Most of us are immersed in the cultures in which we live. And that’s as it should be. But there’s a risk for the person who believes in Jesus, in getting to thinking that their a local … a citizen of this earth.  They’re not – they’re a citizen of Heaven and what’s more, an Ambassador of Christ.

First a Citizen, Then an Ambassador

Right about now, depending on how you count some of the smaller ones, there are over 200 countries in this world. One source I read lists 223, another 192. Let’s say there are around 200 – some of them are huge and powerful, right down to the smallest country in the world. What a huge variation: China, population 1.34 billion, at one end of the scale, right down to the Pitcairn Islands, official population 50, at the other end and everything in between.

Now, anyone whose had brothers and sisters knows that siblings don’t always get on. And the history of humanity is a history of wars, invasions, conquests, dominance, exploitation – in fact right now, there are around thirty recognised wars going on around the world, not to mention the other, quote “lower level” conflicts.

So how do all of these cuntries get on? Well, hopefully these days, most of the time, when there’s disagreement on an issue, instead of fighting wars as the first step in the process, countries use a thing called, “diplomacy”. They have diplomats and so they use diplomatic channels to discuss and resolve most of the issues between them. The head of a diplomatic mission is usually called, “the ambassador”. So in my country we have an American ambassador, we have a Chinese ambassador; we have an Indian ambassador and so on. And here’s the thing: none of those people are Australians. The American ambassador is, well, he’s American, the Chinese ambassador is Chinese, the Indian ambassador is, well, as you would expect, Indian.

So not only is the ambassador a citizen of the country which he or she represents, they also look like they come from that country and they speak like that they come from that country because they do come from that country. Now, all of that is, I would hope pretty much blindingly, glimpsingly, obvious to all of us and the job of the ambassador of each country is to be his or her country’s representative with a foreign government – the channel through which their country raises issues with another government and vice versa.

Sometimes; many times those are difficult issues. You can imagine, for instance, the exchanges that occur between Indian and Pakistani diplomats or at times between China and America on trade issues or between the various European countries within their Union. Ambassadors are there to represent their country; the country of their citizenship, in a foreign land.

The Apostle Paul had this to say on the issue. Have a listen it comes – if you have a Bible, open it up – Second Corinthians chapter 5, verse 16:

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though once we knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.

So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

See, almost sounds as if Paul is saying he’s not so much a Roman citizen, which he was, but he’s a citizen of God’s Kingdom, sent as an ambassador to explain and to share God’s message of reconciliation and forgiveness into a foreign world. “So we are ambassadors for Christ since God is making His appeal through us.” And in fact, elsewhere, Paul writes exactly that. Philippians chapter 3, verse 20:

Our citizenship is in heaven and it is from there that we are expecting a saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.

So there it is. Paul sees his role as being an ambassador of Christ – declaring the forgiveness that God has for each and every person on this planet, if only they will put their faith in His Son and the eternal and glorious reconciliation we can have with Him when we take that step. And that … that is simply carrying on what Jesus came to do. Mark chapter 1, verse 38 – Jesus answered:

Let us go on to the neighbouring towns so that I may proclaim the message there also for that is what I came out to do.

John chapter 18, verse 37 – Pontius Pilot asked Him:

So are you a king? And Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king, for this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.

Jesus came in order to tell us the Good News, and in fact, to “be” the Good News. The Apostle Paul saw himself as an ambassador of that Good News, even to the point of being an ambassador in chains, on death row. Ephesians chapter 6, verse 19:

“Pray also for me so that when I speak a message may be given to me to make known with boldness, the mystery of the Gospel for which I am,” writes Paul, “an ambassador in chains”.

My friend, what did you come to do? Where is your citizenship? Are you a citizen of this world or are you an ambassador in a foreign land, bringing the Good News of the Gospel of reconciliation with God, through Jesus Christ, into a lost and hurting world? My hunch is that anyone who calls themselves a Christian; anyone who takes on themself the name of Christ, is called, not to a life of comfort, so much, as a life of following hard after Jesus. Luke chapter 4, verse 27:

Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

Over these coming weeks on the programme we are going to be talking about living our lives as ambassadors … ambassadors of Christ. What does that mean – what does that look like? Well, we will be looking at that. Today the point I think we are meant to get out of our time together, you and I, is that firstly a disciple is a citizen of the country that he or she represents. And if we are to be ambassadors of Christ, as Paul wrote, as much as we are immersed in our culture, as important as that is in reaching out to those around us with the Good News of Jesus, we are not, my friend, citizens of this world, but we are citizens of heaven, sent as ambassadors into a foreign land.

And as ambassadors often find, the foreign places into which they’re sent – they don’t always want to hear what they have to say. It’s not always easy being an ambassador. In fact, the reason that countries need ambassadors is to deal with difficult issues; the tensions that could escalate into conflicts. Ambassadors, yes, have to be diplomatic but they also have to tackle the difficult issues. And as Jesus came as an ambassador of heaven to proclaim the truth and was ultimately crucified for it and if Paul followed in His footsteps as an ambassador of Christ and was ultimately executed for it, if you and I are going to life out our lives in the small corner where God has put us as citizens of heaven, we are to be ambassadors of Christ.

That’s not always going to be easy! The world won’t always want to hear – it could cost us everything but I’m afraid it comes with the territory … the territory of being an ambassador of Christ.

Did God Really Mean That?

I know of people who believe in Jesus, who go to church Sunday and Sunday; they sit there in the pews, sing the songs, listen to the preacher but they’re not flashy; they’re not up front performers or musicians or speakers or leaders. Every now or then perhaps, they make morning tea or contribute somehow to the life of the church, but because they’re not high profile, up front people, because they’re more people who blend into the background, they’ve decided, in their heart of hearts, that they have nothing to contribute. The world’s been telling them and subtly the church has been telling them, too, “You have nothing to contribute”.

So lots and lots of people have come to the conclusion that they have nothing to contribute – lots and lots of people have stopped trying to live out their faith in Jesus; a faith that used to burn so brightly, and gradually, little by little, the flame within has grown dim – it’s almost gone out. But for some reason … some reason they can’t quite put their finger on, they toddle along every Sunday, hoping … no, surely, there’s no more hope; secretly hoping perhaps – hoping in a way that they would never admit to themselves, let alone anyone else – that God is going to come along and do something powerful in their lives and through their lives.

I wonder if you know anyone like that. Well, if you do, if perhaps there’s just a little or even a lot of that going on in you; if perhaps you’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting for God to do something powerful in you and through you; to give you some part to play in His plan that’s custom made, handmade for who He made you to be, and I believe with all my heart that today, that wait comes to an end. Today, that is over because He has a word for you today – His Word, not mine – that will set you free to be what He always planned for you to be an ambassador of Christ.

Not in the same way as anyone else, you know, because you are not the same as anyone else you know, but in a unique way that fits with who you are. Now, I know beyond any shadow of any doubt that there are countless of people listening to this message today who simply cannot believe that this could possibly be true – the flame has almost gone out. That’s why we are going to share with you a powerful, powerful word from God from Jesus own lips, in fact.

Anyone who spent just five minutes reading one of the Gospel accounts of His life, in the first century, Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, will be able to account a stream of powerful miracles that Jesus performed. He healed the sick, He raised the dead, He made water into wine, He fed thousands with almost nothing – He did so many amazing, powerful miracles … miracles that were witnessed by many people. I mean, there’s no doubt that He actually performed those miracles.

