“The ambassador as any other communicator, should model congruity between the importance of his message and the clarity and force of his communication.”[1] Our commission to the world is to be to the world what Christ is to us. An important point to consider is that, “if every person is as big as his job then Christians should stand tall.”[2] Our engagement is in one of the most vital in this world. We are involved in Gods business.
The Disciples of Christ took time to fully grasp the weight of what Christ said to them in John 20:21, “as the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” This should not surprise us because it’s evident that the church in this nation has not comprehended what Jesus said in that verse. Otherwise tribalism and negative ethnicity that sway Christians and even ministers of the gospel would be unheard of. But we still seem to pay our allegiance not first to Christ but to our communities when election time comes. The principle of being set apart for Christ is forgotten as the clergy and the laity alike hit the campaign trail becoming servants of another and not of Christ. If we consider the import of the message we carry should we really forget our mission and follow a diversion that confuses people, leading to irrelevance and pettiness in our Christian witness?
Shouldn't the concept of being sent be central in the way we carry ourselves? Revealing the profound awareness of the mission that Jesus had and what he expects of us? Probably we have heard the story of the child that had been send by his father to borrow an axe from the neighbor to split wood. The boy ran and arrived at the neighbor’s house and was offered a cup of tea on arrival. For a moment he forgot about his assignment as he enjoyed the cup of tea only to rise up and declare he had been sent for the same instrument when another boy arrived from his father and immediately requested the use of the axe. The second boy not only received the axe but also fulfilled the will of his father with the urgency that it required.
That same sense of urgency is required of every messenger of Christ in presenting the gospel to a lost world. Jesus himself lived this way. He said in John 9:4 "I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work. And to his disciples who wondered why he was not eager to eat the food they had brought he said, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.” Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest (John 4:34-35)! That is the urgency with which the church should conduct itself in delivering the message committed to us.
