II Corinthians 5:18-21 (NIV) 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 people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 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. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Jesus came to change the world. Jesus came to lift up our vision and to give us power to make a difference. In Christ, things were made right in a world that was cut off and alienated from God. There has always been the alienation that comes from insisting that we have our own way. There is the alienation of indifference to God, and the alienation of hostility to God, living in rebellion and resentment toward God. Today, we have a new kind of alienation from God. It is best described as living in a world that is spiritually hungry yet sees Christianity as an ancient compass in a Global Positioning world. Into this spiritually hungry world God sends you and me as ambassadors.
God sends you and me into this alienated world, representing God’s sovereign will. An ambassador of God is a special kind of servant of God. An ambassador has the authority to speak and the power to act on behalf of a ruler, and in this case on behalf of God. As those called to serve God and to represent God in this world I want to ask some questions.
How well do we represent God? Do we echo the yearning love of Jesus? Do we warn of self-destructiveness with an ache in our heart? Do we look upon a searching people with the gut-wrenching compassion of Jesus? Do we have confidence in God in places where people doubt God, disregard the love of God, and deny the power of God?
Are we aware of the power that God has given us to represent God and to make a difference? Are these simply Bible words to us or do they describe the reality of our heart and mind? Serving God sounds good, but what does it mean? It means that we see ourselves as servants of God, who have the authority to speak for God and to act for God in order to be of service to God.
From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope September 26, 1999
© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell Broyles
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