It was this power that in the end got Him crucified. Not only did He preach with power, He acted in power and the people flocked to Him. It was because of the preaching and the deeds of power, the miracles that the Pharisees and the Sadducees – the religious leaders of the day – became so threatened by Jesus that they had Him crucified. And ultimately, just in case anyone was in any doubt, He Himself was raised from the dead.

Now you and I, we look at Jesus – He is after all, the Son of God. He is someone that you or I can never, ever, ever be. We look at Him and we think to ourselves, “WOW, no one could ever minister that powerfully again here on earth.” Have a listen to what Jesus said to His disciples, just before He was crucified – John chapter 14, verses 11 and 12:

Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.

Jesus didn’t say that we would just be able to do the things that He did. No, no, He said that “anyone who believes in him will not only do the things he was able to do but, in fact, will do greater works than these,” Even greater!

Now, it seems to me we have a choice here. We can sit quietly in church, the third pew from the back, on the left hand side – you know, where we have sat every week for what seems like an eternity – we can just sit there and believe the world and the devil’s perception, that we have nothing to contribute, no role to play in God’s great plan of redeeming and saving and reconciling this world to Himself. We can believe that rubbish but if we do that … if we continue doing that the flame in our hearts for Jesus, the one that’s growing dimmer and dimmer these years; that flame will eventually go out.

Or, we can believe God and what He has to say. We can believe Jesus and what He has to say. We can believe God’s Word. See, so often, faith is believing God’s apparently outrageous claims and promises, square in the face of the mundaneness of life – a world that squeezes us into its mould – mundaneness verses majesty. The power of the Spirit verses the power of this world.

Let me tell you something, I’ve made my choice. I was a man whose life was broken; a terrible mess. When I accept Jesus, with simple faith of a child, just on face value and still today, I’m accepting what He has to say, really simply. Not in any complicated, theological sense, just on face value and Jesus said John chapter 14, verse 12 – He said:

Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and in fact, will do greater works than these because I am going to the Father.

I’m taking that, how about you? You see, I think He really meant it … I think He really means it right now. Just as Jesus came as God in the flesh to bring the Kingdom of God near to us, I believe He’s calling you, He’s calling me to take up our cross and to follow Him and to be His ambassadors and to do just the things He’d always planned for us to do – not in our power, but in the power of His Spirit. Works greater than His because He has gone to the Father and His plan is to involve you and me in bringing His love … the love of Jesus Christ, the love that saw Jesus crucified on that cross; that love to those who need it.

That’s what I think. But in a sense, it doesn’t matter what I think. Question is, what do you think?

Does the World Really Want to Know?

So, God’s plan is that we should be His ambassadors. It’s a great plan! This plan that God has, to take every man, every woman, every child who believes in Jesus His Son and is therefore a citizen of heaven and appoint them as ambassadors of heaven; ambassadors of Christ to their little part of the globe so that through them God can make His appeal … an appeal of grace and love, to people so that they will be reconciled to Him.

Question is: does anyone want to hear what we have to say? See, so many people shy away from being an ambassador of Christ because they somehow imagine that it’s the guy with the smooth voice on the radio – it must be his job to be an ambassador of Christ. Or the one they see on TV or maybe it’s the youth pastor down at church – must be his job to be an ambassador of Christ. We imagine somehow, that being an ambassador in this great upfront role, someone with great public speaking style; someone with a presence – “Uh, you know, that’s not me. I can’t possibly do that; that can’t be my job.”

Whatever country you may live in you have diplomats from foreign countries living in your country; performing their roles as ambassadors, so let me ask you: how often do you see those guys on TV or hear them on the radio or read about them in the newspapers – how often? The answer is almost never! Yea, maybe every now and then an ambassador might get quoted but I know if I tripped over the Ambassador of China or the Ambassador of the U.S.A. in the street, I wouldn’t know them from a bar of soap.

Why? Because most of the time, being an ambassador isn’t about being up front in the public eye; most of it is about quietly building influence, one on one, or with small groups so that when there’s a difficult issue to be dealt with between the two governments, there’s a bridge already in place over which the parties can travel and talk. When there’s a sensitive issue or a border dispute or a difficulty with a foreign national in a country, the diplomats talk quietly, mostly in measured tones; mostly unseen and unheard by the rest of us, to resolve the issue.

Diplomacy is much more about individual relationships and trust than it is about overt brinkmanship. I wonder if we applied that model of diplomacy to our role as ambassadors of Christ, whether that doesn’t cast a whole new light on the job description. We all have friends and family and work colleagues; people with whom we already have relationships of trust and I wonder whether being an ambassador of Christ isn’t a whole lot more about letting our goodness shine into their lives than it is about standing up on a soapbox on a street corner or in the mall or down at the weekend at a crowded market, as I saw recently – screaming out words, supposedly from God, to a whole bunch of people with whom we don’t have a relationship and who don’t want to listen anyway.

I wonder whether it isn’t a whole bunch more about quiet diplomacy than beating someone over the head with a Bible. The people whom I allow to influence me, I’ve got to tell you, are the ones that I trust and the ones that I trust are the ones that I’ve known for quite a while. I’ve watched them, I’ve observed them – they are good people; honest, decent, have their lives together. You know what – they are the ones to whom my heart is open. Why would we expect that it’s any different in being an ambassador for Christ?

Jesus put it this way – He said – you can read this in Matthew chapter 5. He said:

Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under the foot. You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden.

In other words, anyone who steps out into the world who loves God, believes in His Son – anyone who is prepared to share that love and that faith with other people as an ambassador of Christ – you’re going to be persecuted. Look back through history and that’s what you’ll find. Now, where I live “persecution” simply means, people might reject you or they might make fun of you, they might keep their distance. Most people I know, know who I am and what I do and what I believe and even in that role, I don’t get much of that sort of stuff. And even if I did it’s not much of a price to pay.

Of course, in other parts of the world, persecution is very real – prison, torture, even death – very real. Look at Jesus – nailed to a cross. But what He’s saying here is to be the salt of the earth anyway; add flavour! “Be My light, anyway,” Jesus is saying, “Shine light into dark places. Do those things; be those things! Shine My love into the hearts of the people around you. And if you’re some upfront creature, okay, sure do that and if you’re a quiet, unassuming, relationships oriented kind of person, my oh my, what a great ambassador you are going to make.”

Go and build bridges and build relationships and build trust and let people see the goodness that’s in your heart and in what you do. Shine light, add flavour – people like some light; people like flavour – go and do that. Sometimes we are so worried about whether other people want to hear about Jesus or not; sometimes we are so concerned with how they will react.

I imagine that being an ambassador involves a lot of subtlety. I imagine the role is all about timing; knowing when to quietly build relationships; knowing when to speak about hard things. The Bible talks about speaking the truth in love – that’s what diplomacy is. I read an interesting Proverb this morning in my own personal time with God. Have a listen:

Well meant are the wounds of a friend but profuse are the kisses of an enemy.

Sometimes that’s a friend’s job – to speak the truth in love – and sometimes it’s hard and sometimes it hurts but the thing I know is this: being an ambassador of Christ is the job of every disciple of Jesus. Sometimes that involves just living a good life and shining a light; sometimes it involves dealing with difficult issues and doing it in love; sometimes it involves embracing your enemies; it involves all sorts of different things at different times but each one of us who believes in Jesus is called to be an ambassador of Christ in our own way, in our own neck of the woods.

Now imagine having a job where you had to try to convince people of something you yourself didn’t really believe. That’d be a tough gig don’t you think. And yet that’s how many a Christian feels about telling others about Jesus.  Because they themselves haven’t been convinced that He really makes a difference in their lives – on the inside – how can they tell others about Him?

