Be Christ’s Ambassador (2 Corinthians 5:20)

We are given the amazing opportunity to help change people’s lives for all eternity when we choose to serve as ambassadors for the Kingdom of God. 2 Corinthians 5:20 says, “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God” (NIV). 

NOTES
Rockwell  Church     Aug 6, 2023    Pastor Chris Teien
“Be Christ’s Ambassador”
2 Corinthians 5:20
 
#1 We are MOTIVATED to go to the people because of Christ’s Love (2 Cor 5:14)
#2 We VALUE all people as Christ does (v.15-16)
#3 We OFFER new life in Christ (v.17)
#4 We bring PEACE to those who will surrender to God (v.18-19)
#5 We live as AMBASSADORS wherever we are (v.20-21)
#6 We PRAY for opportunities and success (Eph 6:19-20)
#7 We SEEK to raise up more workers/ambassadors (Matt 9:37-38)

Helping you apply God's Word and follow Jesus in everyday life. Learn more at ChrisTeien.com and Rockwell.church  Find episode transcripts at Well.faith 

Transcript

Chris T 0:01

All right. So I've been with you for almost two years. And so on one hand, I envisioned how much how easy it was going to be to fill these seats and multiply everything around us. And we've been we've been making progress, but nothing is easy in a spiritual war. Nothing is easy in the post-COVID environment where church attendance has gone way down and more people watch online. So if you're watching online, it's great that you're watching. Or if you're watching on cable TV, that's great too. We would love to meet you in person. We would love for you to come sometime, maybe on the 20th, when we have a picnic, you could come visit us. But being Christ's ambassador, so um I'm sure I've shared this before, but because not all of you have been here in the past, I get to share it again because this is the only time in my life I ever met a real life ambassador. So as you maybe remember, I was on a missions trip in South America in Chile, and we were at the House of Hope, which is a missions organization that helps make homes or places for uh orphan girls. Um well, some of them are in like the foster care system or whatever, but they come out of the Christian and missionary alliance orphanage. And when they're 18, the door springs open and they might not have a place to go. Maybe they'll have to go back to a bad home life, maybe they'll have to go back to um just living on the streets, and it's a difficult thing. So vision for children, the House of Hope, uh, they have built, at least as far as I know, two monstrous houses for these girls so they can finish high school or finish college. And if you want to go on a missions trip for, and you could go for three weeks, a month or whatever, they regularly have opportunities, and I think it's October and February. And if you're a true Minnesotan, hey, you want to do the February one because when it is freezing cold here on the other side of the world, it's summer. So if you were to go in February, you could enjoy the beautiful summer temperatures of South America. And so, anyway, we were building this house, uh, a really big house, and so we had a bunch of volunteers show up. It was a great plan they had, too, for building these things because they would charge the volunteers for the volunteer opportunity. So they literally had to pay for the experience. So they would pay and they they would help pay for the materials and then the sandwich lunch they got. But anyway, so it was a Saturday, and this big Mercedes bus rolls up with all these high school kids from the international school, and there were just a lot of them. Then other people were there too that came to volunteer on that day. And we had planned to do siding, but instead uh we ended up doing sheetrock, and there wasn't enough tools for everybody. They're like, Chris, help these guys do sheetrock. So I'm like, okay, your team gets a hammer, your team gets a saw, your team gets a sheetrock knife, and it's true. Anyway, so we're doing all this, and there's some older guys, and they're putting sheetrock up on the ceiling, and so they're like, How's this? I said, You did a really good job, but usually you want to cut the sheetrock so it matches the two by four. So I will cut into the two by four, and then it will match perfectly. And so they they were having a good time, good experience, and then when it was lunchtime, I realized that they were from the American Embassy. And so uh they were talking with me, and I was telling them, you know, about the church I was at, and they're talking telling me about uh being uh working at the embassy in Chile, and they handed one guy he handed me his card, and he's like, if you have any problems while you're here, if you need anything, here's my card, and so just contact me. And I'm like, Great, great. So if I'm in trouble and I'm running towards the embassy and I'm yelling to the Marines, open the gate, I'm an American citizen, and then they'll let me in. And he's like, What? He said, You watch too many movies. He's like, Chile is not at war, it's a business office complex. If you go running towards the door, you're gonna freak the two security guards out. Uh that shouldn't be an issue. No, if you get lost or you need anything, um, you can call my cell phone. And anyway, so it's a really great experience. And they were so kind and so nice, and their job, their job is to represent the United States of America in that foreign country, to meet people, to um uh connect with contact sometimes to represent the interest of the United States, to proclaim the good about the United States. It would be really weird to have an ambassador that says, yes, I'm from the United States and I really don't like it there. Are you hiring? Because I'd sure like to get out of there. I could be your ambassador, maybe. But no, these people are the front face of the organization called the United States of America. And we in 12 Corinthians 5.20 are called to be ambassadors for Christ. