Jesus we turn to for SIGNIFICANCE, SECURITY, and SATISFACTION.
Today is about you and me getting vulnerable with ourselves about this.
JONAH 3:10-4:11 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. But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.” But the Lordreplied, “Is it right for you to be angry?” Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. Then the Lord God provided a leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant. But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the plant so that it withered. When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.” But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?” “It is,” he said. “And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.” But the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”
What do you notice about what Jonah is attached to and detached from? He is overly attached to this plant. As I read this, I find myself wanting to say to him,
- Dude, let it go.
- Take a breath.
- Do you hear what you are saying?
The only time in this book that Jonah is described as happy is when this plant emerges. He’s furious that God would kill the plant. And yet, he has zero concern for the lives of the people and the animals in this city. He is utterly detached from all of those people and their well-being. His emotional life is so distorted that it’s lost its connection to reality.
Can we acknowledge a hard truth together? The intensity of someone’s feelings is not an indicator of the truthfulness of what they are perceiving. The intensity of someone’s feelings is not an indicator of the truthfulness of what they are perceiving. Do you know that?
That means the intensity of what I feel is not at all evidence for what is true or false, right or wrong. That means that you might feel something all the way down to your bones. You might feel something so strongly that you can’t imagine that you’ve got it wrong. And yet, you can still be 100% dead wrong.
Our feelings tell us a great deal about ourselves. Our feelings have a lot to say about our perceptions of reality. And our feelings tell us a great deal about our deep down, bedrock attachments. I’m not suggesting that our feelings should be ignored. Ignore your emotional life at your own peril. I am saying that our emotions tell us something about how we perceive reality and what we’ve attached ourselves to.
If we don’t understand that we will be hopelessly vulnerable to foolishness, manipulation, factions and in fighting, deceit, gossip, and division that is never healed. Our perceptions of reality and our deep-down attachments—they may be right, and they may be wrong.
Like it or not, we are too fragile and too messy to navigate this on our own. We need other people too, but that’s not enough. We need God’s law, his design for living, to guard us and guide us, especially when we are stressed, depressed, and overwhelmed.
JONAH 2:8 Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them.
When we experience being stressed, depressed, and overwhelmed—that is a time to pay close attention. We should ask ourselves, is it possible that I’m feeling this way because I’ve got some idols being messed with?
Please don’t mishear me. I’m not saying that every time we feel stressed, depressed, or overwhelmed, it’s because we seek our significance, security, and satisfaction in something other than Jesus. I’m not saying that. And yet, sometimes, it is precisely that.
A man or woman who finds significance in Jesus, not career achievement, is going to feel stress if laid off from their job because that is a very hard thing. But a man or woman who finds their significance in career achievement—threaten their advancement, force them to retire, take away their job, and you will see something else entirely. Even if he or she is a follower of Jesus, they will abandon the way of Jesus to get that sense of significance back because they weren’t looking for it in Jesus in the first place.
But it’s worse than that. Once we become convinced that we can’t have what it is that we believe will give us these things—we will become despairing. That’s devastation. Because I’m a pastor people sometimes give me a backstage pass to their lives. I get to be present in some very high moments and I get to be present in the difficult moments. The hardest moments have been when I watched people give up on life, because they lost the thing or person that functioned as their source of significance, security, or satisfaction.
Why is Jonah so despairing? His idols aren’t working. It would be easy to be smug and think what we see in Jonah doesn’t apply to us. What if Jonah is mirror, reflecting back to us what we are all like?
This was written with the expectation that we think about the other parts of the Old Testament as well. I think the writer has written this in such a way that we are supposed to compare this scene in Jonah’s life with a similar scene in the prophet Elijah’s life.
You can read all about this in 1 Kings 17-19.
The back story is that Israel’s king was Ahab, and his wife was Jezebel. They didn’t love the Lord. They worshiped the gods Baal and Asherah.
BAAL & ASHERAH:
- Baal was the god of rain, storms and dew.
- Asherah was the goddess of fertility.
Together, Ahab and Jezebel systematically hunted down and murdered as many of the prophets of God they could find. And for context, part of Baal worship included sacrificing children. This is serious, grievous stuff.