Christ on the Inside

Now, one of the things that you and I know is that we are what we eat. If what I do is I pig out on chocolates – man, I love chocolate, but we know that too much of it is bad for us; and fatty foods and sweet, sugary drinks and lots of cakes and sweets, all that stuff – if I pig out on that then who I am on the inside is going to change. I’m going to put on weight, my emotions will take a downswing, because that’s what happens with too much sugar, I’ll become lethargic and tired and I won’t be able to cope. My heart will have to work so much harder to get blood around the larger body and my coronary arteries will get all clogged up, my blood sugar will go up … and on and on the list goes.

The impact is that I have less of a life to live now because I’m always tired, not feeling well and my life expectancy will be cut short. On the other hand, if I get a great mix of healthy cereals and grains and those brightly coloured vegetables and lean meat and all that stuff, which actually tastes pretty fantastic, the complete opposite will happen. What happens on the inside has a huge impact on what happens on the outside.

Who we are on the inside – whether it be physically or emotionally or spiritually – has a huge impact on who we are on the outside. And the upshot of all that is that we simply can’t be one thing on the inside and try to be something else on the outside – it just doesn’t work.

Last week, again this week on the programme and indeed, over the next couple of weeks we are having a bit of a chat about living our lives here on this earth as ambassadors for Christ, because that is what anyone who believes in Jesus is called to be. We are citizens of heaven, not of this earth and as Paul, the Apostle writes, in Second Corinthians chapter 5, verse 20:

We are ambassadors for Christ; since God is making his appeal through us, we entreat you on behalf of Christ, to be reconciled to God.

As I said, you just can’t be one thing on the inside and then pretend to be another thing on the outside. You can’t be Swedish on the inside and pretend to be the Indian ambassador on the outside. We can’t be the devil on the inside and pretend to be an angel of light on the outside. Well, I suppose we can for a while but I suspect it’s incredibly hard work, carrying on a deception like that and it doesn’t take long for who we are to make its way to the outside.

Jesus Himself said – Matthew chapter 15, verse 19:

For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness and slander.

So, if we are going to be ambassadors of Christ, then we first have to be citizens of heaven on the inside, just as the Indian ambassador has to be Indian and not Swedish on the inside. Interesting how God talked about this through His prophet Ezekiel, to His people. He talked to them about what was going on in their hearts. Have a listen – Ezekiel chapter 18, verse 31:

“Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed against me and get yourselves,” listen to this, “a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel?”

A new heart! I think we know what God means but that’s not much of an expression that we would use today. But the expression that we would use is “a change of heart”. You and I know what that means: unless something happens deep inside our hearts – on the inside – we can’t change on the outside. But you know there have been issues, transgressions, sins in my life that, try as I might, I couldn’t change my heart by myself. I’m guessing you have had that experience too – we all have!

And that’s why God made this promise too, through His prophet Ezekiel, to His people – Ezekiel chapter 36, verse 26:

A new heart I will give you, a new spirit I will put within you and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

In fact, perhaps what you want to be is an ambassador of Christ but there’s something right now going on in your heart; something you would love to change but you can’t for yourself that you need God to do for you. So why don’t we pray about that right now:

Father God,
this Word of yours, You are putting Your finger right on one of the deepest problems in my life. You and I both know what it is and You know that I have struggled to change my heart – I’ve tried my hardest, but I just can’t. And so I come to You in faith and pray for Your will – Ezekiel chapter 36, verse 26 – for a new heart – a change of heart. Take out the heart of stone, O God, and replace it with a heart of flesh. Take out of me any spirit that is causing me to sin and fill me with Your Spirit. I come to You in faith. I believe that what I have asked You, You will give me because I am asking You in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Now, I encourage you, if you have prayed that prayer will me, to believe, simply to believe, that God will give you the good thing that you have asked Him for and He will. That’s what He says He will do and He never, ever, ever fails on His Word – ever!

When the Apostle Paul was sharing the Good News about Jesus with the folk in Athens, he quoted a poem about a Greek god and applied it to Jesus. This is what he said – Acts chapter 17, verse 28:

For in him we live and move and have our being.

You know, for me that says it all! It’s about being totally immersed in Christ; about being drenched in Jesus – that’s actually the literal meaning of the word “baptised or baptism”. The original Greek word was “baptidso”. So when a boat was lost in a storm and it went under and it sank, it was said to have been “baptidso”d. When a fabric was dyed a new colour and it was plunged into the dye and completely drenched and it came out a new colour, it was said to have been “baptidso”d.

That’s exactly what the Apostle Paul writes to his friends in Rome. Romans chapter 6, verses 3 and 4:

Don’t you know that all of us who have been baptised into Christ were baptised into his death? Therefore, we have been buried with him by baptism into death so that just as Christ was raised again from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

It means death to the old life and the living of a new life; literally, to be “born again” – a whole new heart and filled with a new spirit; the Spirit of God this time; the Holy Spirit. It means that goodness replaces evil – not so much because we work hard at it but because God’s given us a change of heart and now what happens is we actually want to honour God; we want to live a life that brings glory to Him – and that’s the new life.

We are going to talk more about that next. It’s the new life that wins people over to Christ. It’s the new life that shines like a light and brings flavour to people’s lives like salt. But just as a well that is dry can’t bring forth water, so a life that is empty of Christ; His very Spirit; His presence within us, so a life like that can’t be an ambassador of Christ.

If there are things that you have been struggling with on the inside; things that are holding you back from taking up your commission as Christ’s ambassador in your little petunia patch, then here’s what I encourage you to do – get with God, get in prayer, open His Word, ask Him to fill you to overflowing with His Holy Spirit. Ask Him again and again and again to give you a new heart. And just as we prayed before; just as I said before, He surely will – because He wants to – because when we bear much fruit in our lives it brings Him great glory. A new heart; a change of heart; filled with a new spirit, His Spirit.

Christ on the Outside

So let me ask you a question: if you are someone who believes in Jesus and you drive a car, do you have a Jesus bumper sticker or one of those fish stickers on your bumper bar? Maybe … maybe not! I mean, even if you don’t, that’s okay, I don’t either, but if you had to put one on your car, let me ask you, does your behaviour on the road as a driver match up to what the sticker advertises? I mean, are you a courteous driver who obeys all the road rules or do you break the speed limit and honk your horn at people and yell at them from the inside of your car?

I guess if you’re the former it would be okay to have a fish sticker or a Jesus sticker on your car because your behaviour is a good advertisement for God – in effect, because what you advertise on the sticker and how you behave match up, it works. On the other hand though, can you imagine a rude, impatient driver, who’s constantly breaking the road rules, identifying themselves as a Christian, using some sticker they put on their car. It’s not a very good ad for God, is it?

It turns out that who we say we are; who we hold ourselves out to be and who we actually are in what we say and what we do – if those two don’t match up – well, there’s a name for that: we call those people “hypocrites”. We have been talking about living our lives as ambassadors of Christ – “for we are ambassadors for Christ since God is making his appeal through us.” 2nd Corinthians chapter 5, verse 20.

In other words, God, just as He used the Apostle Paul, wants to involve us in the business of making His appeal to the rest of the world. Now what we have seen over the course of the last couple of weeks is that we don’t all have to be “Pauls” in order to do that. Diplomacy, which is the role of an ambassador, mostly happens in one on one relationships where trust is built so that governments have relationships in place to resolve difficult issues. That’s the point of diplomacy and it’s the role of an ambassador.

See, I think sometimes we are misled into thinking: Aw, WOW, oh – an ambassador for Christ, well, that must be the pastors role not me!’ because it sounds like a flashy, up front title. And earlier we saw that in order to be an ambassador of for, say India, we had to be Indian, if we’re Swedish no one is going to believe we are the Indian ambassador, right?

