He has declared ‘peace’, and he has declared it twice, and it is more than a greeting. Everything the Lord Jesus Christ did was in accordance with glorious prophecy.
The implications of that are enormous. So we have a supreme task. My supreme task is not to earn my living, or bring up the family. Those of course are vital and important. But even before that, my supreme task is to make Christ known. His chief task was the mission of redemption, to sacrifice himself to purchase lost souls. And as the Father sent him and he stuck to his brief perfectly, carried out the plan to the letter, to the second and minute, so we must be fully given to Christ as saved people, serving him for the blessing of lost souls, the work of redemption. That is our highest aim. It is a terrible thing when as Christian people we say to ourselves, ‘I must put my career and my business and my family (that is all very good and well-intended) and then after that I want to serve the Lord and do something for him. No, it is the other way round.
Leave your rights and your privileges behind and serve Christ. Leave your preferences – Oh, I’d rather do this than that – and put him first in all things. Suffer rejection, misrepresentation, make sacrifices for Christ and that is what is included in these words – ‘As my Father hath sent me,’ they are powerful, they are convicting, they are commanding, ‘even so send I you.’