But Who Are You REALLY?

We all have some fear of exposure, of being really seen. (I accidentally drank some invisible ink the other day. I went straight to the hospital, but it was 12 hours before they saw me…) Many have the occasional nightmare along the lines of going to church and realising they’re wearing no pants.

But doesn’t that raise the question of Who are you at the deepest level?

Whilst you may fear being revealed as a fraud due to your incomplete discipleship, this is not actually your deepest level. If absolutely everything was to be told about you, the main headline would be this: You’re a precious child of God, dearer to him than life itself.

This should not only comfort, but also embolden us. I’ve long been convinced that the #1 key to missional effectiveness is neither tools nor technique. They’re both important, and why at Crossover we invest in resources and training. But more transformative by far is identity.

Do we really believe that we are representatives of God’s kingdom? The name Sacred Agents came from a conversation I had with a group of 10-year-old boys who thought that being a pastor must be the most boring job ever. “No, it’s much more like being a secret agent!” I said.

Do we think of ourselves as ‘bringing’ the kingdom of God into every room we enter, every conversation we join, every new day we wake to? It sounds astonishingly arrogant even as I type it, except for two things: Christ himself said that he sends us even as the Father sent him (John 20:21), and the kingdom we bring is not arrogant at all – and so neither is the way we are to bring it.

Now except for very rare cases, there’s no need to be a secret as well as a sacred agent. We should be seen – and such self-disclosure can readily be navigated without arrogance. The creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed (Romans 8:19) – and that is not merely future-us, but here-and-now-us too by the grace of God!

So next time at a party someone asks ‘And what do you do?’ let’s face it, you’re not going to say ‘I’m a spy for Jesus.’ No, you’re still going to say you’re an architect (which is strange, because you’re a hairdresser). No, no, remember in true fact you’re a precious child of God. And not a baby, simply to be carried, but an heir, with responsibilities in the family business.

These responsibilities may include designing hotels or hairstyles, but if you’re consciously a temple of the Holy Spirit in every meeting room, classroom and chatroom, they’ll never be the same again.