Who we are on the inside really counts. That’s why God promises something new – Ezekiel chapter 36, verse 26:

A new heart I will give you; a new spirit I will put within you and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

See, we can’t change who we are on the outside until we have a change of heart on the inside. I’ve tried it, you’ve tried it – it doesn’t work! If something first happens in our hearts though, to change us on the inside, then all of a sudden changing on the outside becomes mush easier. That’s what we talked about earlier.

Right now we are going to follow on with the natural continuation of that. We are going to take a look at how important it is that who we are on the outside is consistent with who we are on the inside. And that’s why I kicked off with that story about the bumper sticker.

It’s kind of obvious isn’t it? Now I’m not suggesting that you or I are ever going to live a perfect life. I pretty much make mistakes every day and probably you do too and no one … no one expects us to be perfect. But either how we live declares that our heart and our life has been changed by God or it doesn’t and if it doesn’t, without putting too fine a point on it, we’re being hypocrites. That’s something that Jesus identified in the religious leaders of His day. They pretended to be ‘oh so holy’ on the outside, but on the inside – well have a listen to what Jesus said to them – Matthew chapter 23, verses 25 and 26:

Woe to you, you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside you are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisees! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside may also be clean.

Now, I’m kind of comforted by that; I like it that Jesus is concerned both about our hearts – who we are on the inside – and our hands – what we do on the outside. If someone came to me and said, ‘You know Berni, I’ve heard what you have been saying – I’ve decided I want to be an ambassador of Christ. What do you think is the most important thing in that role?’ Well, this is how I’d answer.

The first thing is your heart and your relationship with God’ being completely sold out to Jesus and if you don’t have that, well, you can’t pretend it. And the second thing is: how you behave; how you live it out, because if you say that you are one thing and you do completely the opposite, people will pick you as a phoney in a split second and then, instead of shining God’s light into the world, you just turn people off.

Let me give you an example. My country, Australia, has a very strong relationship with the United States of America – has had for a good many years. Now, imagine that the U.S. Government, all of a sudden, appoints a brand new ambassador and sends him across the pond to Australia. And within a few months, we discover this ambassador, he’s a lecherous drunk, who can’t keep his hands off other women – whether or not he happens to be any good at his trade of diplomacy – and scandal after scandal, involving this new ambassador hits the news and the press.

How do you imagine such a person would influence the view that Australians have, not only of the U.S. Government but of the American people? It would be devastating wouldn’t it? Not only would this so called “ambassador” hurt the people around him but he’d bring his whole Nation; his whole people into ill repute.

And that’s why the lives we lead as Christians are so important. Come on – let’s get real!! Does hypocrisy display the glory of God? No! It brings Him and His people as a whole, into disrepute. “Oh, those Christians – they’re just a bunch of hypocrites!” And God … God doesn’t like hypocrites, my friend. Listen again to Jesus – Matthew chapter 23, verse 25:

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.

People talk about ‘missional living’ – living out our lives as missionaries or ambassadors in this world. You know what I think the biggest thing that you and I can do to live “missionally” is to live a holy life. What’s a holy life? It’s a life where the cup and the plate are clean on the inside as well as the outside. Peter, the Apostle, sums it up like this in his Letter, First Peter, chapter 1, verse 14:

Like obedient children, don’t be conformed to the desires you formally had in ignorance. Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct, for it is written “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

My friend, there is something wonderful; utterly sublime, when we roll up our sleeves with God and get to cleaning the inside as well as the outside. And here’s the thing: people notice – people sit up and take notice and think to themselves, “There’s something different about that person – something good; something I trust; something I want.” And there … right there, we have an ambassador of Christ!

Taking His Love to the Sinners

When I used to run an I.T. consulting firm with my business partners, we used to joke that life would be so much easier if we didn’t have clients. It’s true, it’s just not very profitable, I guess. And the same is true when it comes to sinners – you know, those people who drink too much, or they swear too much, or they are just rude or belligerent or a pain in the neck – the most natural thing in the world for someone who loves Jesus, is to kind of recoil from them – to retreat into the holy huddle of Christian friends.

I would like to finish off today with a short story about Jesus approach to sinners. It comes from Luke chapter 5 – if you have a Bible, come on, open it up with me – let’s go there – it’s a confronting and edgy story – gets right in your face, just the way Jesus meant it to be. Come on, let’s have a listen. Luke chapter 5, verses 27 to 32:

After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.” And Levi got up, left everything, and followed Jesus. Then Levi gave a great banquet for Jesus in his house; and there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others sitting at the table with them. The Pharisees and the scribes, well, were complaining to his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” But Jesus answered, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but the sinners to repentance.

Now, here’s the thing: the Romans occupied Israel in the first century – this godless empire occupied God’s people; God’s Promised Land and ruled over them. And the way they collected taxes was effectively, to tender it out to individuals; people like Levi; people who were Jews! They would bid for the right to collect the taxes on behalf of the Romans and the highest bidder would win. And so in order to make a profit, the tax collector would then find all sorts of ways of extorting additional taxes from the people.

Now, Levi was sitting in a tax booth, collecting taxes from people who used the road to ship their goods and so forth – a bit like a modern day toll road. And what made it worse, not only did he extort taxes; not only did he cheat and lie but he was working for the Romans – Levi, a Jew, ripping off his fellow Israelites!

So, this was not the sort of guy you would want to talk to or have as a friend or approach for any reason whatsoever. But Jesus … Jesus approached him; Jesus called him, the way a Rabbi calls disciples. Jesus went to this sinner, Levi, this abhorrent, disgusting traitor – as far as all the other Jews were concerned – and not only did He say to Levi, “Follow me,” He went to dinner; a banquet at Levi’s house with a whole bunch of other tax collectors.

Now the religious people, the Pharisees, instead of saying, “Man, what a great idea – taking the love of God right into the middle of the sinners – loving them, listening to them, healing them, maybe even bringing them to repentance,” instead of that, the Pharisees, they found some theological, religious reasons for criticising Jesus. Now, let me ask you this – brutal; right to your face: when it comes to sinners, are you more like Jesus or more like the scribes and Pharisees? Come on! It’s a question we need to ask.

The thing about an ambassador is that he doesn’t stay at home in his own country where he knows everyone; his friends are and he’s comfortable – he gets on a plane, with his family, sets up his home right in the middle of this other foreign country that he has been posted to as an ambassador. Get it!

You and I, if we truly are Christ’s followers, you and I are called to “go”. Not to sit at home in our holy huddles were we are comfortable. Don’t get me wrong: having Christian friends is great, going to church is great but we’re called to live on the mission field – we are called to go to the sinners the way Jesus did. And while sometimes that means going to another part of the world, true, most times it just means touching the colleague at work, inviting over the neighbours next door for a barbecue because you have heard them screaming at each other and their marriage is falling apart and what they need in their lives is Jesus. What they need to know is that He loves them. What they need to have is a personal encounter with the Saviour who came for them. Not just for us, for them – the Saviour who died for them – the Saviour who rose again to give them a new life and an eternal life. What they need – the “Levis” in our world – they need Jesus.

So, I am going to ask you again, when it comes to the ‘Levis’ in your world, are you Christ to them or are you a Pharisee? Do you go to them with the love of Jesus or do you sit at home with your friends and complain about them?

My friend, these people who are hurting, who are dying, who are going to a Christ-less eternity, my friend, they need an ambassador – they need an ambassador of Christ who looks just like you and just like me.

