Charles
Spurgeon once said, “Every Christian is
either a missionary or an imposter.”
This idea is certainly seen throughout the NT. Jesus was sent from His heavenly home on
mission, He called others join Him on that mission, and when He returned to
heaven, He left a great missionary commission for all those who would follow
Him. It’s clear: God calls us to Himself
and GOD SENDS us out on His mission of drawing still, others, to Him.
In
one of the most colorful stories in the OT, we read of the real event of God’s
sending His prophet, Jonah, on mission to Nineveh. The story of Jonah is a true story. He lived and ministered in Israel from 793 to
753 BC. He really did flee to a place
called Tarshish, he really was swallowed whole by a giant fish, he really did
survive in the fish’s belly for 3 days, and was actually vomited up on dry ground
in the very spot God had intended Him to be.
It’s a story that Jesus connected with, as he referenced specifically to
Jonah’s story foreshadowing His own in certain ways. It’s a story we can connect with, as most of
us know what it means to run the other way from God.
Jonah
is not the hero of the story. God is! In
the story we learn of the great lengths God goes to show mercy, compassion, and
grace towards rebellious people, and we learn that to belong to God is to be
sent by God. God sends; our job is to go.
We just completed an exciting study of Jonah that the Lord used to really set our church in a direction for 2015. Check out the full series HERE or the last message in the series below. In that message, we devoted the end to our specific goals for 2015.
25 January 2015 - Jonah - Week 4 - God Sends: Care from LegacyChurch on Vimeo.
