Being sent

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the concept of 'being sent'. It's a phrase I hear spoken by friends, by youth and all over the church. In Acts 13 you see Saul and Barnabas sent out to the uttermost parts of the earth (an early example of the 'sending church'). Yet 'sent' need not mean dispersed over all the earth, but rather being marked by intercession, caring for the needs of hurting people, hungering to teach the Word of God, and demonstrating a willingness to listen to & allow the Spirit to move (among other things).

I see the idea of 'being sent' also reflected in the words of Peter. His main challenge in 1 Peter 2:9-10 is that you must act on the privileges that have come to you through the grace of God (not remaining in the despair that holds so many nations captive).

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were no people but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy. 1 Peter 2:9-10

In looking for more insight on the notion of 'being sent', I came across an article written by Gordon MacDonald in 1981 titled, The Sending Church. Here's an excerpt that I thought related directly to the notion of being sent.

The mission

The mission of Jesus Christ was also part of the sending mindset of Peter. Recall again that incredible moment when Peter resists the notion that Jesus can use him. Christ said to him in what must have been gentle but firm words, "Peter, don't be afraid, don't be afraid." And when Jesus invades that group of men in those first days they have anything but a sending mindset. These men are relatively poor, probably uneducated, come out of the simpler professions and have a provincial view of the world and of history. Moreover, they are poorly organized.

There is a "Peanut's" story in which Linus, Lucy's younger brother, is watching television. Lucy walks into the living room, looks at Linus's choice of program and says, "Change the channel!" Linus looks up and he replies, "What makes you think that you can walk into this room and just say like that, 'Change the channel'?" She says, "You see this hand? Individually these five fingers don't amount to much, but rolled together tightly into a ball-like fist they become a weapon formidable to behold." Linus changes the channel. And after Lucy is comfortably ensconced and watching her own program, Linus looks at his own hand and fingers, and says, "Why can't you guys get organized like that?"

This could have been said to the disciples to challenge them to become apostles. I wouldn't have picked one of those men. Indeed, there must have been moments when in his humanity Jesus must have said, "Why can't you guys get organized?"

The answer is simple. In the earliest stages of their walk with Jesus they were like many of us. They loved him; they were following him, but they did not yet think of "sending." They had to grasp the notion at the very beginning that God the Father so loved the world that he gave his only Son; he sent him into the world that the world through him might be saved. Until they knew that Jesus was the sent One from the Father, and that they in turn were to be sent by him, they could never mature and get organized as they were to be. Jesus was drilling this deeply into their spirits month by month in experiences of discipleship, failure and success, slowly unfolding to them this enormous concept that we are trying to grasp that every person is sent.

John 4 tells the story of the woman at the well in which Jesus talks to the woman and her life is scoured and changed. The disciples come back thinking that Jesus would be hungry for food. But he said, "Look, food is good, but that's not the important priority today. My food is to do the will of the one who sent me. Look out upon the fields and see these people coming. They are the most important thing." That's the way we think when we are sent.

Slowly, rhythmically, like a sledgehammer pounding at the resistance of their innermost spirits, Peter and the men around him are taught what it means to be sent.

In John 17:18 Jesus says, "Even as you, Father, have sent me into the world, so I have sent them." And in John 20:21 he says, "As the Father has sent me, even so send I you." Over and over, each time he is in the presence of Jesus, this great consuming theme touches Peter's life. He begins to see it as the important issue.