Anyone who believes in Jesus – is also meant to be an Ambassador of Christ. Now – that’s not an easy role. Sometimes being Ambassador requires some tough talk.  Other times it’s about diplomacy – the question is, knowing when to call a spade a spade, and when to be more … circumspect.

It’s Not a Shouting Match

One of the most embarrassing things I’ve ever seen as a Christian – and I’ve seen it a few times – is some guy standing on a soapbox in a Mall or on a street corner, or as I shared a few weeks ago, at a Saturday morning market, screaming out the so called, “Good News” about Jesus Christ. Now, I’m a Christian and so I will sometimes stop and see if I can understand where they’re coming from. And truly, most of the time, I just can’t figure it out, but there they stand on their soapbox, with a Bible in their hands and surrounded by some pretty tacky placards normally, screaming the Gospel at people. Do I think God can use that? Sure – I mean, He seems to use the foolishness that I preach sometimes, in peoples’ lives, so why not the guy on the soapbox on the street corner?

Do I think, however, that it’s the most effective way of dealing with the issue? Is it the best way to communicate the incredible love of God, the grace of Jesus Christ, the riches available to those who put their faith in Him? Is it the best way to share that Good News? Not by a long shot; not by a very long shot! And yet, it’s easy … it’s so easy for us to imagine that telling people about Jesus is kind of like getting on that soapbox. That it’s about two equal and opposite ideologies – God’s and the world’s – butting heads and locking horns.

Over the last couple of weeks and again this week on the programme, we are having a chat about living our lives out as ambassadors of Christ; His emissaries, if you will. If I believe in Jesus; if you believe in Jesus, then one of the things that we have to do with our lives – one of the main things – is to communicate His love; to carry His love out into a lost and a hurting world. That’s what the Apostle Paul said in writing to his dear friends at the church in Corinth – way back in the First Century. Second Corinthians chapter 5, verse 20:

So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us.

Each one in our own way, of course but otherwise, how can we possibly claim to be His ambassadors? How can God make His appeal to this world to be reconciled with Him through someone who looks nothing like Him; who sounds nothing like Him? Now, that presents us with something of a dilemma! Does me, anyhow, because what I see is that sometimes Jesus stood up and berated people – not too often, but sometimes He did. He called the religious leaders of the day “hypocrites”, “a brood of vipers” and a whole bunch of other things as well.

And yet other times, He dealt with people with such tender love and compassion, it kind of moves you to tears when you read about those times. Like the woman caught in adultery – you can read her story in John’s Gospel chapter 8. I mean He pretty much puts Himself between her and the angry mob that wanted to stone her to death. Go figure that out!!

So how do we reconcile that? How do you or I, if we want to be like Jesus, learn to speak into this world the way that He did? When do we speak with tender love and when do we stand up to be counted and call a spade and spade, no matter who it’s going to offend? I guess that’s kind of where we are going this week on the programme – looking at how we speak into this world like Jesus.

How do we connect His message of love and forgiveness and a new and abundant life to the needs … the often desperate needs in the lives of the people around us? Do we call a spade a spade and get right into peoples’ faces or do we speak with compassion and love? And if it’s both of those, how do I know when to use one and when to use the other?

Now these questions, as you can imagine, are questions that I have mulled over a lot and as I look at how Jesus communicated, He only got upset … really upset with people on a handful of occasions. In other words it was the exception rather than the norm. He didn’t see His role as God in the flesh, as being one half of a shouting match most of the time. And so far as I can see, He reserved His anger for the people who should have known better; for the people who said they believed in God – the religious leaders. Have a listen – Matthew chapter 23, beginning at verse 12:

All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted. But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and then when others are going in, you stop them. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross the sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.

Or when He went into the temple, John chapter 2, verse 15:

Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.

See, the only time Jesus really got stuck in was when He encountered hypocrisy amongst the religious leaders. When they held themselves out to be clean on the outside but actually, they were filthy on the inside – when they oppressed the people who were looking for God; when the powerful stood over the weak; when the rich exploited the widow and the poor; when the judges were dishonest to the detriment of the ordinary people.

You know, when Christians, at least here in Australia where I live, sometimes stand up to politicians and publicly speak out against injustice and wrongs and decisions being made and laws being passed that just aren’t in the interests of the common people, like you and me, the most common response of the politicians is that Christians and church leaders should keep their noses out of politics. I couldn’t disagree more! When we see wrongs and injustices – and can I say, especially when we see those things in the church; especially when we see hypocrisy amongst God’s own people – I believe it’s time to stand up and to say so.

This isn’t a clash of ideologies; it’s not a slanging match or a shouting match; it’s not some irrelevant joker standing on a soapbox on a street corner – because you know something? The truth … the truth rings out, clear as a bell. Sure, people with vested interests aren’t going to like it. Sure, there’s going to be a cost, but God’s heart … God’s heart is for justice for the poor and the oppressed. And sometimes we are called to speak out.

Next, we are going to have a look at the flip side of that coin – the gentle speech of the diplomat; the ambassador.

The Diplomacy of an Ambassador

Let’s take a look at the flip side of the coin – the diplomacy of an ambassador because Jesus used that much more than that other really direct and angry approach. Most of us, you and I, we have blind spots. In fact, the reason they are called, “blind spots” is that we can’t see them. And when it comes to our own blind spots in life, what’s amazing is how defensive and touchy we are about them. It’s almost that we hold them to be sacred.

Let’s say that our blind spot is anger – that’s the one we are dealing with in our lives – and we are prone to flaring up quickly and someone comes along and points it out to us. Well, they’d better watch out! Or if it’s low self-esteem and someone tries to help us with it, we can crawl even further inside our shells.

So how do you help someone with their blind spots? Because my blind spots – if I don’t deal with them, will end up hurting you and stunting me and you know, my friend, your blind spots, if you don’t deal with yours, will end up hurting the rest of us and stunting you. That’s what sin does! And before we get all judgemental: Sin! Sin! What century is this guy coming from? Let me read out to you a succinct list of the sorts of things that I’m talking about – just so there’s no mistake.

Now, I’m reading from the Message translation which is a really contemporary translation of the Bible, written by a guy called Eugene Peterson. It’s coming from Galatians chapter 5, verses 19 to 21. Have a listen to what God calls sin:

“It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on,” writes Paul. “This isn’t the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

Now, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist here to figure out that the sort of things that God calls “sin”, which Paul is talking about here – they are exclusively the things that cause us and other people pain. And the thing that we want to do when someone’s sin is causing us pain is we want to give them what for – we want to tell them exactly what we think about them and hold them to account and, if needs be, have a shouting match with them and get our own way – we do! Because what we are driven by is desire to stop our pain. What we are driven by is “wanting” to win.

But here’s the thing: if what we want to do is to live our lives as ambassadors of Christ then we need to handle these incredibly difficult issues, with His wisdom. And time and time again, when Jesus encountered people whose sin was ruining their lives, He dealt with them with such incredible compassion.

Tax collectors back in Jesus day were a really grubby lot – they were dishonest, they rorted the system, they applied extortion and this behaviour was sanctioned by the Romans who occupied Israel – so long as the Emperor got his taxes! So, by the common Israelite, they were despised; they were considered to be the worst sinners of all; they were traitors and turncoats. Let me read you some of Jesus wisdom and how He handled them. Matthew chapter 9, verses 9 to 13 – if you have a Bible, grab it, open it up – Matthew chapter 9, verses 9 to 13:

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.” And so, he got up and followed Jesus. And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why is it that your teacher eats with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard this, Jesus said, “Those who are well don’t need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but the sinners.”