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. We are the front line, the front face of the kingdom of God wherever we are. Some of you are like, you don't know where I work, or you don't know where I teach, or you don't know where I live. Um, that is actually the perfect place to represent the kingdom of God. Isn't all those places that I can never get to or none of us would ever get to? To be connected to those people. There are so many people that have heard the message of Christ on the radio, on the television, on the internet, they've maybe heard it from different people, but they've never been convinced that it actually works. They've never known anybody that's truly experienced it before. They might know religious people that you know say one thing on Sundays and act a different way uh during the week, but nonetheless, um, if they see a real Christ follower, a real committed Christ follower pointing the way and sharing from their personal experience, that makes all the difference in the world. And that is what we are supposed to do. In Acts 1.8, we're told that the Holy Spirit will give us, will empower us to be witnesses, to tell people about Jesus here, there, and everywhere. And so we need to make sure that we are not afraid, that we are not distracted, that we are not unconcerned. We should care and we should show concern. It is an adventure when you try to share your faith in Christ. You don't know how it's gonna work out. It seems in the spiritual battle that goes on that it seems like Satan wants everything he can to distract you, to shut you down, to get you to be quiet. Uh, tools like Bible tracks, there's some connecting with God tracks on the table, or there's how to find God New Testaments, they're helpful. But I mean, literally, if you knew that you had the cure to a disease and you kept it to yourself, wouldn't that be terrible? If for some reason you had some experience somewhere and knew about COVID and then ran around and said, Hey, hey, I know how you can fix this. I've got, it's not, it's not this, it's not that, it's just, it's just eat this fruit and it works. And it did. Why would you want to keep that to yourself? You you wouldn't. You wouldn't want to keep that to yourself. We don't want to keep salvation to ourselves. But we are motivated to go to the people because of Christ's love. To go to the people because of Christ's love. Have you ever? This is funny. I'm gonna do good because I'm not gonna. This is last week's sermon in that binder. They all look the same. So, all right, good, good. So, but we're motivated to go to the people because of Christ's love. Christ has shown so much love to us, Christ has shown us that he cares about us. Christ works in our lives to provide in amazing ways to comfort and guide and to help us to live for him. If we have been truly saved and we remember what we were truly saved from, it should make a difference in how we treat people, it should make a difference in how we prioritize the things of life. If we truly love Christ, we want to be obedient, if we truly understand Christ's love, it will flow through us and it will flow out of us. So Christ's love will come into us, and out of that love, then we'll be able to show that same kind of love to others. 2 Corinthians 5.14 says, For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And so Christ made it possible for us to be saved. Christ made it possible for us to be redeemed. And when we are redeemed, we are given the opportunity to help other people to experience that, to help other people know how they can make a change. So in that orphanage, there are some girls that have had a real rough past, and so they weren't just simple girls that came out of a nice Christian home in a bad situation, but as they have experienced Christ, as they have learned about Christ, and as they have started to serve Christ, they started to become those good Christian girls that we would want to have around love. Love cares, love motivates, and we are motivated to go to the people because of Christ's love. We value all people because Christ does. It's easy for us to, you know, like people like ourselves. It's easy for us to want to go reach people like ourselves, the people that, you know, same, same kind of uh we we speak the same, look the same, do the same. And sometimes people from other cultures do weird things that we wouldn't expect, and sometimes we do weird things that they wouldn't expect. Uh for instance, if you're around a Muslim, they would think it would be very strange if you put your Bible on the floor, if you stuck your holy book on the floor and didn't show any care for it, they would think that was really weird. Um, so people in different cultures do things that are weird. Um sometimes, sometimes we need to look and try to figure out what is going on with people and how how they're hurting or what are they doing and why they're doing it. I need to do a better job of being Christ's ambassador. So I often uh do things that I wish that I would have played it differently. So for instance, you're going down the road and somebody's being a bad, erratic driver doing something stupid, and you know, you want to teach them a lesson so they'll be a better driver, you know, lay on the horn or whatever. Um, so there has been a driver or two that has done really dumb things. So I followed them, it wasn't too far to their destination, to let them know how they could be a better driver or load carrier or whatever they were doing in the future, which could have gone really bad. And so, and I would say something, do you realize what you did back there? Oh, it usually starts with them being angry first. Now I always walk away and I'm like, oh, what's wrong with me? I wish that I would have kept it and I would have said, Hey, hey, are you okay? I was just wondering what happened back there because uh when you break check that guy, you almost caused an accident, or when all that stuff was flying off your trailer, uh, cars could have swerved and uh could have been bad. Are you doing okay? Do