Disclaimer: I do not claim that any of this is definitely true, save for the Scripture I've quoted — this just a collection of somewhat rambling thoughts gleaned from time spent in prayer, which I am posting in hopes of leading others to think their own thoughts.
"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" (2 Cor. 5:20 NIV).
When Paul wrote these words, the Gospel was new to the world. The Good News was still news and had only just begun its journey around the globe. There was little need in those days to explain that every follower of Christ is a missionary to his or her world because, in order to call himself or herself a follower of Christ, each follower had to preach and describe the Christian faith. The goal in those days was to make sure people heard of Christ.
As you all have surely noticed, times have changed. We in the twenty-first century face a new challenge entirely: the Good News has spread, and those we are called to lead to Christ have already heard about Him. We have a double mission now. As before, we must preach Christ to those who need Him. But we also must battle against the world's misconceptions of Christ, which often have roots buried deep in our neighbors' thoughts.
Our mission, friends, is to show Christ's true character through our living, and in so doing to overcome the lies and half-truths that keep others from salvation. What does it mean today to be an ambassador of Christ?
An ambassador of Christ, firstly, must work well with others. The church is not meant to be a collection of mismatched plans and differing goals. In his first letter to the Corinthian church, Paul writes, "I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought" (1 Cor. 1:10). True, it is unlikely that we will always be in agreement regarding the finer points of faith, or regarding plans for the Christmas Eve service, or regarding the superiority or inferiority of football teams, but we can strive for these: in fundamental ideas, unity, and in specific thoughts, understanding and cooperation. It is not enough to call one another brothers and sisters in Christ. We must maintain true harmony. How else are we to show others the importance of unity?
An ambassador of Christ must be welcoming to new team members. All too often, we claim to want to win souls for Christ, then shudder at the idea of allowing newcomers into our comfortable church world. True, no two people are alike, and every new soul promises change--but if true faith in Christ is complete renewal, how dare we fear difference? Again, Paul makes this point clear to the Corinthian church: "The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I don't need you!' And the head cannot say to the feet, 'I don't need you!' (1 Cor. 12:21). Every soul God welcomes to the fold has a place in God's plan, and we must be willing and eager to work with them according to His will. Love and fear are opposites. We cannot preach love and be afraid that it might be spread.
An ambassador of Christ must strive towards communicating effectively with the target audience. We live in a world of spectra, and no two people share exactly the same assortment of cultures. When Christ spoke to the people, He spoke in parables, in the cultural language of those who needed to hear His words. When Paul preached about Christ, he, too, translated his message into words he knew would be easy for those around him to understand. We, like Paul, ought to follow in Christ's footsteps, especially as the differences between individuals grow in visibility and significance. We must understand the minds of those who hear us well enough to speak for their ears. It is difficult, unnecessarily so, for them to hear a message which is not meant for them, so we ought to speak to each person's individual situation to the best of our ability. This is especially important as we work to overcome contemporary misconceptions of Christianity. We must fight against the common belief that Christ's pasture is a mold into which some simply cannot fit.
Finally, an ambassador of Christ must remain obviously and devotedly subordinate to the One he or she represents.
We are not the managers of this operation. It is not our job to run the show. "Whoever claims to live in [God] must walk as Jesus did" (1 John 1:6), so our footsteps should not be our own. The most common and powerful lie I have heard spread about the church is this: that we believe we are righteous, enlightened, or good enough. Somehow, a large portion of the world has come to believe that we are in control of our own actions, and that we are satisfied not in Christ's grace and sufficiency but in our own capabilities. How did we let this happen, and more importantly, how must we go about undoing such an injury to our evangelism? It is our mission to spread this word, instead: that our joy comes from the knowledge that our insufficiency is made irrelevant in the light of God's perfection. Such a fact is not a threat, an announcement of superiority, but instead a promise that no failing is greater than grace. We, too, are sinners. I pray that we might become examples of the hope our fellow sinners can find in Christ.
The world may be convinced that God has become irrelevant, but we know better. My prayer tonight is that their beliefs would not shake ours, and that we would learn to lead others to their places at the table. It isn't easy, but why should it be? We have God to lead us. Let's go for the hard stuff.