See, you and I, when we see people whose sin offends us or hurts us; when we are on the receiving end of their sin, the thing we want to do, naturally – it’s a natural human response – is to cut them off; to cut them out of our lives. That way we are protected; that way we don’t have to deal with them; that way we don’t have to deal with the pain that they cause in our lives.

But what Jesus is saying here is that it was precisely for these people; these sinners; these rejects, that He came and so He went and ate a meal in that house. Here He was, this veritably rock star – huge crowds were following Him – He comes into town, He decides to go and eat with what – the Mayor, the Governor, the church leaders, the synagogue leaders, the bishops? No, no – the tax collectors!

Do you see this huge … huge symbolic act that was going on here? He knew that it would do two things. That He would draw vocal criticism from the religious leaders and He’d also confer honour upon the sinners. And by conferring honour on them, He was building a relationship with them. He was accepting them just as they were; without a word of condemnation or judgement. And my hunch is that that completely changed their attitude towards Him.

You know something? They had their blind spots – they were rationalising away their extortion and dishonesty and if Jesus had come and berated them or condemned them or ignored them, nothing would have changed in their lives. Instead He came and ate with them and drank with them and listened to them and took the criticism that everyone else heaped upon Him for doing that – and He built a bridge by honouring them.

And so powerful was this that one of them, Matthew, became one of His disciples. He wrote the first Book of the New Testament. You want to be an ambassador of Christ – then we need to learn the language of an ambassador? Being an ambassador, as we saw on last weeks programme, about building relationships and bridges, so that when there are difficult issues that have to be dealt with, there is already a connection of relationship and trust in place, through which to deal with the problem.

Think about it – who are the people in your life to whom you give a licence to talk to you about your blind spots? I know who they are in my life – it’s the people who have honoured me and stuck with me and who’ve proven themselves to be wise and trustworthy. They’re the ones with that licence!

And as I look back, it was through those people – people just like that; people who had eaten with this sinner; loved this sinner; coped with my sins – it was through those very people that I encountered the transforming love of Jesus Christ. They were His ambassadors in my life. They treated me the way He treated those tax collectors and friend, without them I wouldn’t be with you here right now. It makes you think.

Preaching with our Ears

Today and over these last few weeks on the programme we have been chatting about what it means to be an ambassador of Christ; to live our lives – if we believe in Jesus – as one of His ambassadors. Remember, the Apostle Paul – Second Corinthians chapter 5, verse 20 writes:

So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, to be reconciled to God.

Now, one of the things that strikes me is how strong differences are across cultures. We’ve had a man recently join our team here at Christianityworks – his name is Gregory. Now you may or may not have known this but we Australians are fairly direct in the way we speak. Americans on the other hand, are less so – we often joke about that. Gregory will ask where the bathroom is, whereas I’ll ask where the toilet is. So we Australians are much more direct.

But even more than that, Gregory grew up; spent many of his childhood years in Japan, and so he has a lot of Japanese culture on the inside too – a culture that’s very much about politeness and face. And even though we have known each other for a very long time, working together now every day has been a real learning experience for both of us.

When I ask him what he thinks, I want him to actually tell me what he thinks. If he thinks I’m off with the pixies on some issue, I actually want him to tell me so. Forget hierarchies – I just want his direct, honest input because that’s how we will get the right results. He, on the other hand, can find that just a bit confronting because that’s not the cultural background that he’s come from. It’s just one simple example but it’s a good one.

Imagine if I, as direct as I am, were sent as Australia’s ambassador to the U.S. or even more so, to Japan. I’d have to learn a lot about their cultures before I could communicate effectively on a diplomatic level with those countries. I’d have to find different ways of saying things I want to say. I’d have to listen carefully to what their diplomats were saying to make sure I actually hear what they mean to say.

You know something? Sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ with the people around us is no different to that. After fifteen years of walking with Jesus, I have a whole different perspective on what success is, what joy is, what happiness is, what sin is, what pain is – and all sorts of things, from someone who has never met Jesus – from someone who doesn’t have that relationship with Jesus. Why would I ever imagine I could talk to them as though they have the same perspective as me?

You know, for a long, long time in my life, I just wasn’t ready for anyone to tell me about this Jesus. I mean, get lost! I couldn’t stand those God botherers. I had a totally different perspective to theirs. I just knew that life was about making lots of money and being recognised in my field and being successful. I knew I’d find my pot of gold at the end of that rainbow. I had, back then, a whole bunch of misconceptions about life and where I wanted to be headed and what would make me happy. And I didn’t need anyone to preach at me – least of all those God botherers telling me about Jesus.

What I needed was someone to listen to me – what I needed was someone to understand me and help me to understand myself. I needed someone to preach to me with their ears – if that makes sense. An ambassador from one country who is about to be sent to another country has to learn about the culture and the language and the issues and the aspirations and the concerns of the country to which he or she is being sent. Someone who lives in one country and is going to be a missionary in another country, well, they have to do exactly the same.

I believe the most important asset an ambassador can have are his ears and his eyes – to observe, to perceive, to listen, to see, to understand. Jesus grew up in the Hebrew culture of First Century Israel. He attended school in that culture. He knew how to speak and He had a lot of time listening. He spent time eating and drinking with tax collectors; with sinners. He spent time living with His disciples. He spent time getting to know the issues in peoples’ lives.

I remember when I was working in a retail buying group – quite some years ago. The chairman of our board was a man called Stan Brown – he owned a menswear store in Sydney. I remember him saying that a shop attendant who walks up to a customer and opens up with, “Can I help you?” well, he’d say it’s like asking someone to marry you on the first date. First he said, you need to find out who they are, why are they here, why did they come into your store, what’s their taste, what are they looking for? First you have to find a point of connection, he said, then … then they’ll be open to receive any help.

As I look at people who God brought to me; the ambassadors whom He sent in my direction when I needed to meet Him, what I realise, is that they, for the most part, preached with their ears – they listened, they understood, they laughed, they cried with me and once they understood – once I really knew they understood – then I relaxed. Then I let them into my thoughts and into my heart – then they were allowed to influence me because they got me. Then they had the opportunity to show me who this Jesus really, really is.

The stock-in-trade of an ambassador is diplomacy. It’s about trust and communication and understanding and if you and I … if you and I are going to be ambassadors of Jesus Christ, then that’s something I believe we are going to have to learn.

When I take the time to get to know you and understand you – whether or not I agree, I have just built a bridge into your life that honours you. When you feel understood, you feel secure and you experience trust and it’s exactly the same back in the other direction.

Friend, Jesus was an amazing communicator – He was prepared to confront the difficult issues when they needed to be confronted and He was prepared to show compassion because that’s what flowed out of His heart to people in need. And it was that bridge of compassion that we can build with people.

That’s the bridge that, one day, Jesus will walk across. Trust me, that’s the bridge and it all comes from preaching with our ears. Go figure!

When we have a need – a real need – something we can’t do or fix or resolve for ourselves – what we need, is a helping hand. And of we get that helping hand – the person who’s attached to that hand, well, they go up in our estimation. They earn the right to say things that others can’t to us.  Funny thing happens through a helping hand.

Healing with our Hands

Well, welcome to the programme this week – the last message in a series that I’ve called, “Living Life as an Ambassador for Christ”. And today… today I would like to share with you how you and I can be real ambassadors … ambassadors with a difference; ambassadors that really stand out from the crowd.

