OPENING THOUGHT:
When we left off in our Jonah series last Sunday, Jonah had been running from God onboard a ship heading into the middle of a storm. He had been thrown overboard the ship and swallowed up by a fish, only to be spit up onto the shore of the beach, some three days later, probably back near Joppa. This is how Jonah described his experience in his own words:

Jonah 2:5–6
“The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head. To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath me barred me in forever.”

As Jonah was being saved by grace and eventually vomited out onto that beach, we landed last Sunday on this big question: Would Jonah ever be useful to God again? Turn with me to Jonah 3.

Could it be that when you have been saved by grace and your life is now in the hands of a great and mighty God, you become a chosen instrument of a great and mighty God?

Jonah: Chosen Instrument
When your life is planted on solid ground, there is always an opportunity to make a difference for God. Did you notice God doing that for Jonah back at the end of chapter 2? When the fish vomited Jonah out, it was not back into the water. It was onto dry land so that Jonah could get back on his feet and experience a new beginning with God. Notice that the fish became the first chosen instrument of God so that Jonah could become a chosen instrument for God!

Onto dry land meant a fresh start and a fresh opportunity. Even though Jonah had been throw overboard, swallowed up, and spit out, he was not completely washed up.

Some of you might say that you have fallen too short or you have done too many bad things to ever again be useful to God. Jonah could have felt that way too, but onto dry land meant a new opportunity for Jonah. He still had his life, and God was not done with Jonah yet. And so, one of the first things we must learn about being a chosen instrument is, just like God had a bigger plan for Jonah…

With Jonah now back on dry land, the word of the Lord came to him a second time, with the same opportunity and the same instructions. Jonah had tried to run away the first time, but God had not given up on him. God’s grace had been there not only to save Jonah from the bottom of the ocean, but to give him a new opportunity to live out his purpose in Nineveh. But we might say, "Ok, that was God’s plan for Jonah, but what does God’s grace mean for me?" Consider this...

Ephesians 2:10
For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

The story of your life is that you are God’s special workmanship. God created you with a special purpose to do good works. And though you have fallen short of that purpose and rebelled from that purpose, God's grace is there not just to save you, but to restore you to be what God created you to be.

We are not saved by our good works. Instead, we are saved to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. God has that bigger plan for you! God saves you for a purpose because he created you for a purpose. Jonah would become God’s messenger to an unreached people group to proclaim the message that God would give to him. And when God saves you, he also invites you to be part of this same kind of mission.

To be part of the body of Christ means that you become his hands and feet, not just to be saved, but to live saved with a greater purpose. God has a bigger plan for you, and this may be the most encouraging truth of all…

As Nineveh was an important city, this was an important assignment. Nineveh was the capital city of a big, rising empire. There were more than 120,000 people living there, and to walk from one end of the city to the other would take you at least three days. Nineveh was a big deal because there were so many people living there, and the eternal fate of each person was hanging in the balance. And yet God entrusted their eternal destiny into the hands of a runaway prophet, not once but twice! Why would God give Jonah that kind of responsibility w/so much at stake?

And God continued to believe in the people whom he calls. About 800 years later, Jesus would gather a group of rag-tag men, mostly fishermen, and would raise them up for this moment…

John 20:21
Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”

Jesus had saved them and raised them up from among the unknown and the outcasts to be the most unlikely group of people in human history who would be the ones to launch the first Christian church. And in one day, by the power of the Holy Spirit, they had over 3,000 new church members!

And God has not stopped there. With each new person who is saved by grace and brought into the family of God, there is a new person commissioned by God to become part of his mission... A mission to reach every tribe, tongue and nation because he is the God of every tribe, tongue, and nation! But why doesn't God just go and do this worldwide mission work himself? Why didn’t God just go and do the mission work in Nineveh himself?

There is much mystery to why God chooses to work this way, and yet it is also an amazing privilege and opportunity for us. It also comes down to faith, and not just your faith in God, but God’s faith in you! Even when you don’t believe in yourself, God believes in you. All you have to do is take God at his word and take that step of obedience.

As Jonah took his first step off of that beach, it led him to his first day in the big city, and he began to do what God told him to do. Jonah was probably scared, but he knew that God had this plan for him, and he must have known by now that God believed in him. And as Jonah stepped out to follow God’s plan, he also knew something else… Be encouraged that God has a plan for you, he believes in you, and…

Jonah was simply a faithful messenger for God. As we see in the rest of this passage, the people responded to God because the power to change their lives could only come from God. Even the king turned to God and issued a decree, hoping that God would relent and have compassion on all the people.

When it comes to making a difference in the lives of other people, we never know exactly how they will respond. But we can leave the results up to God because we know that it is God’s plan and his power at work. All we have to do is be faithful and trust that God will do the work.

Could Jonah have brought salvation to all of those people? No way! But he could and he did bring God’s message of salvation to them. And when God saw how they listened to the message and were turning to him…

Jonah 3:10
…he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.

The same grace of God that had saved Jonah from the bottom of the ocean was now overflowing from Jonah to the people of Nineveh, as Jonah had once again become an instrument in God’s hands. But as we make our way into chapter 4, the new question becomes: Would Jonah find satisfaction in sharing the grace of God with other people?