you need any help with anything? Is there any chance you could go back and pick some of that stuff up? And just keep it real and think about that person and how I'm concerned for that person instead of how offended I am with that person. And if you have been in retail, if you have been in sports, if you have been in any situation in life, I think you know exactly what I'm talking about. So I have seen church softball leagues of two churches get after each other because of somebody that appeared to be cheating or a bad call from an official. But nonetheless, we need to value people, we need to think about their best, we need to treat people better than they deserve. And continuing the passage, Paul says about Christ, he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view, though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. People would inquire, who is this Christ? Is he just a great teacher? Um, is he a prophet? Uh, he couldn't really be the son of God, could he? And so um people would question. But then as they were born again, as they were transformed, as they received the Holy Spirit, they became convinced, their hearts testified within them that they're truly children of God, and they were empowered by the Holy Spirit to be successful in sharing their faith. And the more confidence that you get from past experiences, the more risks you'll take in the future, and the more things that you will do. And we offer, we offer new life in Christ. We offer new life in Christ. Wouldn't you like to start over if you could? If you could guarantee me that I would end up with many of the same results I wouldn't mind to do over. If I could, if I could get the you know, same wife, same family, same dogs, same opportunities and things like that, but just better, you know, if I would be smarter about some of the things that I did in the past, so that I could be more efficient, more effective, um uh more greatly used of God by maybe changing some things up, I would do that. And maybe, especially in high school years or whatever, you know, maybe not do some stupid things so I don't, you know, have that regret to go with. But on the other hand, if I had it to do differently, I might not be the same person. I might not have had the same experiences, I might not have the same uh compassion because I know what it is to do dumb things, I know what it is to not be perfect, and that gives me grace. Actually, that's the message for next week. Grace, but it says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come, the old is gone, or he is a new creation. So when we come to Christ, when we are born again, there is a newness of life within us. The sins of the past are forgotten, the ways of the past should be pushed away, and we should live confidently in Christ, serving him and living for him, and living as ambassadors. On the screen is a picture of a suitcase. And so you do not have to travel to South America to be a missionary. We have a mission and missions cabinet out there. We don't have to travel to Mexico, we don't have to travel to Ukraine, we don't have to travel to all of those places that those missionaries go. Missionaries are usually on point. They're like, okay, I'm in this country, I'm serving as a missionary, I'm responsible to a missions organization. Everything about me is about being a missionary and sharing Christ. So, okay, Lord, here I am. Uh, help me to be successful in this because this is what my life is all about. I am an ambassador for Christ. So, all right, let's make this day successful. How should we start today? What should we do this week? What's our plan? How can we make the greatest impact? What if, while you are working at the factory or teaching at the school or going to the school or um, you know, being in the pickleball club or whatever you do uh in your retired lives, all the things that you guys are busy with? What if you thought of yourself as an available representative and ambassador for the kingdom of God, and you said, Here I am, Lord, what would you be willing to do through me today? I could pray for someone, I could share, I could bless someone, Lord. What is it that I can do? I want to be your ambassador today. Number four, we bring peace to those who will surrender to God. We bring peace to those who will surrender to God. All this from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them. He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. Wouldn't it be great if you were blessed with a bunch of money and you could just go around and rescue people who are in financial trouble? You might say, well, they got themselves into this trouble, and you know, they've got no one to blame by themselves, but that's not always true. You know, sometimes medical bills hit or just harsh, difficult things happen in people's lives and they get stuck. Wouldn't it be great to just find out what kind of trouble they got themselves in and then just you know pay their way out of it and say, hey, um, so I care about you, and Jesus loves you, and salvation is a free gift, and this is a free gift, and just you know, reconcile their bank account. There were $100,000 in debt, and now they have no debt. Matter of fact, you give another $5,000 so they could move forward. You wrote the check, you gave it to them, you walked away, and praise God, they are no longer burdened by that. People are burdened by sin. Uh they do not know how to escape it, they don't know how to get out of it. Um, but here it makes it clear that when Christ died on the cross, that He made it possible for their sin debt to be paid, for them to be made right with God, and for us to be involved as ministers of reconciliation. I already shared some of this, but we live as ambassadors wherever we are. We live as ambassadors wherever we are. So I kind of jumped ahead on that point, but it says we are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf to be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sinned