Ambassadors

2 Corinthians 5:17-21

Immanuel – 9/11/22

Though we are beginning a new sermon series today, we are not beginning something new. This sermon series is meant to be a continuation, a follow-up, of the book of Revelation. Because, of the many glories we beheld in Revelation, I know that I have been gripped by the immense and important responsibility Christ has given to His Church. I hope you have likewise been gripped.

Revelation tells us that unquestioningly, Jesus Christ is the victor of history and the hope of the nations. There is no salvation apart from Him. There is no eternal life without Him. And today He reigns on Heaven’s throne.

As Peter writes: Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to Him.

-1 Peter 3:21-22

Jesus is King over the power of sin; He offers freedom and forgiveness to all who come to Him. He is the King over the power of death; He offers eternal life to those who entrust their lives to Him. Additionally, angels, demons, and all spiritual beings have been subjected to Jesus. Ever since Christ’s ascension, Jesus reigns as the indisputable King of heaven!

But heaven is not the only place that falls under Christ’s domain. Revelation showed us that Jesus’ kingdom unites heaven and earth; for at the moment of the cross, Jesus began to draw heaven and earth together. Like we read in Revelation 11:

“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever.” -Revelation 11:15

Yes, since Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension; He forever reigns over heaven and over earth. Just before ascending to Heaven’s throne, Jesus said,

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” -Matthew 28:18

In no uncertain terms, Jesus is clearly declaring that He is the supreme King of heaven and earth.

I think we have an easier time understanding how this works in heaven – clearly Jesus rules sin, death, angels, and demons – but we have a harder time understanding how Jesus currently is King of the earth. Just take two seconds to look around our world and you cannot escape the evil, misery, disaster, and death that pervades. Is this all a part of Christ’s kingdom?

The answer is yes, and no. The writer of Hebrews put it rather simply:

Now in putting everything in subjection to [Jesus], [God] left nothing outside of His control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to Him.

-Hebrews 2:8

Do you hear what Hebrews is teaching? Everything is already subjected to the reign of Jesus, yet it does not always appear that way. The kingdom of Jesus has come, and it is yet to come. It is here, and it is coming here more completely, more fully.

Jesus said: “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” -Matthew 13:31-32

So how does how does this mustard seed grow? How is the kingdom of God filling the garden in which we all live? How are we able to see, to ever increasing degrees, that Jesus is King over heaven and earth?

God has ordained that this seed grow, that His kingdom increase, that Christ’s reign expand, through the mission and work of the Church. As the Body of Christ expands, matures, and conquers; the transformative power of the gospel is remaking the world. The Church is God’s agent of advancing the kingdom of heaven upon the earth.

Or, you might say, in Christ God is reconciling the world to Himself, and we – the Church – have been given the ministry of reconciliation.

Purpose

Cast vision for this sermon series, and the Christian life.

God’s purpose for the Church is to reconcile the world to Himself.

Your identity is tied to that purpose.

Read 2 Corinthians 5:17-21

God’s ultimate purpose for all of creation, and therefore for every living being, is to glorify Him. As Paul writes to the Romans:

For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen. -Romans 11:36

All creation, in heaven and on earth, has been created to glorify God. We saw this beautifully pictured multiple times in Revelation as all creation erupts in worship around the throne and the Lamb.

But beneath that great, ultimate purpose, there are penultimate purposes – purposes that accomplish the greater purpose.

You see, on planet earth, there are particular ways through which God plans to accomplish His ultimate purpose. Our passage today contains two of the clearest, most profound statements of how God intends to glorify Himself on earth. These two purposes are not divorced from one another, but work together like a husband and a wife, like a head and a body, like a melody and a harmony.

First, the melody. The melody is the center of the song, it draws you in, gets stuck in your head, stays with you. The song glorifies God, but the melody carries the tune through which He is glorified.

The melody is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Read vs 19a

I want you to notice that this is the center of the passage, both physically and spiritually. This is the melody, the center of the song. Today, we will start here and build out from it.

And this is how the melody of our song sounds…

When sin entered the world, humanity fell away from God. Ever since, each person is a broken sinner: a sinner by birth and a sinner by choice. We are enemies of God. And because of our rebellion against God, all physical creation was subjected to futility (as Paul writes in Romans 8:20). Our corruption spilled out upon the earth in thorns and death.

For indeed, death is the consequence of sin, and all of us sinners deserve to die.

But out of the devastation of the fall, a melody began to rise, reaching crescendo when God the Son became a man. The melody of creation is that God is reconciling the fallen world to Himself through Jesus. All this to His glory!

And do you see how He does this? It says it right there in verse 19. By not counting their trespasses against them.

God is reconciling the world to Himself by forgiving sinners. He is turning enemies into allies and rebels into family. And this happens through Jesus. How in the world does that happen through Jesus? Verse 21 tells us.

