The Mission: The Spirit’s Power
Notes prepared by William Murrell
John 20:21–22
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them,
“Receive the Holy Spirit.”
Summary
The mission is rooted in the Trinity.
The Father sends the Son, the Son sends the Spirit, and together they send the church to participate in God’s work.
This highlights the relational and communal nature of mission.
Focus:
The mission of Jesus, sent by the Father, is explicitly connected with the sending of the disciples, empowered by the Holy Spirit.
The Scripture illustrates the relational and communal nature of mission within the Trinity.
With His Pleasure
With His Purpose
With His People
With His Presence
Introduction
As the Father has sent me . . .
The Challenge of Mission
There are an estimated 430,000 Christian missionaries serving on the mission field today.
According to the International Bulletin of Mission Research, every year, roughly 6.5% leave the mission field. 1
While this may not seem like a huge number, this steady attrition rate adds up to a third of missionaries leaving the field within the first decade of missionary work.
What’s more, according to the Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 70% of these missionaries leave for preventable reasons. 2
While these stats focus on the attrition rates of full-time vocational missionaries, they point to a larger problem.
Whether we examine the burnout rate of pastors or the rising phenomenon of deconstruction among evangelicals, we find that the temptation for disciples to abandon God’s mission is ever-present.
It is often easier to simply quit working than to labor diligently in the harvest field.
Why is this the case?
Sometimes it’s a lack of confidence in the gospel.
Sometimes it’s a lack of clarity of mission.
Other times it is a lack of co-laborers.
Sometimes it’s forgetting the real enemy, the one intent on destroying the work of the gospel in the nations and the laborers who are participating in God’s work in the nations.
While there are many helpful books and organizational resources that can help both vocational missionaries and ordinary disciples of Jesus to persevere in mission, nothing is more helpful than embracing and living into one key truth that Jesus gave his disciples on the day of his resurrection:
John 20:21–22
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
Let’s begin with a few Key Observations and Questions
Observation: The disciples were afraid of the religious leaders after the crucifixion of Jesus and unlikely candidates to risk their lives proclaiming the gospel.
John 20:19
“On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’”
Question: What changed in these fearful disciples?
Observation: When Jesus appeared to the disciples in the upper room on Easter Sunday, he proclaimed peace to them, and told them he was sending them as the Father had sent him (John 20:21).
Question: How would this truth fortify them for mission for the rest of their lives?
Observation: After making this stunning claim, Jesus breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22).
Question: What role does the Holy Spirit play in our being sent on mission (as Jesus was sent)?
The key to understanding this text and these questions is to understand how the Father sent the Son on his mission to earth and what role the Spirit had in Jesus’ sending.
How did the Father send the Son, and how does the Son send us?
• With His Pleasure
• With His Purpose
• With His People
• With His Presence
With His Pleasure
Luke 3:21–22
Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
John baptized Jesus at the beginning of his mission, and two things happened: the Holy Spirit descended like a dove, and a voice from heaven said, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
Thus, before Jesus began preaching, before Jesus healed anyone, before Jesus had any followers, the Father assured the Son that he was pleased with him.
In short, the Father sent the Son with his pleasure.
He wanted him to know he was loved and accepted before accomplishing anything.
The world system works differently from this.
We typically receive affirmation after the completion of a mission.
However, the Son received affirmation from his Father before he started.
Knowing that the Father loved him strengthened the Son as he entered ministry.
It is the same for us.
To be sent on mission as the Father sent the Son is to know that our Father is pleased with us because we are his children.
His pleasure precedes our successes and failures.
It is essential to embrace the affirmation of the Father independent of our missional effectiveness.
Those who think that missional success precedes divine pleasure will live in anxiety and fear of failure.
However, for those who know that divine pleasure precedes missional success, their work will be fueled by joy and faith-filled expectation.
With His Purpose
Luke 4:14–15
And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and a report about him went out through all the surrounding country. And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.
Luke 4:40–44
Now when the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to him, and he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them. And demons also came out of many, crying, “You are the Son of God!” But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Christ. And when it was day, he departed and went into a desolate place. And the people sought him and came to him, and would have kept him from leaving them, but he said to them, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose.” And he was preaching in the synagogues of Judea.
Luke 4 gives us a glimpse into the early days of Jesus’ ministry (after his baptism and fasting in the wilderness).
Though Jesus’ ministry would take him to many different places and many other people, he was clear on his purpose.
He preached the gospel of the kingdom and healed the sick.
Because of his powerful preaching and healing power, many people wanted him to stay in their town, perhaps to be their local rabbi (see Luke 4:42).
Others wanted him to be king (John 6:15).
However, Jesus was never distracted by fame and popularity.
Why?
