Clothed in Christ // Living Life as an Ambassador of Christ, Part 2

Everyone – everyone who believes in Jesus is called to be His ambassador. An Ambassador of Christ. That involves a change of heart, it involves a change in our actions and it involves – well, going. Ambassadors don’t stay, they go. That’s why being Christ’s Ambassadors ain’t easy sometimes.

 

Christ on the Inside

Now, one of the things that you and I know is that we are what we eat. If what I do is I pig out on chocolates – man, I love chocolate, but we know that too much of it is bad for us; and fatty foods and sweet, sugary drinks and lots of cakes and sweets, all that stuff – if I pig out on that then who I am on the inside is going to change. I’m going to put on weight, my emotions will take a downswing, because that’s what happens with too much sugar, I’ll become lethargic and tired and I won’t be able to cope. My heart will have to work so much harder to get blood around the larger body and my coronary arteries will get all clogged up, my blood sugar will go up ... and on and on the list goes.

The impact is that I have less of a life to live now because I’m always tired, not feeling well and my life expectancy will be cut short. On the other hand, if I get a great mix of healthy cereals and grains and those brightly coloured vegetables and lean meat and all that stuff, which actually tastes pretty fantastic, the complete opposite will happen. What happens on the inside has a huge impact on what happens on the outside.

Who we are on the inside – whether it be physically or emotionally or spiritually - has a huge impact on who we are on the outside. And the upshot of all that is that we simply can’t be one thing on the inside and try to be something else on the outside – it just doesn’t work.

Last week, again this week on the programme and indeed, over the next couple of weeks we are having a bit of a chat about living our lives here on this earth as ambassadors for Christ, because that is what anyone who believes in Jesus is called to be. We are citizens of heaven, not of this earth and as Paul, the Apostle writes, in Second Corinthians chapter 5, verse 20:

We are ambassadors for Christ; since God is making his appeal through us, we entreat you on behalf of Christ, to be reconciled to God.

As I said, you just can’t be one thing on the inside and then pretend to be another thing on the outside. You can’t be Swedish on the inside and pretend to be the Indian ambassador on the outside. We can’t be the devil on the inside and pretend to be an angel of light on the outside. Well, I suppose we can for a while but I suspect it’s incredibly hard work, carrying on a deception like that and it doesn’t take long for who we are to make its way to the outside.

Jesus Himself said – Matthew chapter 15, verse 19:

For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness and slander.

So, if we are going to be ambassadors of Christ, then we first have to be citizens of heaven on the inside, just as the Indian ambassador has to be Indian and not Swedish on the inside. Interesting how God talked about this through His prophet Ezekiel, to His people. He talked to them about what was going on in their hearts. Have a listen – Ezekiel chapter 18, verse 31:

“Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed against me and get yourselves,” listen to this, “a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel?"

A new heart! I think we know what God means but that’s not much of an expression that we would use today. But the expression that we would use is "a change of heart". You and I know what that means: unless something happens deep inside our hearts – on the inside - we can’t change on the outside. But you know there have been issues, transgressions, sins in my life that, try as I might, I couldn’t change my heart by myself. I’m guessing you have had that experience too – we all have!

And that’s why God made this promise too, through His prophet Ezekiel, to His people – Ezekiel chapter 36, verse 26:

A new heart I will give you, a new spirit I will put within you and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

In fact, perhaps what you want to be is an ambassador of Christ but there’s something right now going on in your heart; something you would love to change but you can’t for yourself that you need God to do for you. So why don’t we pray about that right now:

Father God,
this Word of yours, You are putting Your finger right on one of the deepest problems in my life. You and I both know what it is and You know that I have struggled to change my heart - I’ve tried my hardest, but I just can’t. And so I come to You in faith and pray for Your will – Ezekiel chapter 36, verse 26 – for a new heart – a change of heart. Take out the heart of stone, O God, and replace it with a heart of flesh. Take out of me any spirit that is causing me to sin and fill me with Your Spirit. I come to You in faith. I believe that what I have asked You, You will give me because I am asking You in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Now, I encourage you, if you have prayed that prayer will me, to believe, simply to believe, that God will give you the good thing that you have asked Him for and He will. That’s what He says He will do and He never, ever, ever fails on His Word – ever!

