Someone was recently trying to figure out what his "mission" in life should be, so I figured it'd be a good exercise to look at what God's purposes were for the major biblical figures. What was God trying to accomplish through them that GOD found valuable (not merely what we as humans might value). I found a common theme.

ADAM - "Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth in number." This is the first command in Scripture given to humanity. At the time, Adam was perfectly in God's image and God wanted him to build a Kingdom of people in that image.

NOAH - His mission was to survive the flood and repopulate the earth, essentially the same as Adam. God chose Noah because post-fall, he was the only one who still reasonably honored his role as God's image. God wanted a godly Kingdom across the world and Noah was God's vehicle for creating it.

ABRAHAM - "I will make you into a mighty nation." By this point in history, there were many nations, most sinful again (as with Noah's day). God decided he wanted a Kingdom for himself to be a light to the rest of the world and he gave Abraham the promise of having and raising up a child to start that Kingdom.

ISAAC - "I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands." God's plan for Isaac is the same as Abraham's, directly saying to him: "I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father" (Genesis 26:1-5).

JACOB/ISRAEL - "The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed" (Genesis 28:13-14). Yeah, he also inherits Abraham's purpose/mission/covenant. Jacob actually fathered the progenitors of the 12 tribes.

JOSEPH - God made him second-in-power over all of Egypt. Why? Because that's where his brothers and their offspring (i.e. God's Kingdom) would be raised up. God used Joseph's suffering to lead him to a place where he could best help God's people to grow and thrive in Egypt. By Genesis 47 we see that "Joseph settled his father and his brothers and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses," and the previous chapter cites the generations that came with them. The Kingdom is growing.

MOSES - God's Kingdom grew too large in Egypt after Joseph's day, so God gave Moses the task of leading his people to a land of their own, where the Kingdom could thrive and grow again. Part of that task was purifying the Kingdom from its wickedness, which is why the evil generation he first led wasn't allowed to enter - because, again, God always wanted a GODLY people for himself, not just warm bodies, regardless of bloodline.

JOSHUA - After Moses was gone, God gave Joshua the task of conquering the nations inhabiting the "promised land" of Canaan, literally creating and expanding the physical borders of his nation of the time.

JUDGES - They were responsible for both ruling and expanding God's Kingdom.

DAVID - He was the epitome ruler of God's Kingdom, both expanding it with the help of his mighty men, as well as leading it in godliness, as his purpose and mission.

SOLOMON - His mission was not only to rule God's Kingdom, but also to build his temple, ensuring that God's presence (within the holy of holies) would remain central to His Kingdom.

From here, we see a lot of bad kings that destroy the kingdom God built. None of them are viewed as "great men of faith" we should model our lives after, with limited exception, like Hezekiah, who (after repenting) focused his life again on building and running God's Kingdom in godliness.

I could go through the prophets too, but I'm low on time. I don't think anyone would object that much of their prophecy was either oriented at: (1) God's intentions for his physical Kingdom, Israel, or (2) prophesying about the coming spiritual Kingdom and the Messiah who would usher it into being. The key is Malach 2:15 where God says that his purpose (particularly in marriage) was "to produce GODLY offspring." God has always been about building not generic generations, but "godly" generations for himself. For that matter, we literally have a whole book of the Bible titled "Numbers" that cites the genealogies to show how important generations are to God - all within the context of "godliness," because he wants a people who reflect his image to the world. That is what his Kingdom is meant to be.

We could even go back and look at the women.

ESTHER - Her purpose in God's narrative was to make sure God's Kingdom could survive Haman's hate and trickery that would otherwise have destroyed it.

DEBORAH - As one of the Judges, she focused on expanding God's Kingdom and protecting it.

RAHAB - Her purpose in protecting the spies was instrumental in allowing God's Kingdom to retake Canaan under Joshua.

RUTH - She married a guy and had babies, one of her offspring being David. While the purpose of her story, on an individual level, wasn't Kingdom-building, it's fascinating that the author of her story ends it with his Kingdom-building point of interest: "Boaz fathered Obed, Obed fathered Jesse, and Jesse fathered David," as if the author was ending with: "And now you know why this story mattered."