So, God brought the prophet Elijah onto the scene. He was a man who had enough trust to follow God and enough courage to speak truth to power. He had the guts to face the king and tell him, “Your gods are figments of your imagination. And my God is going to prove it!”
1 KINGS 17:1 Now Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.”
It didn’t rain a drop for over 3 years. About 3 ½ years later, Elijah shows back up to pick a fight with Ahab. He sets up a meeting with the king and challenged him to a contest. Let’s find out whose god is real. King Ahab agreed. These were the rules.
DIVINE SHOWDOWN
- Invite everyone to come to Mount Carmel (supposed home of Baal).
- Set up two altars, with a sacrificed bull on both.
- Prophets of Baal pray that their god sends down fire to consume the sacrifice.
- Elijah prays to his God to do the same.
- Whichever one answered was the real God and would be the one whom everyone would follow.
This was a big affair. Thousands of people were present. The tension and the anticipation must have been thick. That’s when Elijah put his faith and his courage on full display.
1 KINGS 18:21 Elijah went before the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.”
450 prophets of Baal got to work. For hours, they prayed and chanted and did everything they could to coerce their god to send down fire. It never happened. Now it’s Elijah’s turn. And just for good measure, he had his altar and sacrificed bull drenched with water. Then he prayed this.
1 KINGS 18:37-39 Answer me, Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.”
What is God interested in? This is relational. This is about God and his people getting heart-to-heart again.
Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench. When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, “The Lord—he is God! The Lord—he is God!”
What else do you do but worship once it becomes undeniable to you that God is real and your old idols are worthless? I know I’m going through some fairly dramatic moments pretty quickly. I want to make clear that God sending fire down from the sky is not what was most extraordinary. These people had devoted themselves to depraved, pagan rituals for years. There was no need to define the relationship. There were no subtle clues to pick up on. They had made it clear to God. “We don’t want you anymore. We’ve given our allegiance and our affection to someone else.”
And yet, in a firestorm of affirmation, God made it crystal clear that he still wanted their hearts. This is an amazing representation of grace.
1 KINGS 18:37 Answer me, Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.”
Through dramatic events, God made an extraordinary statement, “I still want you. I’m still with you. I am full of compassion and want to bring reconciliation.”
No amount of REBELLION can outmatch the RELENTLESSNESS of God’s grace.
Believe it or not, more grace was coming. Remember that it hadn’t rained for three and a half years. Elijah prayed, the heavens opened, and rain poured down—all good news. But there was one person who wasn’t happy. Queen Jezebel was so furious she put out an order to kill Elijah.
Let’s do a quick recap. It hadn’t rained for over three years. The point was to inspire repentance, but that didn’t work. Next, Elijah had a showdown with the prophets of Baal. The power of God blows everyone away. The people repent and worship. Then Elijah prayed for rain, and it rained! The drought is over. You would think Elijah would feel so validated, riding so high, that nothing could spoil his joy and confidence. You would think that he would not sweat the tantrums and threats of Jezebel.
1 KINGS 19:3-5a Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die.
Who does he sound like? That sounds like Jonah.
“I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep.
Who else has ever prayed something like this? God, I’m done. I quit. I can’t take any more. Has anyone ever taken an angry nap?! Elijah is taking an angry nap. We’ve got Elijah, and we’ve got Jonah. Elijah has given everything he’s got. Jonah, on the other, gave the bare minimum effort. Jonah invested more energy running from God than he invested in representing God. And yet, these very different men end up in the same emotional place. They were so done, so depleted, so exhausted and disillusioned that they wanted to die.
Let’s continue with Elijah’s story.
1 KINGS 19:5b-8a All at once an angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.” He looked around, and there by his head was some bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again. The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.” So he got up and ate and drank.
Who saw that coming? Warm, fresh baked bread. Who knows, maybe they were Red Lobster cheesy biscuits. God wasn’t angry. He didn’t punish him. He made him a snack!
I love this story. Isn’t that the view of God that we need? But, if I’m really honest with you, this messes with me. I don’t like the fact that a heroic prophet like Elijah, can end up in the fetal position, despairing like Jonah who was a joke of a prophet. And if I can be really candid with you, I don’t like how this exposes that the same thing could happen to me. What’s the lesson here?
Tim Mackie is one of my favorite Bible teachers. He says this.
