Ambassador

Ambassador

Eric A. Bland

Paul, a man that I admire very much, was a man that was willing to give up everything in order to serve our Lord and our God. He was willing to give up the uppity up lifestyle to subject himself unto God. And because he was willing to give up the world, God was able to use him in a mighty way. Paul wrote 14 out of the 27 New Testament books. Paul was also sent on the road to do a little traveling. He went on 3 missionary trips to various places and one trip to Rome. But things were not always hunky-dory for Paul. He had been put in jail, whipped without number, and faced death again and again. On five different occasions the Jews gave him 39 lashes, 3 times beaten with rods, and faced danger from a multitude of people. For a more detailed picture, in your spare time read 2Cor.11:22-27. Even though Paul had it so rough he was still willing to continue on. Paul was an up front preacher, today we would refer to him as a preacher who does not ?sugar coat? the Word of God. He was a man that told the Ephesians that it was by grace that they were saved. He told the Galatians that the Scriptures declared all of us prisoners to sin. And he is also the man that challenges us to be ambassadors for the Word of God. Verse 20 from the New Living Translation says, ?We are Christ?s ambassadors, and God is using us to speak to you. We urge you, as though Christ himself were here pleading with you, ?Be reconciled to God!? Verse 21, ?For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.?

Now through these 2 versus I have three very important questions. If you have pen and paper write these three questions down.

They are:

Do I need to be an ambassador?

Do I need to be reconciled?

And last but certainly not least, Do I need Christ?

Do I need to be an ambassador? Well let?s look at what the bible says; Verse 19 says, ?For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people?s sins against them. This is the wonderful message he has given us to tell others.? Verse 20, "We are Christ?s Ambassadors, and God is using us to speak to you.? Now just for a moment let us examine the latter part of verse 19.

?This is the wonderful message??

What is this wonderful message that Paul is talking about?

It?s the gospel!

It says right above, look at it. It says, ?God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people?s sins against them.? Doesn?t that sound like something Jesus did? Jesus died on Calvary, why? Because of the sin that we were in. Jesus died on the cross for us. That our sin would be rendered invalid; we?re covered by the blood.

So yes this wonderful message is about Jesus on the cross for us.

All right lets continue on, ?This is the wonderful message he?, now lets stop there for a minute.

Who is He????? It?s God.

God has given this wonderful message of salvation.

It says He has given it to who????.. Us.

He has given to us this wonderful message of salvation; does he want us to keep it to ourselves?

No, He wants us to do what?????. Tell others.

We are to be ambassadors. That is an authorized messenger or representative. Look at the Great Commission, ?Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.?

You see that he says Go, that means Go! When you do something that God has commanded you than that means that he will back you, which is to say he is giving the authority to you.

According to Matthew he gave us the authority to teach all nations and to baptize in the name of the father the son and the Holy Ghost. We are to be ambassadors, teaching and preaching the gospel.

Let me ask you this, why do you think there are not very many ambassadors? Or in other words why do you think people are unwilling to open their mouths and tell someone about Jesus? You know if the devil can keep your mouth shut than he has won, that?s ALL he needs to do. He doesn?t care if you go to church, he doesn?t care if you read your Bible, but one thing he does not want you to do is open your mouth.

Go ahead and wear all your gold crosses, there such a fad nowadays no one will think about you being a Christian.