for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God. And so we carry that message. We know that to be true. Uh we rejoice in the fact that we are made right with God, that while we might sin from day to day in a practical stance, um positionally, God does not see that sin. He sees Christ who has covered that sin. And we pray for opportunities for success. We pray for opportunities for success. This needs to be a part of us. It's not something that we do to be holy Christians and better than others. It's not for the two percenters, it's for everyone to make a difference. And Paul says, pray for me that whenever I speak, words may be given me, so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly as I should. So here you have Paul, who is trapped in chains, a prisoner, uh, because he was the Pharisee of the Pharisees. He was trained up in the greatest schools. His he was a Roman citizen, but he was also a Jew. And so the Jewish people uh raised up the leaders, raised up against him and was trying to press charges and uh kept him in prison. So I'm pretty sure the Romans would have let him go. But Paul was appealing to Caesar. And so Paul is this ambassador, but he's stuck in prison. But the only way you get to the front door of the kingdom of the palace uh near uh Caesar with the guards and everything would be to be a prisoner. He wouldn't be able to, you know, get a strip mall spot or set up a tent or uh go make tents there or whatever, um, as much as he could do now. So he, as a prisoner, could say anything, basically anything he wanted to. He may not be respected, and you know, some guard, you know, might you know hurt him for you know not being quiet. But nonetheless, he was in a terrible situation because he was a prisoner, but he was in a perfect situation because he was a prisoner. So God could use him in the midst of his difficulty, in the midst of his chain, and what we would think would be bad for great good. If you read in Philippians chapter 1, you see that Paul has made an impact on all the prison guards, the praetorium guard. Uh Paul is ministering to them. I mean, because they're basically a captive audience for Paul. You'd think Paul was a captive audience for them, but things are growing, things are happening in the kingdom of God in a way you wouldn't expect it. And when we pray and when we speak for Christ, we're planting seeds, and we might not see success right away. We might be able to look down the line and someday find out that our faithfulness did make a difference. And number seven, my last point we should seek to raise up more workers, to raise up more ambassadors. Jesus says, The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into the harvest field. And you and I have opportunities to be in this thing called the game of life and to promote the kingdom of God to the people around us and to make a difference in the world. So again, we might not see all that we are doing, but again, I'm gonna go back to Philippians chapter one because I've been studying that passage for the last eight weeks. Um, so in Philippians chapter one, around verse 18, um, Paul and the Philippians don't think that their ministry is mattering. They don't think that people are actually hearing because Paul is in prison, because Paul has been shut down, because Paul isn't able to do the great things that they expected. But I mean, have you ever seen and An NFL game where the quarterback he gets like sidelined, uh, someone hurts him. Somehow he's out of the game. Their star quarterback that's supposed to put all the points on the board. He is out, and the offense has got no hope, no hope at all. But the defense, uh, they see the crowd. The crowd is just, they don't know what to do. The crowd looks hopeless, and there's just no way they're gonna win the game. So the defense starts to do everything they can to get their hands on the ball so that they can win that game, so that they can do uh everything they can to put points on the board from a defensive perspective instead of the offense that you would expect, because it's the only way they're gonna win the game, and they do. And I know this for sure because there's a YouTube video that must go on for 40 minutes of all the times the defense has gotten the ball and won the game. That is the same thing that happened to Paul. He's in prison, he can't do what you expect him to do as the apostle to the Gentiles. So the other Christians, the other Christ followers, they gain courage, they step up, they start proclaiming their faith, and they start making the difference. And you might not feel like you are able to make that uh big play. You might not feel like you know everything about evangelism or even know what to say. But just say what you know. Start by sharing your testimony and start by showing people that Jesus is Lord. Uh, you can quote John 3.16 or Romans 6.23 and just go from there. But the worship team can come forward. And next week we're gonna talk about God's grace poured out, how he shows grace to us. Lord Jesus, I thank you for every opportunity and experience that we have. We thank you for the experiences that didn't go so well that we would learn from them. We thank you for the experiences that did go well to give us confidence, maybe even to help have confidence to train others to raise up ambassadors for the harvest. There are so many people out there that need to hear from us that Jesus loves them and cares for them, and that they are they have not done things uh so bad that they can never be forgiven, but they can have hope in you and eternal life by receiving you as our Lord and Savior by crying out, Lord Jesus, I am a sinner. Please forgive me of my sin and come into my life and save me. I want to follow you all the days of my life. Or for us who are believers to cry out, Lord Jesus, I'm here. Please use me to make me successful in serving you in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, let's sing my savior and my God. Please stand and join us.