Whenever there’s a disaster somewhere in the world – a tsunami or an earthquake or a cyclone or a tornado – it seems to me that the wealthy countries like my own; the countries with the logistics and the equipment and the resources to help – it seems we take forever to mobilise. When people are buried under rubble, they only have days, perhaps only hours to live and what they need right then, is specialist search and rescue teams, with sniffer dogs and listening equipment and all that stuff. And the survivors, what they need, is medical help, food, water, shelter. And the last thing I want to do is be critical but it seems to take so long for the wealthy countries to mobilise their resources.

We know that these disasters are going to happen every year – they just happen and I am always left kind of scratching my head as to why it is that it takes us so long to respond. What those poor people need, within the first twenty four hours, is a huge influx of capability to save lives. And these days, I mean, you can pretty much fly from anywhere to anywhere in not much more than twenty fours and yet, time and time and time again these disasters happen and it takes us weeks to mobilise. Does that kind of strike you as strange?

You know, as a tax payer in a relatively wealthy country – all be it a smallish population, but never the less, a wealthy country – when I see the way public monies are spent, the last thing that I’d have a problem with is my government setting aside some money to establish and maintain some rapid response capabilities to help other nations when disasters strike.

But as easy as it is to sit there and criticise a government, I wonder whether this lethargy in responding to need isn‘t something that you and I experience in our personal lives. I read about an extreme example of this in a newspaper recently. Have a listen to this short article.

A South Korean couple addicted to online gaming, let their baby starve to death while raising a virtual daughter. Parents, Kim You-Chul and Choi Mi-sun, spent up to 12 hours a day at an internet café tending to their avatar child in the online game Prius. But they left their real baby home alone and fed her just one bottle of milk a day. Police have charged the couple with child abuse and neglect.

Pretty bizarre, pretty extreme, one might think, “Got nothing to do with me; I’m not like that. I don’t neglect my children like that.” I would hope not but what about our friends; what about our family members; what about our neighbours; what about the couple next door whose marriage is falling apart? We hear them screaming and arguing but do we ever invite them over for a barbecue, to share in their lives and for them to share in ours?

What about that person at church – you know the one – single; overweight; they’re life’s a mess, they talk a bit too much and no one ever invites them to their place on Sunday for lunch? What about that man at work – you see he’s a workaholic; he’s ruining his marriage, neglecting his children – ruining everything, all for want of a friend who can show him a better way of living?

Where are we then, you and I? I’ll tell you where: we are like ‘online’ that Korean couple, watching TV! We’re doing all the things we want to do in the comfort of our own lives and our own homes. And the more affluent we become the less we care for one another. But we justify that; we rationalise it away; we sit in our homes with more than enough – many of us – more than enough, telling ourselves, “We worked hard for it and now we need a rest.” We are living virtual lives, watching TV shows about cooking, instead of cooking ourselves; watching TV shows about travelling, instead of travelling ourselves. Raising our virtual lives, our virtual gods and ignoring the real world.

It sounds harsh doesn’t it? Well, sometimes we need to be direct. Sometimes we need to call a spade a spade. God does that too. Have a listen to this – First John chapter 3, verse 17. If you have a Bible, open it up – towards the end – the First Letter of John chapter 3, verse 17:

How does God’s love abide in anyone who has all the world’s goods and yet sees a brother or sister in need but refuses to help?

Now, I know that’s hard because there seems to be so much need out there in the world. Sometimes we look at the news and we see the misery and we just turn it off, you and I – we can’t make a difference; it’s too big. Okay, I kind of understand that, although we can always make some small difference, but there are so many people closer to home; sometimes even within our homes, that we have the opportunity to serve – to heal with our hands; to heal with what we do as well as with what we say.

Speaking first hand here, there is nothing … absolutely nothing that speaks more about God’s love into someone’s life than when we step in to help them with that one thing they need help with. Sometimes it’s the smallest thing – just a word of encouragement; a meal to someone just out of hospital; a visit or a phone call. Sometimes it’s loving them over the long run; being there with them and for them.

Whatever it is, when we have a need and someone just meets that need, there is nothing that speaks more of the love of Jesus than that. Believe you me, I know. It was people doing just that in my life who played such a powerful role in me coming to faith in Jesus Christ. In fact, their investment in meeting my needs bears fruit every day, as I sit down behind this microphone.

Listen again to what Paul writes about how he sees his role and ours in this world. Second Corinthians chapter 5, verse 20:

So we are ambassadors for Christ; since God is making his appeal through us we entreat you on behalf of Christ to be reconciled to God.

Imagine now, an ambassador of a wealthy country who has taken up his or her post in a poor country. And one day that poor country suffers a devastating earthquake and that ambassador from the wealthy country moves heaven and earth to quickly mobilise rescue and medical capabilities. They come quickly; they meet the desperate needs and then, when finally the crisis is over, what do you think the ambassador’s actions have just said to the people of that poor country, about the wealthy country that the ambassador represents? That ambassador’s actions will have spoken volumes into the poorer nation about how much the richer nation cares for them. It’s simply not rocket science!

Do you believe in Jesus? I do! And anyone who does is called to be an ambassador of Christ and as the Apostle Paul writes, it is through His ambassadors, dotted all over the planet, that God makes His appeal for people to be reconciled to Him. We don’t have to look very far to find the need, do we? Often it’s right under our noses. And we can spend time in prayer and at church and worshipping God and all those wonderful, good things while the babies starve; while the needs go unmet; while marriages next door fall apart and people right across the street are living in fear. Or we can go … go and be ambassadors of Christ.

For how does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or a sister in need and yet refuses to help?

Loving with our Hearts

As I said at the beginning of today’s programme, this is our last message in this four part series, “Living Life as an Ambassador for Christ”. And as we draw to the end I always find myself thinking of so many other things we could have talked about. Over the last three weeks I guess, what we have been doing is taking a look at the different aspects of the Apostle Paul’s assertion that he and by implication, you and me – if we believe in this amazing, loving, compassionate, powerful Jesus – are ambassadors for Christ. Have a listen again to how he put it – Second Corinthians chapter 5, verse 20:

So we are ambassadors for Christ; since God is making his appeal through us, we entreat you on behalf of Christ to be reconciled to God.

We have talked a lot about what it means to be an ambassador through whom God would make His appeal to a lost and hurting world. We’ve looked a bit at the way Jesus was an emissary of God into this world when He became a man. How He communicated God’s message of grace to the blind and the poor and the diseased and the needy and the outcast. And I wish we could spend weeks and months more, taking a closer look at that. Maybe we will come back to it in a little while because at the centre of everything … EVERYTHING is Jesus, the Son of God; the Maker of the heavens and the earth.

So, as we draw this series together today, with so much more left to talk about, I had to decide on just one thing – the most important thing – and that most important thing; the one thing that Paul, at the end of First Corinthians 12 calls, “the yet more excellent way”, is this: love! That’s what we are going to finish up with today.

I had a friend who, several years ago now, was called into Christian ministry, out of Australia into the United Kingdom. Now the particular place where he went to live and to work was, well, it was a part of the U.K. that was particularly depressed at the time. His job wasn’t to work directly with the people but when I went to visit him and I wandered around the local town, I could feel that … that oppression. There were derelict factories, rusting, decaying remnants of the industrial age. There was high youth unemployment and I spoke with the people; there seemed to be a hopeless; a lost-ness; an emptiness in this part of the country. It really stood out.

Now we Australians, by and large, are a pretty optimistic lot. We have in our National character this ‘can do’ attitude that to other cultures sometimes, comes across as being a bit brash. And so when I was confronted with this sad community’s spirit, it really struck me between the eyes. And as I chatted with my friend over coffee late one night, he too confessed that he was finding that really difficult – moving from one culture to another – it’s never easy. But the sadness and the listlessness and the hopelessness all around, particularly, coupled with the long, grey, cold winters, was really getting to him.

