Kingdom Ambassadors
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If Christ is the King, the holy, humble, and heavenly King, and His Kingdom has come, not in the way we expected but through His Word, and if it is by receiving this Word through understanding and submitting wholeheartedly to it that we enter in to His Kingdom, then what does all this mean for us?
What is our responsibility here and now as we await the consummation of Christ’s Kingdom?
What does it look like to live as citizens of heaven in this sinful and fallen world?
One of the best words that is used to describe our role and purpose in God’s Kingdom is “ambassador”.
To be an ambassador is to be the representative of the rule and reign of another Kingdom while in a foreign land.
The Bible uses many other words to describe this role words like: foreigner, stranger, exile, sojourner, pilgrim.
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 11 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. 12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
Any Christian who has ever made a significant impact in this world, has lived with the mindset of a stranger, a pilgrim passing through.
Is this our mindset? Or are we so tied and bound to this world that we can hardly even comprehend spiritual things?
It has been said that you can be so heavenly minded that you are of no earthly good.
What Paul lays out in 2 Corinth. 5 is one of the most comprehensive passages in all of Scripture.
He shows us what must be the motivation for all that we do for Christ in His Kingdom, our role in the Kingdom of God, and what we can expect our lives to look like as we fulfill our role in His Kingdom.
2 Corinthians 5:11-6:13
What is the motivation for all that we do for Christ in His Kingdom?
2 Corinth. 5:11-16
Knowing the fear of the Lord and controlled by the love of Christ.
The love of Christ towards us is a love so incredible that we can’t know it and not be changed by it.
18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
2. What is our role in the Kingdom of God?
2 Corinth. 5:17-21
5:17- the radical nature of conversion
3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
We are His ambassadors, given the ministry of reconciliation, pleading with the world, be reconciled to God!
We have been entrusted with a message from the King! What are we doing with that message?
3. What can we expect our lives to look like as we fulfill our role in His Kingdom?
2 Corinth. 6:1-13
We can expect trouble and many kinds of sufferings.
But we can also expect godly characteristics to be produced in us as we endure hardships for Christ.
3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
We can expect the outcome of our lives to be one of paradox, not making sense according to worldly standards.
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Closing Prayer
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