When the Apostle Paul was sharing the Good News about Jesus with the folk in Athens, he quoted a poem about a Greek god and applied it to Jesus. This is what he said – Acts chapter 17, verse 28:

For in him we live and move and have our being.

You know, for me that says it all! It’s about being totally immersed in Christ; about being drenched in Jesus – that’s actually the literal meaning of the word "baptised or baptism". The original Greek word was "baptidso". So when a boat was lost in a storm and it went under and it sank, it was said to have been "baptidso"d. When a fabric was dyed a new colour and it was plunged into the dye and completely drenched and it came out a new colour, it was said to have been "baptidso"d.

That’s exactly what the Apostle Paul writes to his friends in Rome. Romans chapter 6, verses 3 and 4:

Don’t you know that all of us who have been baptised into Christ were baptised into his death? Therefore, we have been buried with him by baptism into death so that just as Christ was raised again from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

It means death to the old life and the living of a new life; literally, to be "born again" – a whole new heart and filled with a new spirit; the Spirit of God this time; the Holy Spirit. It means that goodness replaces evil – not so much because we work hard at it but because God’s given us a change of heart and now what happens is we actually want to honour God; we want to live a life that brings glory to Him – and that’s the new life.

We are going to talk more about that next. It’s the new life that wins people over to Christ. It’s the new life that shines like a light and brings flavour to people’s lives like salt. But just as a well that is dry can’t bring forth water, so a life that is empty of Christ; His very Spirit; His presence within us, so a life like that can’t be an ambassador of Christ.

If there are things that you have been struggling with on the inside; things that are holding you back from taking up your commission as Christ’s ambassador in your little petunia patch, then here’s what I encourage you to do – get with God, get in prayer, open His Word, ask Him to fill you to overflowing with His Holy Spirit. Ask Him again and again and again to give you a new heart. And just as we prayed before; just as I said before, He surely will – because He wants to – because when we bear much fruit in our lives it brings Him great glory. A new heart; a change of heart; filled with a new spirit, His Spirit.

 

Christ on the Outside

So let me ask you a question: if you are someone who believes in Jesus and you drive a car, do you have a Jesus bumper sticker or one of those fish stickers on your bumper bar? Maybe ... maybe not! I mean, even if you don’t, that’s okay, I don’t either, but if you had to put one on your car, let me ask you, does your behaviour on the road as a driver match up to what the sticker advertises? I mean, are you a courteous driver who obeys all the road rules or do you break the speed limit and honk your horn at people and yell at them from the inside of your car?

I guess if you’re the former it would be okay to have a fish sticker or a Jesus sticker on your car because your behaviour is a good advertisement for God - in effect, because what you advertise on the sticker and how you behave match up, it works. On the other hand though, can you imagine a rude, impatient driver, who’s constantly breaking the road rules, identifying themselves as a Christian, using some sticker they put on their car. It’s not a very good ad for God, is it?

It turns out that who we say we are; who we hold ourselves out to be and who we actually are in what we say and what we do – if those two don’t match up – well, there’s a name for that: we call those people "hypocrites". We have been talking about living our lives as ambassadors of Christ – “for we are ambassadors for Christ since God is making his appeal through us.” 2nd Corinthians chapter 5, verse 20.

In other words, God, just as He used the Apostle Paul, wants to involve us in the business of making His appeal to the rest of the world. Now what we have seen over the course of the last couple of weeks is that we don’t all have to be "Pauls" in order to do that. Diplomacy, which is the role of an ambassador, mostly happens in one on one relationships where trust is built so that governments have relationships in place to resolve difficult issues. That’s the point of diplomacy and it’s the role of an ambassador.

