2 Corinthians 5:17-‐20
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 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. 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.
You know our church has recognized that we need to be a more outward facing church – more missional in nature! We noticed we have become very good at serving our members – growing and maturing, but something was missing. Ralph Moore points out that most established churches serve their constituents well, but on the whole are not winning the unchurched.
So we began to think that to attract the unchurched we needed to be outward minded. We need to reach out into our neighborhoods, our schools, our towns, our culture. Some would say we need to be relevant and while this can sometimes be taken to extreme, we must attract and engage.
Our pastor recently gave a sermon and in it there was an illustration that as believers we can be three types of people: Tourist, Immigrants, or Ambassadors. He went on to say that as tourist we merely visit and do not connect to the culture around us; as immigrants we actually become the culture; and as ambassadors we respect and actively engage the culture all while knowing our citizenship is not of the culture.
This caused me to think deeply about what it means to be an ambassador; an ambassador for Christ. I found a definition in a bible dictionary that tells us that an ambassador is the official representative of the King; that ambassadors are raised up and qualified by the work of Holy Spirit, appointed for spiritual care. And as Paul points out above to carry the message of reconciliation out into the world – what good news that is! Amen.
King Jesus, help us as your ambassadors to be an attractive light in the culture around us a light that can show your love, your grace, your sacrifice that we might be reconciled to God!
Grace and Peace!
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 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. 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.
You know our church has recognized that we need to be a more outward facing church – more missional in nature! We noticed we have become very good at serving our members – growing and maturing, but something was missing. Ralph Moore points out that most established churches serve their constituents well, but on the whole are not winning the unchurched.
So we began to think that to attract the unchurched we needed to be outward minded. We need to reach out into our neighborhoods, our schools, our towns, our culture. Some would say we need to be relevant and while this can sometimes be taken to extreme, we must attract and engage.
Our pastor recently gave a sermon and in it there was an illustration that as believers we can be three types of people: Tourist, Immigrants, or Ambassadors. He went on to say that as tourist we merely visit and do not connect to the culture around us; as immigrants we actually become the culture; and as ambassadors we respect and actively engage the culture all while knowing our citizenship is not of the culture.
This caused me to think deeply about what it means to be an ambassador; an ambassador for Christ. I found a definition in a bible dictionary that tells us that an ambassador is the official representative of the King; that ambassadors are raised up and qualified by the work of Holy Spirit, appointed for spiritual care. And as Paul points out above to carry the message of reconciliation out into the world – what good news that is! Amen.
King Jesus, help us as your ambassadors to be an attractive light in the culture around us a light that can show your love, your grace, your sacrifice that we might be reconciled to God!
Grace and Peace!
No comments:
Post a Comment