"Ambassadors For Christ"
2 Cor. 5:9-21 (text v. 20)
God likens soul winning to various occupations.
Farmer planting seed (1 Cor. 3:5-9)
Fisherman catching fish (Mt. 4:19)
Fireman pulling souls from the burning (Jude 22-23)
Foreign diplomat representing his country (an ambassador).
I. The MEANING of an ambassador (His worth as representative).
A. An official agent of one country on a mission in another country.
1. As an agent he acts on the behalf of another. An ambassador is not there to represent himself or his own views. He simply says what he has been commissioned to say.
2. An ambassador does not speak to please his audience, but the King who sent him.
3. An ambassador does not take rejection personally – He is accepted or rejected not on his own merit but because of who he represents.
?When someone slams the door in your face, they are actually slamming the door in the face of Jesus Christ.
B. An official representative. He stands in the place of his ruler. The reputation of his country are in his hands. Everything he does and says reflects on the one who sent him.
ÆWe are representatives of Jesus Christ?THE KING OF KINGS.
C. An ambassador is not elected, but appointed. We are appointed by Christ. WHAT AN HONOR!!!!
D. A foreigner. An ambassador is not a citizen of the country where he is sent. His loyalties is to where his citizenship resides. We are citizens of heaven (Phil. 3:20).
George Shultz, when Secretary of State during the Reagan administration, kept a large globe in his office. When newly appointed ambassadors had an interview with him, Shultz would test them. He would say, "You have to go over the globe and prove to me that you can identify your country." Most of the time they would go over, spin the globe, and put their finger on the country to which they are being sent.
When Shultz's old friend and former Senate majority leader Mike Mansfield was appointed ambassador to Japan, even he was put to the test. This time, however, Ambassador Mansfield spun the globe and put his hand on the United States and said: "That's my country."
On June 27, 1993, Shultz related this to Brian Lamb on C-Span's "Booknotes." Shultz said, "I've told that story, subsequently, to all the ambassadors going out. 'Never forget when you're over there in that country, that your country is the United States. You're there to represent us. Take care of our interests and never forget it, and you're representing the best country in the world.'"
E. He is a diplomat. He is on a mission of diplomacy offering terms of peace to whoever will accept them.
F. An ambassador is given written instructions– the Bible (2 Tim. 3:16).
G. He is a temporary resident – he has no real investments where he lives.
II. The MINISTRY of an ambassador (His work of reunion). The MINISTRY of reconciliation is committed to every believer (vs. 18-19).
ÆWhat does an ambassador do?
A. Lives in an embassy. Our English word "embassy" comes from the same root word as ambassador. Our embassy is the local church.
1. The Embassy is a bit of America on foreign soil. A home away from home.
2. Headquarters with others from his homeland.
3. At the embassy they work out strategies to carry out the objectives of the King they represent.
4. At the embassy they send back messages to the King regarding their needs and help.
5. At the embassy they gain encouragement from their co-workers.
B. He assists his fellow countrymen who are visiting in that foreign land.
C. He helps those who wish to EMIGRATE to his country.
?Shows the candidate the requirements and how to apply.
D. Full time job. Paul saw himself as an full time ambassador, not just on Sunday or when he felt like it.
E. Recalled to his home country prior to the outbreak of war.
?One of these days, God is going to withdraw His ambassadors from this hostile planet. Then there will be all out war between heaven and earth.
III. The MESSAGE of an ambassador (His word of reconciliation).
Æ"Reconciliation" — "to bring into agreement"— to end hostility, and bring opposing parties together in peace and friendship.
The reconciliation of a marriage (1 Cor. 7:10-11).
The reconciliation between two opposing persons. Jesus said, "…if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift" (Mt. 5:23-24).
Reconciling your check book. Bringing the balance in your check book into "agreement" with the bank balance.
Reconciliation to God. Before Christ's atoning death on the cross, there was enmity between God and man.
A. Man’s WANT of reconciliation. God is not reconciled to man, as though God were partly to blame for the enmity. Rather, man must be reconciled to God, for it is man who moved away from God!
B. God’s WORK of reconciliation—The cross. Rom. 5:10—"…when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son…").
1. Since Adam would not accept the blame for his sin (Gen. 3:11-12), God accepted the blame for him! (v. 19, "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, NOT IMPUTING THEIR TRESPASSES UNTO THEM").
2. God imputes our trespasses unto Himself in the person of His Son (v. 21). Christ was counted wrong that we might be counted right!
C. Our WORD of reconciliation (vs. 19-20).
1. The plea of the ambassador – "beseech"… "we pray you…"
2. The position of the ambassador – "in Christ’s stead"
Jesus died on the cross in my stead—Now I stand before the world in Christ’s stead.
As Christ represents me before the Father, I must represent Christ before the world.
As God beholds us in Christ, so the world should behold Christ in us!
3. The proposal of the ambassador – "be YE reconciled to God…"
Admit you are an enemy and you’re ready to surrender.
Accept His terms of Peace – Col. 1:20— "…having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself"
Ask Him to forgive you of your sin.
Allow the Lord to take over.
SUMMATION: A father had a disagreement with his son. The conflict became so bitter that neither one would talk to the other, and finally the son left home.
One day the son received a telegram that his mother lay dying, and if he ever wanted to see her alive again, he needed to return home right away. So the son came to the bedside of his dying mother, and on the other side of the bed stood his father. Still neither of them would speak to the other. The wife pleaded with them to make things right, and though she begged them with tears. Both of them stood beside the bed and said nothing.
Finally, with her dying breath, she took the hand of her husband on one side and the hand of her son on the other and brought them both to her bosom and died. The two stood there a moment with their hands clutched to the breast of the dead woman. Then they burst into tears and got right with each other.
That is a picture of what Christ did for us. On the cross, He reached out to God with one hand and to us with the other, and He brought them together in Himself at His death.
What a PEACE PLAN! The problem is: The majority of the world hasn’t heard God’s offer of peace through Christ! Jesus assigned the job of telling them how to be reconciled to God to you and I – His ambassadors.
I close with two questions: (1) Are you doing your job as an ambassador for Christ? Where you work? Go to school? In your neighborhood? Where you shop?
(2) Have you been reconciled to God by accepting His terms of peace? If not, why not TODAY (2 Cor. 6:1-2)?

Al Hughes