Because the Father had sent the Son with his purpose.
His mission was crystal clear.
His time on earth was short, and his time in ministry even shorter.
So, he did not waste one day straying from the Father’s mission.
How was he so focused?
Because God sent him “in the power of the Spirit.”
It is the same for us.
To be sent on mission as the Father sent the Son is to have clarity of purpose and an abundance of power from the Holy Spirit.
We will never be as focused as Jesus, but we can be assured that the same Spirit who led him into a fruitful and focused mission lives inside of us, giving us direction and dynamism as we go into all the world to make disciples.
With His People
Luke 5:1–4
On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat. And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.”
Luke 5:9–11
For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.
In Luke 5, we see the moment when Jesus calls the first of his twelve disciples—the men who would follow him and partner with him on mission for the next three years while he was on earth and the decades after his death, resurrection, and ascension.
This raises the question—why didn’t Jesus simply do his ministry as a solo act?
Why recruit and mentor other disciples?
Jesus did most of the preaching, teaching, and healing, and he did it much better than his disciples ever could; so why include them?
Because the Father had sent the Son with his people.
It was the Father who led the Son to call disciples to himself.
To teach them and live with them; to instruct them and empower them; to call them to himself and to send them out on mission.
This is because the mission of God is fundamentally relational.
This foundation of relationship begins with the Trinity and their inextricable yet distinct roles in the work of redemption.
However, this relational quality to mission extended further when Jesus called his first disciples to join him on mission (“from now on you will be catching men.”)
This was not incidental but part of the Father’s design for the Son’s mission on earth.
It is the same for us.
To be sent on mission as the Father sent the Son is to be sent on mission with others.
Note that in John 20, when Jesus said to his disciples, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you,” the “you” in Greek is the second person plural.
Just as the Father did not send the Son to do ministry for three years by himself, the Son did not send his disciples on mission as individuals but as a collective.
Why?
Because there is greater power in going on mission together.
With His Presence
John 8:28–29
So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me. And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.”
In John 8, when the Jews questioned Jesus about his authority and relationship with the Father, he made an interesting claim: “He who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone.”
Jesus claimed that even though the Father sent him, he was still with the Father.
Usually, when one sends someone on a mission, they are, by necessity, separated from one another in time and space.
Not so with the Father’s sending of the Son.
Why?
Because the Father had sent the Son with his presence.
This meant that the Father was with him wherever the Son went on earth.
Not only was the Son sent with the pleasure of the Father, the purpose of the Father, and the people of the Father—he was sent with the Father himself.
The Father never left the Son while the Son was doing the Father’s will on earth.
It is the same for us.
To be sent on mission as the Father sent the Son is to be sent on mission with God himself.
When Jesus sent his disciples into the world with the commission to make disciples (Matthew 28:18–20), he promised them: “I am with you always to the end of the age.”
Jesus promised to be with us always.
How is this possible when Jesus is in heaven at the Father’s right hand?
Because the Son sent the Spirit to be with us and in us (John 20:22), so that, like the Son, wherever we go on mission, he who sent us is with us.
It’s the constant presence of the Spirit with his church that reminds us of God’s pleasure (regardless of our results), of God’s purpose (despite the distractions), and of God’s people (especially when we feel alone).
Conclusion
What happens when the Father sends us as he did the Son?
As we go on mission to make disciples of all nations, let us never forget that the Son sent us in the same way the Father sent him.
When we remember that we’ve been sent with his pleasure, we will not engage in mission out of anxiety but rather work with joy because we know that God is pleased with us because of who we are and not what we have done.
• When we remember that we’ve been sent with his purpose, we will not be distracted by successes or fads because God has given us a clear focus and scope of mission—making disciples of all nations.
• When we remember that we’ve been sent with his people, we will not attempt to go on mission alone but rather embrace the relationships God has given us for our good and the good of others.
• When we remember that we’ve been sent with his presence, we will attempt great things not because we are great, but because of the greatness of him who dwells within us.
1
Zurlo, Gina A., Todd M. Johnson, and Peter F. Crossing. 2021. “World Christianity and Mission 2021: Questions About the Future.” International Bulletin of Mission Research 45 (1): 15–25.
2
See “When Missionaries Regret Being Missionaries,” OMF United States. Posted March 12, 2020, https://omf.org/us/
when-missionaries-regret-being-missionaries/.
3
See “Study of Pastor Attrition and Pastoral Ministry,” Lifeway Research. Accessed July 30, 2025, https://
research.lifeway.com/pastorprotection/.
4
See “Ex-Christians Aren’t the Only Ones Deconstructing Faith,” Barna. Accessed July 30, 2025, https://www.barna.com/
trends/ex-christians-deconstructing/.