Fish and Ships: Our Purpose and His Mission

Last week, we talked about: how God desires to provide us with direction as we head down the path He’s prepared for us the different ways that God communicates with us if God calls us to fulfill a task, He promises to follow us through to completion listening and doing Our topic today: not only has God prepared a path for us, but He has created us with a purpose.

Each tool is created for a specific purpose.

“The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai:  “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me”. But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord”.

Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up.  All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. The captain went to him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us so that we will not perish.” Then the sailors said to each other, “Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.” They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. 

So they asked him, “Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What kind of work do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?” He answered, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” This terrified them and they asked, “What have you done?” (They knew he was running away from the Lord, because he had already told them so.) The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?”

“Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he replied, “and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.” Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before. Then they cried out to the Lord, “Please, Lord, do not let us die for taking this man’s life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, Lord, have done as you pleased.” Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. At this the men greatly feared the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to him.” (Jonah 1:1-15)

Why would God call Jonah – a virtual nobody with an unsavoury character from a rebellious nation - to travel some 800 km to preach against his sworn enemies? There had to be someone either closer to Nineveh or with a more fitting character for the call to fulfill this task, right? There probably was someone else but God does not abandon Jonah and pass along the challenge to someone else because God did not create that person to fulfill this task. Jonah, son of Amittai was the tool for this task, not anyone else.

“[God] created my inmost being; [He] knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made”. (Psalm 139:13-14) God created you just the way you are, intentionally, on purpose, and for a specific purpose. “We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do”. (Ephesians 2:10) God’s got a unique task to which He’s calling each one of you.

Jonah’s Calling Jonah is called to go to Nineveh, a pagan city in a pagan nation, a city threatened by the judgement of God. He is to act as both God’s voice and God’s presence in that city as He declares God’s word to the Ninevites. If Jonah fails to fulfill this mission, then the people of Nineveh would suffer calamity Israel’s Calling Israel was to exist as a reminder of God’s pre-eminence; in a world under the imminent judgement of God, Israel was to act as both God’s voice and His presence.

“Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation”. (Exodus 19:5-6) The Role of the Priest A priest serves as an intermediary between the rest of the people of Israel and God himself. Ancient Jews believed the priests served as a conduit to bring down and “direct” God's blessing and influence into the world.

The people of Israel were chosen and set apart by God’s sovereign choice, to direct God’s blessing and influence among all the people groups, directing them in proper worship and acting as intermediaries of God Himself. The call was to go into the world, a place of great paganism, a world threatened by the judgement of God and act as both God’s voice and God’s presence in the world as they declared God’s word to the surrounding nations. If Israel failed to fulfill this mission, then the nations of the world would suffer calamity.

But Jonah is not faithful to the call of God; instead of Nineveh, he runs off to Joppa and boards a ship for Tarshish. Notice that: God sends a storm Jonah’s way Jonah finally begins to act as God’s presence and voice in the midst of calamity during the storm. He speaks the very word of God to the sailors Jonah cannot shake the calling put on his His failure to fulfill his mission and call on God’s terms has put others in great peril, though.  

Our Calling and Mission When God places His call upon your life, He will see it through to completion, sometimes even in spite of our disobedience. Like Israel, we as the church – the people of God – are called to a specific ministry.

“You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” (1 Peter 2:9) “God … gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.” (2 Corinthians 5:18-20)

Just as both Jonah and Israel were to enter their worlds as God’s presence and voice to a people threatened by God’s judgment, preventing tremendous calamity from befalling them, we are to do the same in our world. “God always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere.  For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing”. (2 Corinthians 2:14-15) The point: if you’ve placed your faith in Christ, you stink like Jesus, whether you like it or not.

It’s up to us whether the fulfillment of this calling will benefit us on a personal level or not. If we resist like Jonah, any development towards maturity that might come because of God’s use of us will be absolutely lost on us. Will you be obedient to God’s call upon your life, extending God’s blessing and word to the world around you, and experience the personal benefits that come along with it, or will you in disobedience, accomplish that same mission, but miss on the personal blessings that accompany it?

The will of God will be accomplished regardless of our obedience – God is sovereign after all - but whether we find ourselves on dry land or sinking beneath the surf as a result is up to us.