Now, please understand me, I am not knocking the Brits. I love travelling to England but there are parts of the country – any Brit will tell you this – there are parts of the country where there is high unemployment, particularly amongst the youth – and it’s tough going.

Anyhow, a year or so later I was chatting with this man over Skype and he’s a great guy – I love keeping in touch with him – and so I assumed he was still doing it tough in this unfamiliar culture. I started empathising with him and his response … his response shocked me. He said in effect, “Oh no; no, no, we love it here; absolutely love it here. This is where God means us to be and it’s really great.” That was quite a turn around, so I asked him, “What’s changed? You’ve moved your position a long way from where you were and what you were feeling a few years ago.”

And as I listened to him talk, it clicked! I could hear it in his voice – he had fallen in love with the people. God had touched his heart and he had this real compassion for the people out there – the unemployed; the people with that sense of hopelessness. He’d become part of a local church and he was part of the community and he realised that the joy and the enthusiasm and the optimism that he had in his heart could be a light in that place. He had fallen in love with the people.

Sometimes we Christians feel like misfits in this world. There’s a reason for that. As Jesus said in His prayer, just before He was crucified – John chapter 17 – He said that, “… we are in the world but not of the world.” The Apostle Paul makes the point that “ … we are citizens of heaven, not of this world.” We are misfits; just like my friend the Aussie felt – he was a misfit in his new surroundings.

And when we are misfits, the easiest thing in the world is to kind of criticise and poke fun and belittle those around us and complain – “I know Jesus; I have my life sorted out; I know what’s right and all those other people out there, whose lives are in a mess, well, they’re somehow less that I am.” We criticise, we argue, we demean – it’s called, “religious superiority”. You see it often between races and cultures – one race looks down on another because of their skin colour or their traditions or just who they are. And I’ve seen people get this wrong over and over and over again.

I love it when the Apostle Paul says in First Corinthians 13, it doesn’t matter what gifts or abilities or what you do or how much you give, if you don’t have love, friend you are nothing. And the love that Jesus showed was more than just love – it was compassion, it was empathy, it was kindness and gentleness.

There are two Letters in the New Testament – First Timothy and Second Timothy – they are written by Paul to Tim, his young protégée. And in the second one, the Apostle Paul writes these words – Second Timothy chapter 2, verses 24 to 26:

And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kindly to everyone, an apt teacher, patient, correcting opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth, and that they may escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.

The bit I love most in there is the bit about God perhaps granting that they will repent and come to know the truth; they may escape the snare of the devil and be set free. It’s oh so easy, as someone who loves Jesus and is passionate about Him and who wants to see people’s lives transformed, to start getting this idea that it’s up to us. You know, we see many, many lives transformed through these radio programmes, all over the world but let me tell you this, with all that I am: nothing that I can do; nothing that I can say, can change lives!

Just yesterday I received an email from a man in another country who wrote about a particular programme he’d listen to over the New Year period and he said, “One small thing you said, God took that and changed my life.” He was an alcoholic and he’d stopped drinking. Now, I can’t do that – only God can, by His Spirit when He takes His Word and brings it to life in our hearts. That bit is God’s job.

And when you or I become arrogant or pushy or superior in our attitudes we are working against God because, “God always opposes the proud but He gives grace to the humble.” And I don’t care what gift you or I have, how hard we work for Jesus, how much of our cash we contribute to His work, unless we have love, my friend, we are enemies of God; enemies of our fellow men, women and children.

“These three things remain”, writes Paul in First Corinthians chapter 13, “faith, hope and love. All really good but the greatest amongst these is love.”

Whatever we do, however we do it, if we do it in love, God can use it – kind, gentle, patient – that’s what Paul writes to Timothy. The wisdom of a man towards the end of his life after many, many years of very difficult ministry – bound in chains; about to be executed, writing to his young protégée, just starting out on his career – kindness, gentleness, patience and love.

A Price to Pay

Now, I had the honour the other evening of sitting and having dinner with a man who heads up a large international ministry that touches young people with the love of Jesus Christ. They have a passion for seeing the lives of young folk transformed and they have missions and people kind of all over the world doing that – it’s a huge organisation. Now this man happens to be an Australian and him and his wife and a couple of kids had to move from Australia to the U.S. for him to be able to take up the role as global president of this missions and ministry organisation.

So, several years ago they received the call and off they went. Now you would imagine Australia and America – both English speaking; both Western cultures; pretty similar countries in many ways – you would imagine. But as someone who has travelled to the U.S. a lot and as someone who’s just received an American into our ministry; a man and his family who immigrated the other direction – from the U.S. to Australia – I can tell you, there are some huge cultural differences between these two, apparently similar countries.

Anyhow, I asked this man and his wife, as we were having dinner together, how did they find things when they moved their family to a large city in the U.S. several years ago. ‘Aw,’ they said, ‘it wasn’t easy. Oh, there were some big adjustments. Oh, that first twelve months was really tough going and we still missed those familiar things and the people and the culture that we grew up in.’

So, I guess this is my point, is that it would be easy for you and me to sit and look at and listen to this man and think to ourselves, “Well, he’s blessed; he made it; he’s at the top of the heap in this large ministry, without ever seeing the cost. It cost him something, it cost his wife, it cost his children to uproot themselves and follow the call of God.” Now, this guy is such a gifted leader – he is so the right man to head up that organisation but it cost him. You get it – it cost him.

And these days he spends a lot of time flying around the world at the back of the plane – he’s a tall man – and that’s tiring and uncomfortable and as someone said to me recently, this guy could be the head of any large global corporation. He just has what it takes – he could be flying first class; he could be earning stacks of money but he’s doing neither because his heart burns with a fire … a fire; a passion to see peoples’ lives changed. Not as they embrace some new religion or learn a new set of rules but as they meet and encounter Jesus Christ. As they discover His love and His power and His compassion and His vision for their lives – Jesus. This man; this leader is an ambassador for Christ.

For two reasons – first is his soft heart; his passion and the second are his hard feet. In other words, he was prepared to go. I think it was Corrie Ten Boom who once said something along the lines that, God calls us to have soft hearts and hard feet. But the problem is that many Christians have the exact opposite – they have hard hearts and soft feet.

My friend, whenever we are called to be an ambassador for Jesus Christ, there is a price to pay. Jesus said, “If anyone would be my disciple then he must take up his cross and follow me.” Count the cost – there is a cost and, “Unless you take up your cross and follow me,” said Jesus, follow me where I lead, “then you cannot … you cannot be my disciple.”

Being an ambassador of Christ is going to cost us something. It is not for the faint hearted; it is not for the hard hearted. It is for those in who burns a fire for Jesus; a passion to see hurting, needy people encounter this risen Saviour, Jesus, whether it’s across the world or across the street – a passion to see lives transformed by Jesus.

Does that mean we all have to immigrate to a foreign land and head up a ministry? Of course, it doesn’t! But it does mean that each one of us, in some way, shape or form, wherever Jesus leads, has to go. Just as Jesus came to us, so we are called to go to the lost – to the sinners, to the outcasts, to those amongst our family and our friends and our work colleagues and our local football club and our neighbours and our enemies – even our enemies – to go and make disciples of all the nations – to go and be ambassadors … ambassadors of Christ.

My friend, if you believe in Jesus; if you have given your life to Him, I encourage you to do something today – I want encourage you to go to Him, in prayer, and say:

Lord Jesus, I want to be Your ambassador. I want to be part of Your great plan for this world, of transforming lives; I want to carry You into this world, Lord, I want to see people meet You. Lord God, show me how … show me how.