Called to Be Ambassadors for Christ's Kingdom

1) "For us as Christians, and for those visiting, I just want to say a few words just to explain what we're going to be doing. But on the night before Jesus was crucified, He spent time with His disciples. And at that time, He broke bread and He passed wine just as the Passover meal was being celebrated. And He was saying to us today, mean, He was 2,000 years ago doing this, but us today, that this is something that we need to memorialize, I should say, in everything we do. And what we mean by that is that we need to come together on a regular basis. And this is a very serious moment for us. And if you have not accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, this is not something for you to take, but something to observe with us. You're here, and you can see what we are doing and why we are doing it. And perhaps this will touch you to understand that we love the Lord and what He did for us." [51:33] (115 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2) "You see, you and I, we come from a different place. We were bought by His blood. We come from a different place. And when you live in this world the way that God has called you to live, it won't always be rosy. In fact, John 15, 19 says, if you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. But because you are not of the world. But I chose you out. Out. Did you see that? The word out. He chose you and out of this world. Therefore the world hates you. The world doesn't like our message. It doesn't. Why? Why doesn't it like our message? But you have been called out of this world. You have been called out." [01:25:14] (61 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3) "And you know what the Bible says? The Bible says that you are exiles. You have been called out to stand out. You have been called out to make a difference. You have been called out, and you've heard me say this many times, to be the weirdo. You have been called out because you're different. I mean, when I became a Christian, I gave up a lot of things. And I had lots of friends. Lots of friends. I could party every night if I wanted to. And then God took hold of my heart. And I had no more desire for drugs and alcohol. And so when they would call me, I'd say, where are you guys going? That's the first question I'd ask. And I have to say no most of the time." [01:26:17] (64 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4) "And so for me, that makes you three things. That makes you a warrior, that makes you a lamb, a sheep. You are all sheep. So you're warriors and sheep. And thirdly, it makes you ambassadors. And I want to talk about all three. But today, I'm going to focus on ambassador. Ambassadors. You are all warriors, sheep, and ambassadors. That's what you are. In this world, that's what they see. You see, 2 Corinthians 5 says, therefore, we are ambassadors of who? For who? Christ. Does it say, a select few? Is being an ambassador a gift? On your long list of gifts that we have, and Corinthians, and all the other books and epistles, is ambassador one of them? That's right. It is not a gift. It is what you are called to do. All of us." [01:36:18] (81 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5) "And ambassadors don't sit inside their embassy and don't come out. Ambassadors don't hide. Ambassadors make sure that they're the country that they're in, the foreign country they're in, knows who they are, make sure that what they represent, everyone else understands, because they have a mission. And Christ's mission is what? To bring salvation to every person. And we know that that's not going to happen to every person, because not all of us will choose, but the message of salvation needs to go out to the whole world because he loves the whole world. He does. He loves everyone. And yes, not everyone is going to listen. But you also have a message, and that is the message of the cross as we talked about today. He died for your sins. He died for your sins. He is in heaven right now. And he's calling out everyone to join him. Everyone. And you're the messenger." [01:40:09] (84 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6) "And so while everybody in this world is eating the manna of individualism and tribalism, we're eating the manna that comes from Jesus Christ. And that's going to make us different. Here's another example of what's happening in this world. Our concept of forgiveness versus theirs. Their concept of forgiveness is reciprocity. Okay, you did something wrong. You did something wrong to me. You got to make it up. What are you going to give me? What do I get? You owe me. I sometimes get that from people. I did this for you. Now you owe me. Huh? I don't owe you anything. Forgiveness, doing somebody a favor does not mean that you owe somebody something. Because if it's good, you should do it anyway. Not because you owe them something. You should just do it because that's the right thing to do. And if it's the wrong thing to do, you tell them, I'm not doing that. I don't care what you've done for me. Because for us, forgiveness is about reconciliation. Forgiveness is about the cross. And when you're forgiven, you're forgiven. And then we reconcile and we move on. There's no expectation from me, but there is an expectation with God because we depend on God." [01:47:01] (91 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7) "And so this boy, his name is Brandon. Parents, Christian, loved him. How would they behave as ambassadors? I don't want to hear that kind of talk in this house. Is that being a good ambassador? And a lot of times it's cultural, right? I grew up, you know, I'm what they say, pork and cheese. You know, Portuguese. We like pork and cheese. Although I'm told it's no longer good to say that. Oh my goodness, when I was growing up, on the day that we got married, I had a picture with those friends that stuck around, you know, and were willing to stick around with me. And it took Helen and I two, three years to figure out what was wrong with this picture. There was nothing wrong with it. It's every single person, there were 20 people, were coming from a different place around the world. And we had nicknames for each one of them. I remember when I used to work at a big bank downtown Toronto. And used to have these, you know, I know it's diversity, equity, inclusion, but even back then, they were worried about, you know, everything that was going on. And they would say, you know, we shouldn't do this, we shouldn't do that. Everything should be vanilla so everybody feels good. You know, like, you know, this isn't anything new. It's just taking on a different title. I did the exact opposite. Even with people who weren't Christian. I said, you're Hindu? You're celebrating Diwali? Feel free to express yourself." [02:03:13] (97 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8) "And so the professor said, okay, thanks. You just killed Beethoven. That was an ambassador trying to show people that life is precious and that God sees life in a very different way. And we can all be ambassadors. All of us can be ambassadors. Because God says, once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. And he has given you power and authority, not by your ability, but by his. work of the cross gave us the spirit of God inside of us. All we have to do is be open to being ambassadors and not allowing our natural selves, our cultural selves to come forth. Because even Paul understood that. You remember when Paul would say, why do I do the things I don't want to do? We need to recognize that." [02:11:19] (78 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


9) "And so, I want to leave you today with that thought. In everything we do, we are called to be envoys who bring healing. You are diplomats who have received immunity from our King. Now go out into this world and be diplomats that represent who he is with his truth, living a life that he has given you for a purpose. Amen? Let us bow our heads. Father, I thank you. I thank you for everything that you have done in our lives. We didn't deserve this, Lord. We didn't deserve to be saved, to be healed, but you did it anyway because you loved us. And Lord, today, we have read your word that has called us to be your ambassadors, to be your envoys that bring healing. Lord, teach us how to do that." [02:15:32] (79 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)