Read vs 21

That is the message of the gospel. On the cross Jesus chose to sacrifice His perfect life on behalf of ours. All the sins of the elect were placed upon His shoulders; He then suffered our shame, our separation, our death. He became sin, when we were the sinners; and He suffered the consequences we have earned.

But it does not end there! Behold, from an empty grave bursts the gospel of Jesus Christ, soaring to highest heights of heaven, where we are seated with Christ (Ephesians 2:6). 2 Corinthians 5:21 says that Christ has given His own righteousness to all who believe.

You were wretched, pitiable, and poor, yet God has flooded you with the extravagance of His love. Once wretched, now beloved. Once pitiable, now lights of the world. Once poor, now possessing everything.

Is there no measure to the generosity and love of our God!? Let us, with hearts united, glorify our great God through the melody of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, seated upon the throne as King over all the earth.

Jesus became sin so that you could become the righteousness of God! This is a transformation so complete, so exhaustive, that Scripture calls it new creation.

Read vs 17

Jesus reconciles you to God through recreating you. For when He gives you the Holy Spirit, faith springs to life, and you are made new – born of the Spirit.

Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God… unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” -John 3:3,5-6

If you are in Christ, the Spirit is in you, and God has recreated you. Behold, the old has passed away and the new has come! Paul so thoroughly understood this that he could write:

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. -Galatians 2:20

Being a new creation means that everything is different. You no longer live like you once did, like a person enslaved to sinful desires and selfish pursuits. Now you live as one who has died to sin and lives unto Christ, pursuing the things of Christ and His kingdom. You have been made new.

This is the God-glorifying melody of the gospel.

But there is another part, a harmony. For immediately after the crescendo, when God became flesh, the harmony enters the song. This is the second penultimate purpose found in our passage today; another and complimentary way through which God is glorifying Himself.

Read vs 18

God has given us – the Church – the ministry of reconciliation. Let’s put that another way. Through the gospel of Jesus Christ, God is reconciling the world to Himself; and the way He is accomplishing that is through the mission and work of the church. We carry the harmony and have been given the ministry of reconciliation.

The melody is Christ and His gospel, the harmony is the Church going to the ends of the earth proclaiming that gospel. Look how verse 20 builds on that.

Read vs 20

Because we have been given the ministry of reconciliation, we are ambassadors for Christ. In case you were unaware, to be an ambassador is to be a high-ranking diplomat temporarily sent to a foreign country in order to represent, uphold, and advance the interests of a home country. And we know, from Revelation, that our home country is the New Jerusalem, the kingdom of God.

Therefore, we live in this world to represent, uphold, and advance the interests of the kingdom of God.

But here’s the difference between the kingdoms of men and the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is coming to rule the kingdoms of men, because Jesus is already the King of the earth! We are not going away to a different home, our home is coming here. We do not escape to a foreign land (or dimension) and wait for this place to burn.

Remember these words from Revelation:

He who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”

-Revelation 21:5

God’s recreative work starts with individuals, person by person, as God reconciles us to Himself through Jesus – as 2 Corinthians 5:18 says. But it doesn’t stop with individuals. It doesn’t even stop with nations. Again, like it says in verse 19, God purposes to reconcile the world to Himself. God reconciling the world to Himself, and God making all things new, are the same thing.

God is not going to make everything new by destroying it and starting over, but He will make all things new by reconciling the world to Himself through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Therefore, we are ambassadors sent to transform this earthly kingdom into the heavenly kingdom; the heavenly kingdom that is already here and coming in greater and great waves.

Every person that receives the gospel of Jesus Christ and is filled with the Holy Spirit, is a person that has entered and expanded the kingdom of God. Every broken family that is reconciled to God and reconciled to each other, is territory conquered by the kingdom of God. Care Net’s buildings in Utica and Illion were once used to perform abortions, now they are used to save the unborn: the kingdom of God advancing. Iran, one of the most anti-God and oppressive governments in the world, is today rapidly decaying as earth’s largest revival moves like wildfire through its population: the kingdom of God advancing.

Every one of these examples, and the countless more that are out there, are happening at the hands of the ambassadors of the kingdom of God. Jesus is working through His Body. God is reconciling the world to Himself through the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we are the ambassadors carrying that gospel.

God’s purpose for the church is to reconcile the world to Himself. The gospel is the melody. The gospel proclaiming, Spirit-filled Church, is the harmony. The song is to the glory of the Father!

Now, let us consider how this great purpose is inextricably linked to our identity. Again, look at verse 17.

Read vs 17

Every Christian has a new identity: we are new creations. Once we were children of wrath, now we are adopted sons and daughters of God. The comfortable, unconcerned, selfish individuals that we were, have passed away. What has come are newly created people – forgiven and reconciled – that love, serve, and give their lives away for the sake of others, as Christ loved us and gave Himself for us.

Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.” -Mark 8:34-35

Jesus said we will lose your old life and live in a whole new way. Indeed, we are new creations, living in a new way. We no longer live for self, as the rest of the world does, we live unto Christ. We follow Him even if it means we lose our physical lives, for we know these physical lives are short and momentary compared to the eternal weight of glory that awaits in life everlasting.

But that is not where our identity in Christ ends. There is a second part to our identity found in today’s passage. For to be made new, is to be made into something new. To be a new creation does not mean that the work is finished, and you get to sit around content with your newness. There is a new way to live now, a new purpose meant to grip your new life.

The second part of our identity in Christ is clearly stated in the beginning of verse 20. We are new creations and we are ambassadors. We’ve already discussed what it means to be an ambassador. We live in this world to represent, uphold, and advance the interests of the kingdom of God.

As ambassadors, we have been given the ministry of reconciliation. The reconciliation that God wills for the world, He entrusts to us.

Ok, I know that I have labored this point. But that’s because we need it to be drilled into our heads. We need it to penetrate our hearts. We need it to shape out lives. Because here is what this means: you cannot be a new creation in Christ and not also be an ambassador. You cannot be an ambassador for Christ if you are not a new creation in Christ. You cannot have one without the other.

If you are truly in Christ, then you rejoice in the fact that He has made you new, that you have been saved, that you are forgiven and redeemed and reconciled unto God. You know these things and they are your joy, to the glory of God!

But are you equally stirred that you are an ambassador of Christ, that God has entrusted to you the ministry of reconciliation – the ministry that unites heaven and earth? What an incredible job we have been given!

I hope you are. Because there is a lot of work to do. There is an enormous task before us. The whole world reconciled unto God, is a task far too great to any person or any local church. But what we can do is think about our own local context over which we have direct influence.

Let’s consider our local context for a moment. Immanuel’s population lives primarily in Oneida County, with a number coming from Herkimer Country. I want to share with you the latest census data about the population in these two counties.

Area

Population

Percent Protestant

Population Protestant

Percent Lost

Population Lost

Oneida

229,577

7.5%

17,218

92.5%

212,359

Herkimer

61,833

13.9%

8,595

86.1%

53,238

Totals

291,410

8.9%

25,813

91.1%

265,597

New York

20.22 Million

11%

2,224,200

89%

17,997,800

According to information from the 2020 census.

These numbers are troubling and the amount of souls passing into eternal destruction is staggering. Clearly, we can see that there is an incredible task before us, a great burden of responsibility that God has placed on our shoulders; for He has placed us ambassadors here, in this moment, to tell these people about how to be reconciled to God.

But here is a hopeful thought: if we put all of our lives together right now, and add together all of our families, friends, classmates, coworkers, neighbors; we have access to influence around 5,000 of these people. That’s without going out of our way.

Imagine what would happen if just 50 of them were reconciled unto God, and made new. They would likewise become ambassadors, spreading the good news of the kingdom of God to their different areas of influence. Then those disciples make more disciples, and so on. It is the model of the New Testament: disciples making disciples.

Here is an assumption of mine: most of us feel some form of guilt for not evangelizing more, or better. We have made too few disciples. We have not been able to live out the Great Commission as we want to.

In our context, I believe there are three reasons for a lack of evangelization.

Laziness. We are too comfortable. Telling people about Jesus is uncomfortable. Leave it to the evangelists and pastors, they are the professionals. But no, you are ambassadors. The job is yours. It is your identity as new creations in Christ. You must be about it!

Fear. Some of us run a real risk of losing friends or jobs or reputations by talking about Jesus. But Jesus said that we must take up our cross and follow Him. For if we try to save our lives, or our reputations, we will lose them. Be courageous in Christ the King, who possesses all authority in heaven and on earth. If He is for you, then who can be against you?

Ill Equipped. You want to be a better ambassador, but you don’t know how. You are not confident in what to say. You don’t know who to approach and how. You might feel like you’ve been dropped into the middle of a song, and you know the song, but you have no idea how to play your instrument.

Laziness and fear are conquered through listening to the word of God and obeying. Trust Jesus, follow Him, and overcome laziness and fear.

Through this sermon series, and a class soon coming to Immanuel, I want every person in this church to be trained. I want you to be able to identify who to approach with the gospel. And when you do, I want you to have effective words. I want your evangelistic confidence to grow so that you can be dynamic ambassadors for Christ, new creations bringing new creation.

Next week will begin thinking about the people around us. The Bible tells us that all of them, regardless of how it appears, all of them know God.

Then we will consider the message we carry, the gospel.

The first Sunday of October we will think about how to clearly tell people about the gospel.

Then, what do we do when someone is receptive.

And on we will go from there.

We have been reconciled to God. We are new creations in Christ. We have been caught up in the melody, in God’s great purpose to reconcile the world to Himself through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We have been given the part of the harmony. We have been given the ministry of reconciliation. We are ambassadors of the kingdom of God and everywhere we go we are to declare this message:

Read vs 20b-21

Jesus is King of the earth, and people need to know!