This Sunday we want to continue with that question
“Who does Christ want me to be?”
Last week we answered that by saying
Christ wants you to be his Servant
This Sunday I want us to think upon God’s Word and the fact that
Christ wants you to be his Messenger
Christ wants you to be His Messenger.
When will a Christian speak out… about the Christian life and how magnificent it truly is to live for Christ?.
When will the Christian… voice to others about how marvelous our Lord is?
When will we share with those who around us about Heaven and the hope for eternity.
Will we wait until we get to heaven to do all those things?
Will we wait until life on earth is over to tell people about heaven.
Will we wait until we are face to face with our Lord to speak of His greatness.
Will we wait until the only people we are surrounded by… are those whose fate… is already sealed.
If we stay silent at this juncture and time in our lives then we will make no difference whatsoever for the Kingdom of God.
If we stay silent we are in complete violation of what Christ calls us to be.
His messengers…His Ambassadors…His Representatives.
Christ draws us into that personal relationship with Him not only to save us,… but for us to share the message of His love and greatness and His plan for all people who will believe in Him.
This is no time to be silent but this is the time to sing His praises and to sound out loud for the entire world to hear how exciting and indescribable the joy of knowing Jesus really is.
Are you showing that enthusiasm and excitement or are you being silent in a time when you should be sounding with joy and celebration for all to hear.
(* PLAY MOVIE* PURPOSE available at sermonspice.com email me if you need more details. I also have powerpoint slides for this message as I do most all of my messages)
We are to be Christ’s Ambassadors…His messengers…
The Word of God makes that truth very plain to see
2 Cor chapter 5:20
20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us…
(2 Cor. 5:20)
We witness in that movie clip a woman who is describing something so wonderful, so beautiful….so terrific and so life changing that she is bubbling over with excitement and enthusiasm ,
As a result of her enthusiasm and excitement she can’t help but shout it out.
She simply cannot contain her joy.
And because of her testimony of joy and enthusiasm she makes an impact on the lives of others leading them to step out and experience what she has discovered.
Where are YOU… in being Christ’s Messenger?
The fact that we have become Christ’s Messengers.
Finds it’s origin in three important things the Apostle Paul mentions to us in 2 Corinthians 5.
We see that
I. WE ARE CHANGED (16-17)
II. WE ARE CALLED (17-19)
III. WE ARE COMMUNICATED (19-2)
First think with me about our being Christ’s messengers because of the fact we have been changed.
I. WE ARE CHANGED
We were not seeing Christ as we should or life as we should but those of us who were not seeing… we came to see
We were not knowing Christ as the loving and leading Lord of our lives but those of us Not knowing…. we came to know Him.
We were as those not experiencing His presence or his power in our lives but those of us who were
not experiencing we have come to experience Him
WE HAVE BEEN WONDEFULLY CHANGED!
If you are a Christian it did not happen by accident or by casual common day to day things.
It happened because an all-powerful God led you to a loving Lord who changes our lives forever.
To change literally means to transform.
Something …that was one thing… but has now become something else.
So what has happened is that a transformation has taken place in our lives and Paul describes this transformation.
He says
16 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.
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
Has that transformation of life that only Jesus Christ can bring… happened to you?
Have you been changed?
You can’t really be Christ’s messenger until you have been changed.
Perhaps the reason today that you are not Christ’s messenger is because you really never have been changed.
The pinnacle of that transformation in our life is when Christ has filled us with His Presence and his Power.
It happens the moment we truly say I DO to the Lord Jesus Christ and He changes us forever by way of His presence and His power in our lives.
When there has been a transformation in our life that brings Christ’s presence and power it will be evident.
1. Evident in our will….Because no longer is living about doing our will but rather it is about doing the Lord’s will.
When there has been transformation in our life it will be evident
2. in our worship – The experience of worship in our lives whether at home or in church or wherever our worship takes place …our worship comes alive and becomes powerfully, meaningfully real to us.
When there has been transformation in our life it will be evident
3. Evident in our work for the Lord. Because of the change we desire to do things that magnify Him and draw others to him.
When there has been transformation in our life it will be evident
4. Evident in our Witness
When we have been changed we will be like that woman in the video who testified to what she had experienced and she wanted others to experience it.
Let me ask you this morning have you been transformed?
Is it evident in your life and you know that you have been changed because you see it in your
Doing God’s Will instead of Your Will
You see it- In the power and presence of God as you experience Him in worship
You see that you’ve been transformed because of your desire and dedication to work for God and not just build your own Kingdom
Do you know that you have been transformed because it is evident to those around you that Christ has made a change in your life.
And if you are coming up on the short end of the stick when it comes to evidence of your transformation…
the startling reality may be that you have just never truly been changed?