The large-scale comparison with Elijah is crucial to the portrayal of Jonah’s character. Both prophets played their role in communicating the divine word. However, both prophets fundamentally misunderstand the bigger picture of God’s purpose, and they respond in a self-oriented way...Neither prophet can see beyond their own life circumstances, despite the fact that God patiently invites them into a conversation. –Tim Mackie
No one is immune to being hijacked by grief, stress, fear, anxiety, weakness, or disillusionment. These two scenes bring us face-to-face with a hard but valuable truth. The worst in us comes out in the best of us whenever we look around or look within instead of looking up. And yet, God shows up with kindness to woo us back to himself. Jump forward to the New Testament, the Apostle Paul wrote this.
ROMANS 2:4 Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?
I want to let you in on a question I’ve been wrestling with. You may not answer the way I answer it. You may not be ready to answer. It may take more time and wrestling of your own. Was God kind to Elijah, but harsh with Jonah? Or, was God compassionate and kind to both of them?
I want to draw your attention back to Jonah chapter 4. Three times, it tells us that God provided something. First, God provided a plant. Jonah was very happy about the shade. Then God provided a worm that killed the plant—no more shade. Then God provided a scorching east wind and the sun to beat down on Jonah’s head.
A couple of weeks ago we made a big deal out of provision being a blessing word. It’s a positive. But this doesn’t sound positive. I’m sure it didn’t feel like a blessing to Jonah to be scorched and sun burned. Elijah got fresh baked bread. Jonah got blisters. I can understand anyone saying—I don’t see compassion and kindness.
Take that and hold it off to the side for a second. I feel like there are lessons that I’ve learned in my 40s that I wished I would have learned in my 20s. Can anybody relate to that? It took years and scars and tears to learn wisdom that I cherish, I just wish I could have learned it years earlier. If you’re tracking with me, throw up a hand.
It takes time to learn valuable lessons. What I see between God and Jonah, is God giving him a lesson, but on fast forward. God added a little heat to teach Jonah in a day what takes decades for some of us to learn.
Jonah, your affections and emotional life are all out of whack. You are so distorted that you’ve lost touch with reality. You, Jonah, are clinging to idols and have turned away from my love.
Which is more compassionate: letting Jonah take another decade to learn that lesson, or cranking up the heat so that he can learn in it a day? Notice the reverse of garden imagery. Jonah became attached to something small and temporary. Even if God had not withered it, it would have withered in time. It’s a powerful statement to Jonah. What you think is a garden is actually a wasteland. Let go of your worthless idolatry and turn to my love.
We may see it differently. I see God being compassionate and invested in Jonah, so that Jonah will take his death grip off his idols and rest in the embrace of the God who loves him.
I’m reminded of something Jesus said.
MATTHEW 11:28-30 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
What idols are you clinging to? What are looking to fulfill your needs for significance, security, and satisfaction?
- Some of us have a complicated relationship with food or drink, because we’re trying to chase down the fulfilment that we can only find in a relationship with Jesus.
- Some of us have a complicated relationship with sex, because we’re trying to chase down the fulfilment that we can only find in a relationship with Jesus.
- Some of us have a complicated relationship with money, because we’re trying to chase down the fulfilment that we can only find in a relationship with Jesus.
- Some of us have a complicated relationship with religious performance and busyness, because we’re trying to chase down the fulfilment that we can only find in a relationship with Jesus.
- Some of us have a complicated relationship with our kids or with a significant other because we’re trying to squeeze out of them the fulfillment that we can only find in a relationship with Jesus.
I heard someone describe the book of Jonah as a stick of dynamite with a long fuse. It ends all of the sudden. There is no resolution. God’s question just hangs there. Should I not have concern for people...”
Some people wonder who the author of the book is. I don’t know. I also don’t know how this could be written without Jonah providing the source material. Which begs the question. Why would he allow himself to be portrayed so badly? Perhaps it’s his way of saying, don’t be as I was. Don’t cling to worthless idols. Humbly repent and turn to the God who loves you. And even if he brings hardship in your life to get you to let go of those idols—that is an expression of his love for you.
There is not one example of humble repentance by Jonah at all in this book. But the fact that it exists seems to indicate that he did repent. And this is his witness to us, pointing us to the compassion and reconciliation of God that is found in Jesus.