See, I think sometimes we are misled into thinking: Aw, WOW, oh – an ambassador for Christ, well, that must be the pastors role not me!’ because it sounds like a flashy, up front title. And earlier we saw that in order to be an ambassador of for, say India, we had to be Indian, if we’re Swedish no one is going to believe we are the Indian ambassador, right?

Who we are on the inside really counts. That’s why God promises something new – Ezekiel chapter 36, verse 26:

A new heart I will give you; a new spirit I will put within you and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

See, we can’t change who we are on the outside until we have a change of heart on the inside. I’ve tried it, you’ve tried it – it doesn’t work! If something first happens in our hearts though, to change us on the inside, then all of a sudden changing on the outside becomes mush easier. That’s what we talked about earlier.

Right now we are going to follow on with the natural continuation of that. We are going to take a look at how important it is that who we are on the outside is consistent with who we are on the inside. And that’s why I kicked off with that story about the bumper sticker.

It’s kind of obvious isn’t it? Now I’m not suggesting that you or I are ever going to live a perfect life. I pretty much make mistakes every day and probably you do too and no one ... no one expects us to be perfect. But either how we live declares that our heart and our life has been changed by God or it doesn’t and if it doesn’t, without putting too fine a point on it, we’re being hypocrites. That’s something that Jesus identified in the religious leaders of His day. They pretended to be ‘oh so holy’ on the outside, but on the inside – well have a listen to what Jesus said to them – Matthew chapter 23, verses 25 and 26:

Woe to you, you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside you are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisees! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside may also be clean.

Now, I’m kind of comforted by that; I like it that Jesus is concerned both about our hearts – who we are on the inside – and our hands – what we do on the outside. If someone came to me and said, ‘You know Berni, I’ve heard what you have been saying – I’ve decided I want to be an ambassador of Christ. What do you think is the most important thing in that role?’ Well, this is how I’d answer.

The first thing is your heart and your relationship with God’ being completely sold out to Jesus and if you don’t have that, well, you can’t pretend it. And the second thing is: how you behave; how you live it out, because if you say that you are one thing and you do completely the opposite, people will pick you as a phoney in a split second and then, instead of shining God’s light into the world, you just turn people off.

Let me give you an example. My country, Australia, has a very strong relationship with the United States of America – has had for a good many years. Now, imagine that the U.S. Government, all of a sudden, appoints a brand new ambassador and sends him across the pond to Australia. And within a few months, we discover this ambassador, he’s a lecherous drunk, who can’t keep his hands off other women – whether or not he happens to be any good at his trade of diplomacy – and scandal after scandal, involving this new ambassador hits the news and the press.

How do you imagine such a person would influence the view that Australians have, not only of the U.S. Government but of the American people? It would be devastating wouldn’t it? Not only would this so called "ambassador" hurt the people around him but he’d bring his whole Nation; his whole people into ill repute.

And that’s why the lives we lead as Christians are so important. Come on – let’s get real!! Does hypocrisy display the glory of God? No! It brings Him and His people as a whole, into disrepute. "Oh, those Christians – they’re just a bunch of hypocrites!" And God ... God doesn’t like hypocrites, my friend. Listen again to Jesus – Matthew chapter 23, verse 25:

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.

People talk about ‘missional living’ – living out our lives as missionaries or ambassadors in this world. You know what I think the biggest thing that you and I can do to live "missionally" is to live a holy life. What’s a holy life? It’s a life where the cup and the plate are clean on the inside as well as the outside. Peter, the Apostle, sums it up like this in his Letter, First Peter, chapter 1, verse 14:

Like obedient children, don’t be conformed to the desires you formally had in ignorance. Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct, for it is written “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

My friend, there is something wonderful; utterly sublime, when we roll up our sleeves with God and get to cleaning the inside as well as the outside. And here’s the thing: people notice – people sit up and take notice and think to themselves, "There’s something different about that person – something good; something I trust; something I want." And there ... right there, we have an ambassador of Christ!