We'll keep the NT simple, as I'm low on time.

JESUS - His mission was to start and build a spiritual Kingdom for God - one which Paul would later describe in Romans 9, "For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel ... but 'Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.' This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of hte promise are counted as offspring." While respecting his Jewish heritage and their role as God's people, Jesus' purpose in his earthly ministry (i.e. prior to his death and resurrection) was to preach, found, and build a spiritual Kingdom for God, which would become the fulfillment of the physical nation that God used as a foreshadow for the Church. Notably, Jesus preached about Kingdom-building more than anyone else in all of Scripture. That is, when God actually comes and speaks to everyone, we see that he is even more Kingdom-oriented than anyone else, who merely heard his commands.

APOSTLES - They devoted their entire lives to the commission: "Make disciples of all nations" - i.e. "Build the Kingdom of God." Like Moses, Jesus' death was our means of escaping the enemy (Israel's Egypt) and unifying with one another as a singular people. Like Joshua, just as Israel had to re-take Canaan after Joseph had pulled his people out and enemies inhabited it, so also did the apostles have to re-claim the spiritual ground that the enemy had claimed as his own, winning souls and discipling them into dutiful soldiers to continue the expansion of God's Kingdom thereafter.

REVELATION - While not a "person," we do see that just as God opened Scripture with "be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth in number," and Jesus, as history's climax, ascended with a command to multiply spiritual life ("make disciples of all nations") ... so also does the Bible end with the fulfillment of this, ushering in God's actual Kingdom, where we will live for eternity.

WHAT SHOULD I DO???

When people ask, "What does God want ME to do with MY life?" I have often heard pastors refrain:

  • "Stop being so focused on yourself. Your life isn't your own. You were 'bought with a price.' Don't worry about YOU. Look at what GOD is doing and figure out how to help him do it."

I occasionally quote one of our mods here, where in a conversation with someone who said he was trying to figure out God's calling on his life, /u/fictitiousfishes answered, "God's not likely to give you personal divine revelation just to tell you what he already told you in Scripture."

When people are praying for "God's calling" on their life, it's usually because either (1) they haven't read the Bible yet, so they are genuinely ignorant, or (2) they don't want to accept "make disciples" or "build God's Kingdom" as their calling/mission, so they're desperately hoping God will change his mind and give them some other purpose. But looking at the above, it seems pretty clear what God is doing. Are you going to join him or try to come up with some way of skirting God's actual goals while still feeling self-validated with the cop-out: "I'm contributing ... just in other ways"?

I'll add a quote from Dawson Trotman, who gave his life (both metaphorically and literally) trying to expand God's Kingdom:

If I were the minister of a church and had deacons or elders to pass the plate and choir members to sing, I would say, "Thank God for your help. We need you. Praise the Lord for these extra things that you do," but I would keep pressing home the big job: "Be fruitful and multiply." All these other things are incidental to the supreme task of winning an man or woman to Jesus Christ and helping him or her to go on.

CONCLUSION

I hope every Christian recognizes that these great biblical characters are meant to be models for how we ought to live as well. When it comes to Jesus and the apostles, we really have no excuse. 1 John tells us, "If anyone abides in him, he must walk as Jesus walked." That doesn't merely mean to "listen to Jesus words and try to obey his verbal teachings." It means to look at his life. His purposes. His mission. And do likewise. Jesus made disciples. To refuse to do this is to say: "I don't want to walk as Jesus walked."

Similarly, Paul says, "Imitate me" in one place, and in another, "Follow me as I follow Christ," and in Philippians 3 he even tells people, "Let all of us who are mature take such a view of things" as a precedent to: "Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you," all in the context of "running as one trying to win the prize." What was this example? How did Paul live his life? He devoted everything he had to expanding God's Kingdom by making disciples.

Are you going to do likewise? Or are you going to pick the random guy on the sidelines and say, "Nah, I would rather model my life after that guy than on Jesus and Paul and all these other Kingdom-builders"?