“I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgement is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me.” John 5:30
Throughout Scripture we find that God is sending messengers, often Angels, or His prophets to proclaim His word to a person or to a people. Leading up to the revelation of Jesus Christ being declared to be the Lamb of God who takes aways the sin of the world, we find John the Baptist being SENT from God. (John 1:6) John did not come of his own accord, or because he thought it was the right thing to do. He came because, being filled with the Spirit, “…the word of God came to John the Son of Zacharias in the wilderness.” (Luke 3:2) John came at a certain time, being approximately thirty years old, because in the wilderness God spoke to him convincingly, that he was being sent by God to prepare the way for the revelation of the Messiah. He was sent by God, and because of this, he was perfectly equipped by the Spirit to accomplish his mission.
When Jesus came to the Jordan River that eventful day, when the Spirit of God came upon Him after His baptism, it was in response to the Father’s calling of Him. We see this early in Jesus’ life, when, surrounded by knowledgeable elders and teachers in the synagogue, when Jesus was twelve years old, He declared to his parents that He was about His Father’s business. Though remaining submitted to the will of his earthly parents, the calling of God the Father was upon Him, and the moment when he would be “sent” by the Father to begin His ministry was approaching.
In the book of Isaiah, in one of the clear references to Christ, written hundreds of years before Christ was born, Isaiah wrote: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me, to preach good tidings to the poor, He HAS SENT ME to heal the brokenhearted…” (61:1) From the time that Jesus began His public ministry, after returning from the wilderness being tempted by the devil, He never lost sight of the fact that His purpose in coming, and His mission to be accomplished, was not something that He devised independently from the Father. Throughout the Gospels, and in particular the Gospel according to John, Jesus is declaring over and over again to the crowds and to His disciples, that He was SENT from God.
The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Galatian believers, began by declaring that he was an apostle, “…not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead.” (1:1) His calling was from God first, and truly, alone. He too, according to that calling, in God’s perfect time, had been sent by God to be an apostle, not only to the Jews, but to the world, the Gentiles. Like Christ, but to a lesser extent, Paul had been sent to preach the Gospel, to preach Christ to the world. In that calling, and according to the commission that He had received from God, he went forth in the power of the Spirit of God to accomplish the will of God for His life. This is confirmed by his words to the believers in Rome: “And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are SENT?” (10:14,15
Why is the matter of knowing, and being fully convinced of God’s commission, His sending forth of His servants to accomplish a certain mission, so very important? The answer is found in the Lord’s words to His disciples declared just prior to His death: “…I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.” (Jn. 16:33) The Father’s presence was Christ’s sufficient power and authority, fully and actively operative in Christ to accomplish His mission, to enable Him to finish His work of redemption.
The believer’s specific commission from God is also profound, personal, and powerful.
Dear Father, Speak conviction to us. In Jesus’ name, Amen.