Am I Sent?

On Sunday, I told the graduating high school seniors that (if they are believers) they are being sent to their college campuses. In the past several months, I have said the same thing to you about your neighborhoods and workplaces. The implications, of course, are life-altering. If I am sent to my workplace, my neighborhood, my school, even my grocery store, then I can never just go to my workplace, neighborhood, school, or even grocery store. But is it true? Am I really sent?

We've been in these places for years, time and time again - perhaps without any sense of being sent. No determination on my part to live as one sent, and no voice from heaven exclaiming "I sendeth thee!" I've being living quite unsent for a very long time, and the universe still seems to spin and the paycheck keeps showing up twice a month. How can I be sent if I've successfully gone so many years as if unsent? Besides, I chose that job, that neighborhood, that school, and that store without praying or asking God where He'd like to send me - my choice means I couldn't have been sent.

Rather, isn't this religiospeak to make my daily grind sound way more important than it really is? Isn't this just a clever way for the pastor to trick me into integrating my faith better into my "regular" life?

This is no mere manipulation or motivation-by-guilt. It's absolutely, fundamentally, necessarily true. Consider:

God is continuously purposeful. It is God's unchanging nature to have a purpose for every action. He never lacks a fully developed purpose for anything He does. Where you live and work and shop and play are in fact choices you make. Furthermore, you can make some choices that are decidedly contrary to God's purpose and will. However, you cannot do anything, not even choose something against His will, that works outside of His purpose. He will use all of your decisions - those submitted to His will, those ignorant of His will, and those contrary to His will - to accomplish His purpose. "And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose" (Rom 8:28). You are not where you are outside of God's purpose.

Jesus said so. Jesus sends His disciples, pure and simple. He had the habit of doing so during His ministry, and in the instructions He gave them, they still had freedoms to make choices on how to carry out that sending. More importantly, near the end of His ministry, He effectively sent all who would follow Him. "Just as the Father has sent me, I also send you" (John 20:21). He did, in fact, say, "I sendeth thee!"

Let no man separate what God has joined. We tend to separate our jobs and the marketplace from our "religious" sphere. It's a false secular-sacred dualism. We can be sent to the people in our church or sent to a pre-designated "mission field" across town or across an ocean. I'll even take a week off from work to go (be sent) to one of these specially-designated mission fields - I leave the work sphere to enter the mission sphere. That's a false dualism. Our mission field is this world. All of it. "All" would include "secular" places like work, home, school, and market. On God's map, there are no lines to separate mission fields from "normal" fields. He just drew a big, red circle around the whole planet and said, "Go ye therefore there" (cf. Matt 28:18-20).

It is impossible for a follower of Christ to be unsent. In order to prove the positive, let's look at the negative - you cannot be an unsent follower of Christ. Impossible. A follower of Christ follows Christ. (It's tautological, but profound.) To follow Christ is go where He goes, do what He does, think how He thinks. Jesus is by His very nature missional (i.e., sent). In order to follow a missional (i.e., sent) Christ by definition means being missional (i.e., sent). I.e., sent! It is impossible for a follower of Christ to be unsent.

If you are a follower of Christ, you are sent on behalf of the Kingdom of God into your neighborhood, workplace, school, and even shopping mall. (Oh, God, please don't send me to the shopping mall!!!  -- 1 Kinseronians 4:12) You may have "chosen" these places without regard to God's mission. You may have chosen them out of godless, selfish, or rebellious intentions. And yet you are sent nonetheless. How much better, then, to be sent to these places by choice?

So be sent. You can never just go to your workplace, neighborhood, school, or even grocery store.