"Lighting the Fire"
Jotting – Week 33

Send with a Message

Our children go to a birthday party. “Don’t forget to say thank you for a nice time,” we say as we drop them off. ... “Tell your teacher I’ll be in to help in the classroom at 9 o’clock,” a mother sends a message with her first grader. “I’m bringing the boss home for dinner,” the husband phones to his wife. All messages. All important.

In 1992, I had the opportunity to go to Slovakia as part of a team to train Sunday school teachers. The following year, when we returned for a follow-up visit, I took along a huge paper greeting card put together by the children of our Sunday school in St. Louis. They had decorated the card by tracing their hands and writing their names inside the hand outline. This card was given to the Slovakian Lutheran Sunday School Committee–hands reaching out to Christian brothers and sisters across the ocean, sending a message of love and encouragement to those they would likely not see this side of heaven.

Scripture is filled with stories of people used by God to give a message to someone else: Moses told Pharaoh: God says, “Let My people go” (Exodus 5:1). ... “Samuel said to Saul, ‘...You stay here awhile, so that I may give you a message from God’” (1 Samuel 9:27). “Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah: ‘This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I have heard your prayer...’” (2 Kings 19:20). Kings, prophets, and priests announced messages from God to His people, messages of warning, of judgement, of encouragement, of hope.

In the New Testament, an angel brought a most important message to Zechariah (see Luke 1:5-20) and to Mary (see Luke 1:26-38). John the Baptist had a message for the people of Israel: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near” (Matthew 3:2).

In Matthew 10, we read about Jesus sending the 12 apostles out to tell this message: “‘The kingdom of heaven is near’” (v. 7). In the parable of the sower (Matthew 13:3-23), Jesus tells the listeners to sow the seed, which is the Word of God. Whether you are telling or sending someone to tell, the message should be the Word, the love of God that came from heaven in the person of Jesus Christ.

In the prayer Jesus prayed for all believers in John 17, He said, “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” (vv. 20-21).

The early Church grew through the Message (see Acts 2:41 and 4:4). An angel of the Lord released the apostles from prison after the Sadducees had them arrested–and sent them again to tell. “‘Go, stand in the temple courts,’ he said, ‘and tell the people the full message of this new life.’ At daybreak they entered the temple courts, as they had been told, and began to teach the people” (Acts 5:20-21). An angel of the Lord also sent Philip the Evangelist to the Ethiopian with the message of salvation (see Acts 8:26-39).

When Peter was sent by the Spirit to Cornelius and his household, signifying that Gentiles also would be saved, “the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message”
(Acts 10:44). And we read, “Now those who had been scattered by the persecution in connection with Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, telling the message only to Jews. Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus. The Lord's hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord” (Acts 11:19-21).

The apostle Paul was sent to many places in his missionary journeys, proclaiming the message of God’s love in Jesus throughout the known world. He in turn sent messages to the churches established in his travels (the epistles). Peter, John, and James, the brother of Jesus, wrote messages of encouragement and teaching and correcting and training in righteousness.

We know that individual people heard the message and came to faith: “The Lord opened [Lydia’s] heart to respond to Paul's message” (Acts 16:14). “Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true”(Acts 17:11).

Others were encouraged by messages sent: “The people read [the letter] and were glad for its encouraging message. Judas and Silas, who themselves were prophets, said much to encourage and strengthen the brothers. After spending some time there, they were sent off by the brothers with the blessing of peace to return to those who had sent them” (Acts 15:31-33).

Paul wrote: “Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). He asked for prayers to speak the message: “pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should” (Colossians 4:3-4) and “pray for us that the message of the Lord may spread rapidly and be honored, just as it was with you” (2 Thessalonians 3:1).

Jesus read these words from Isaiah 61:1-2 in the synagogue: “The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor” (Luke 4:18-19). Then He said, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (v. 21).

Jesus was the Message. He still is the Message. He is the Good News! When we send people–whether it’s our children to school, our spouse to work, teenagers to the National Youth Gathering, a team on a mission trip, a group into the community, a couple to a foreign land, the message we send with them should always be Christ and Him crucified, sacrificed for sin and raised from the dead. The message should be one of God’s love for each person touched by the child, the teenager, the adult, the team or the group. We ask God to bless them so they may be a blessing to others. We send encouragement. We pray for those we send and for those sent by our church body.

The message should be carried with love and passion for the lost ones. Send it now with those in your home. Send it now with those in your congregation. Send it now with those who travel to other people, other cultures, other lands. And take the message as you are sent to those who live next door, across the street and around the corner.

Pray: Lord, send Your message of love through me to others. Let that message of Your love for the world through Jesus be told by those we send. By Your Spirit, open the hearts of those who hear the message to receive it with joy. Raise up Your people, O Lord, in all places, to bring Light to the darkness, joy to those in despair, the Bread of Life to the hungry. Send me, Lord, to be the message to those in my world. In Jesus’ name. Amen.