Does it seem to you at times that life is a random set of events, experiences, and circumstances? Do you sometimes wonder why the heck you are here, and what to do with this life you are living?
Even if you are a long-time follower of Jesus, many difficult aspects of life remain unexplainable. We can be left with a sense of confusion, frustration, futility, even despair.
Surely God didn’t intend for the world (including my little corner of it) to be in the state it is in!
I’m in one of my favorite coffeehouses this morning, not with solid answers to these problems, but with a sense of awe and wonder that transcends them.
I’ve been spending time in the Gospel of John, which means I’m spending time learning from Jesus. He reminds me that I can only make sense of a blessed thing by staying close to him.
There are many truths to enjoy and wonder about in John’s Gospel. But what is grabbing me the most is the multiple occurrences of a single word. The word sent occurs 55 times in this book of the Bible! As I read through these occurrences in their contexts, I come to a few undeniable conclusions:
- Jesus was sent into this world by his Father.
- He was sent at a specific time, to a specific place, to do a specific set of works.
- As his disciples, we are also sent by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit to do good works in his name.
- Though our works are not identical to those assigned to Jesus, their overall purpose is the same: to bring glory to God.
This assures and stabilizes me. With this knowledge I can wake up each day remembering that I am privileged to be a character in God’s big story, and not just my small one. You and I have a part to play. We don’t have to understand it all. We just walk in it, by faith.
Let’s see how Scripture comes to life in this reality of the sender and the sent.
Before Jesus, another man was sent for a purpose, John the Baptist. This mighty prophet of God was sent to baptize and prepare the hearts of the people to receive their Messiah. God confirmed who the Messiah was when John baptized Jesus and witnessed the Holy Spirit “come down and remain.” John the Baptist declared, “I am not the Messiah but am sent ahead of him” (Jn. 1:33; 3:28).
That the prophet sent to announce the coming of the Messiah lived in the same region, and in fact, was a relative of Jesus, is one of the astounding, improbable fulfillments of Old Testament prophecy about Christ. He received his calling before he was born.
The prophets who foretold these events were also sent by God. They were to speak the words of God, teach Israel to obey his commandments, and lead them back to God’s plan of redemption when they strayed away from it. These were courageous people who saw by the Spirit that God would one day send a savior.
Their words were fulfilled. Jesus was sent, in the fullness of time. He told people constantly that he had been sent, and he referred to the Scriptures to support his claim. When responding to the Jewish leaders’ challenges to his authority, Jesus proclaimed,
“I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to finish—the very works that I am doing—testify that the Father has sent me…You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me” (Jn. 5:36,39).
Jesus was not afraid to confront unbelief head-on. These religious bigots would fail to embrace their salvation because they would not believe in the one whom the Father had sent. They rejected the Son of God.
Because Jesus was so sure of his identity, he could boldly state to one and all,
“I know him because I am from him.”
“I am not alone. I stand with the Father.”
“While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
“I am the one whom the Father set apart as his very own.”
And because of his secure identity as the embodiment of God’s word and will, he proclaimed,
“The one who looks at me is seeing the one who sent me.”
“Whoever believes in me believes in the one who sent me.”
“Whoever accepts me accepts the one who sent me.”
“The work of God is to believe in the one he has sent.
And because he was so obedient in carrying out God’s mission on which he’d been sent, he could say,
“The Father judges no one but has entrusted all judgment to the Son.”
“The Father commanded me to say all that I have spoken.”
“My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.”*
I pray that the weight of these many proclamations drives home the point that Jesus was sent. He knew this and poured every ounce of his divine personhood into representing the Father’s love and purpose for the world.
He also showed this through his works. Jesus defined them in his first public teaching opportunity in his hometown, when he cited the prophet Isaiah from the distant past:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19).
Jesus outlined these main objectives for which he had been sent: to deliver good news, hope, freedom, and light to those dwelling in darkness and blindness. But these works would have been incomplete without the ultimate gift of himself:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (Jn. 3:16-17).
He was sent into the world, showed by his works that he was the Messiah, and then was sent to the Cross as the Lamb of God. He finished his work there so that anyone who believes in him could follow him into eternal life.
There we are. This is us.
Jesus taught his disciples much about what he wants us to do and be, and how we can serve him while we are here. As he stood up after washing dirty feet, he taught that disciples should serve as he served. Disciples pass on the message of the one who has dispatched them (Jn. 13:16). As he represented the Father with his words and works, we who believe represent Jesus and our Father through our words and works.
I believe that perhaps the quickest way to understand how we fit into this matrix of sending and being sent is to meditate upon the prayer of Jesus for his disciples just before his crucifixion in John 17. He reveals his ultimate purpose, and ours.
It is a very long passage, so I will highlight some portions. Bask in the loving words of Jesus.
Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.
I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me.
My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one…As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.
I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me, and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. (20-21, 23)
Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them. (25-26).
I don’t think Jesus could make it much clearer. He knew with every fiber of his being that he was one with God the Father and had been sent into the world to do the Father’s will. He fulfilled it perfectly in his life and in his death.
Then, Jesus gave those who believe in him full authority to represent him. We are filled with the empowering Spirit of God. We are one with him and with the Father.
We have been commissioned to go tell the world about Jesus. We are to glorify him in all we do and say.
Consider yourself sent!
*Jn. 4:34, 5:22, 6:29, 7:7-29; 8:16, 9:5, 11:45, 12:44-45, 12:49, 13:19