If we are going to be the messengers of Christ that God wants us to be we must be certain that we have been changed and we must be certain of the evidence of it in our lives.
Additionally to be Christ’s messenger’s we need to understand that to be changed is also to be called.
II. WE ARE CALLED
God does not change anyone from
death to life,
from darkness to light,
or from detainment to liberation
without also calling them to a personal ministry of reconciliation.
Being reconciled points to that idea of bring two things together that are not in agreement with one another.
Anyone who has NOT placed their complete trust in Jesus is still in their sins and therefore… they are in need of being reconciled.
Our sin separates us from God…and the only hope anyone has of being brought back to Him and reconciled is through Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ changes our life through reconciliation (the restoring of our relationship with God).
Not only does Christ bring that change into our lives but He CALLS us to be those who introduce others to Christ that they might be reconciled through Him.
If you are here today and you would say I am a follower of Christ than you must also say I have been CALLED to a ministry of reconciling others to God through Jesus Christ.
Look at what Paul says in verse 18
18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:
19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
The bottom line is this God does not reconcile anyone to Christ who He does not also call them to bring others to Christ and see them reconciled?
How are you doing in your life?…
What Christ has called you to do?
Has He not called you to the ministry of reconciling people to God through Him?
Are you actively involved in the ministry God has called you into of seeing others be reconciled to Christ?
Here is the problem.
We give more of ourselves to reconciling our checkbook than we do to checking to see how God might desire to use us to reconcile others to God.
We are too busy reconciling the last financial record issued at church business meeting rather than being busy seeing people who are destined for eternal damnation being reconciled to God through Jesus Christ.
Who does Christ want us to be?
He wants us to be His messengers…
His messengers who have been CHANGED!
His messengers who have been CALLED… to the ministry of reconciliation and
Christ wants us to be His messengers as our life is communicated to others.
III. WE ARE COMMUNICATED
What do you think of when you think of communication?
The truth is that people are communication!
You and I are constantly communicating a message of some kind.
You don’t even have to talk and there is commination going on.
Yet Christ calls on us to be His ambassadors to and to speak making an appeal through us to others that they be reconciled to God.
Are we doing this?
Are our lives being communicated to others to say You need Jesus because He makes life meaningful and marvelous and magnificent.
Look at verse 20 and following
20 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 to be Christ’s spokespersons, …championing His cause.
When Paul used the word ambassador in this passage he had in mind the idea of “one who spoke for the emperor.”
In Paul’s day that’s who the ambassador was ….it was an individual who spoke for the emperor.
It was the emperor’s message but it was delivered through the ambassador (His representative).
The ambassador reflected the agenda, the convictions, the truths, and the causes of the one he represented.
In the same way,…you and I as ambassadors are to proclaim what God has done so that people can respond.
We are to point people to a life-changing and soul-changing relationship with Jesus.
We are to direct them to the opportunity of reconciliation.
As ambassadors for Christ, we do more than proclaim those things that are important to our emperor by what we say.
We also do it by the way we live.
As we are his messengers we clearly communicate Him through our character and our daily activity...
One Sunday as they drove home from church, a little girl turned to her mother and said,
"Mommy, there’s something about the pastor’s message this morning that I don’t understand."
The mother said, "Oh? What is it?" The little girl replied, "Well, he said that God is bigger than we are. He said God is so big that He could hold the world in His hand. Is that true?"
The mother replied,
"Yes, that’s true, honey."
"But Mommy, he also said that God comes to live inside of us when we believe in Jesus as our Savior.
Is that true, too?"
Again, the mother assured the little girl that what the pastor had said was true. With a puzzled look on her face the little girl then asked, "If God is bigger than us and He lives in us, wouldn’t He show through?"
That little girl had hit the nail on the head.
If Christ lives in us….. it will show through.
We will be living examples of His message of love and reconciliation.
Does that describe you?
Are you Christ’s messenger by the testimony of your life?
Are you speaking with uncontrollable joy to all of those around you that they might also come to Christ and then be the follower they need to be in being an ambassador for Christ.
Each of should know the excitement of introducing Jesus to others…for you were transformed by the power of God; …you are not the same as you were, you are a new creation.
Each of us should know the thrill of being an ambassador with a message that is worth hearing because it is a message that comes from the King of kings and Lord of lords.
We dare not be silent…. and if we are truly His ambassadors we will be unable to stay silent.
What is the message of your life?
What does it need to be?
If you are unsatisfied with the message of your life why not come today and pray and ask God to make you a messenger for Him fully and completely.
He’s waiting today to see how you will let Him work in your life as His messenger.
He waits this morning to see the decision you will make.