 

Taking His Love to the Sinners

When I used to run an I.T. consulting firm with my business partners, we used to joke that life would be so much easier if we didn’t have clients. It’s true, it’s just not very profitable, I guess. And the same is true when it comes to sinners – you know, those people who drink too much, or they swear too much, or they are just rude or belligerent or a pain in the neck - the most natural thing in the world for someone who loves Jesus, is to kind of recoil from them – to retreat into the holy huddle of Christian friends.

I would like to finish off today with a short story about Jesus approach to sinners. It comes from Luke chapter 5 – if you have a Bible, come on, open it up with me – let’s go there – it’s a confronting and edgy story – gets right in your face, just the way Jesus meant it to be. Come on, let’s have a listen. Luke chapter 5, verses 27 to 32:

After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.” And Levi got up, left everything, and followed Jesus. Then Levi gave a great banquet for Jesus in his house; and there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others sitting at the table with them. The Pharisees and the scribes, well, were complaining to his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” But Jesus answered, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but the sinners to repentance.

Now, here’s the thing: the Romans occupied Israel in the first century – this godless empire occupied God’s people; God’s Promised Land and ruled over them. And the way they collected taxes was effectively, to tender it out to individuals; people like Levi; people who were Jews! They would bid for the right to collect the taxes on behalf of the Romans and the highest bidder would win. And so in order to make a profit, the tax collector would then find all sorts of ways of extorting additional taxes from the people.

Now, Levi was sitting in a tax booth, collecting taxes from people who used the road to ship their goods and so forth – a bit like a modern day toll road. And what made it worse, not only did he extort taxes; not only did he cheat and lie but he was working for the Romans – Levi, a Jew, ripping off his fellow Israelites!

So, this was not the sort of guy you would want to talk to or have as a friend or approach for any reason whatsoever. But Jesus ... Jesus approached him; Jesus called him, the way a Rabbi calls disciples. Jesus went to this sinner, Levi, this abhorrent, disgusting traitor – as far as all the other Jews were concerned – and not only did He say to Levi, “Follow me,” He went to dinner; a banquet at Levi’s house with a whole bunch of other tax collectors.

Now the religious people, the Pharisees, instead of saying, "Man, what a great idea – taking the love of God right into the middle of the sinners – loving them, listening to them, healing them, maybe even bringing them to repentance," instead of that, the Pharisees, they found some theological, religious reasons for criticising Jesus. Now, let me ask you this – brutal; right to your face: when it comes to sinners, are you more like Jesus or more like the scribes and Pharisees? Come on! It’s a question we need to ask.

The thing about an ambassador is that he doesn’t stay at home in his own country where he knows everyone; his friends are and he’s comfortable – he gets on a plane, with his family, sets up his home right in the middle of this other foreign country that he has been posted to as an ambassador. Get it!

You and I, if we truly are Christ’s followers, you and I are called to "go". Not to sit at home in our holy huddles were we are comfortable. Don’t get me wrong: having Christian friends is great, going to church is great but we’re called to live on the mission field – we are called to go to the sinners the way Jesus did. And while sometimes that means going to another part of the world, true, most times it just means touching the colleague at work, inviting over the neighbours next door for a barbecue because you have heard them screaming at each other and their marriage is falling apart and what they need in their lives is Jesus. What they need to know is that He loves them. What they need to have is a personal encounter with the Saviour who came for them. Not just for us, for them – the Saviour who died for them - the Saviour who rose again to give them a new life and an eternal life. What they need – the "Levis" in our world – they need Jesus.

So, I am going to ask you again, when it comes to the ‘Levis’ in your world, are you Christ to them or are you a Pharisee? Do you go to them with the love of Jesus or do you sit at home with your friends and complain about them?

My friend, these people who are hurting, who are dying, who are going to a Christ-less eternity, my friend, they need an ambassador – they need an ambassador of Christ who looks just like you and just like me.