A New Creation in Christ – 2 Corinthians 4:1-6:2

We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors

An ambassador is someone who goes to a foreign land to represent his or her own country or king.  Their actions speak volumes, and messages they deliver carry a great deal of weight.  They learn the customs and cultures of the land they are visiting, but they never forget that their sole allegiance is to the country which sent them.

Paul says that we are Christ’s ambassadors.  Our only allegiance in life is to the Kingdom of God.  The words that we speak represent the God that we serve.  Our actions speak volumes about the nature and character of the God that we represent.  As an ambassador, you have been given a message to carry on behalf of the King.

Your message is the ministry of reconciliation that you have been given.  Your task is to call all people to be reconciled to God.  Your mission is to see all people come to find forgiveness of sins and new life in Jesus’ Name.  While we learn the customs and cultures of this world in order to be effective, we must never forget that our sole allegiance is to the Kingdom of God.  When Jesus prays for His disciples in John 17, He says, “They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.”

In this passage, Paul is declaring that all of us have received a calling to be a missionary – to share the Good News of the Kingdom of God in a foreign land.  For some, that foreign land is in Africa or Europe. For others, that foreign land is at The Root Cellar or the Long Creek Youth Development Center.  But for all of us that foreign land is our own neighborhood or workplace… our own country.  For we are all missionaries… ambassadors of the King.