As the early church was formed Jesus gave the Church a mission statement to go and make disciples, doing two things as their foundation: baptizing these disciples and teaching them. He sent them out to do their work “in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19). He sent them out with the promise that all authority had been given to Him and that He would be with them even to the end of age (Matt. 28:18, 20).

Christians are a sent people. We live within the authority of Another, the One who sent us. We live and move and have our being in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. What we do, we do in the name of the Living and True Triune God.

We best not be about God’s business if we are not living in the Call that has come to us. We live in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. We serve in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. We teach in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. We baptize and worship and consume the Eucharist in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. We live out the meaning of our faith in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Any hope we might have of being fruitful for the kingdom of God is dependent upon us conducting our lives in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The hope believers present to the world is rooted and grounded in the triune God, who models for us what it means to love and to heal and to care and to restore and to redeem. In God we see how a perfect community works. There is distinction but there is community and unity and singleness of purpose.

We are rooted and grounded in the community of God, the trinity who gives us our lives. What we do we do because the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit have embraced us into the very heart of God, and we cannot stop living out the meaning of what we have experienced.