Embracing Our Role as Ambassadors in God's Kingdom

### Bible Study Discussion Guide

#### Bible Reading
1. **Mark 1:14-15 (ESV)**
> "Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.'"

2. **Colossians 1:13-14 (ESV)**
> "He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."

3. **2 Corinthians 5:20 (ESV)**
> "Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God."

#### Observation Questions
1. According to Mark 1:14-15, what was the central message Jesus proclaimed as He began His ministry?
2. In Colossians 1:13-14, what significant change happens to those who believe in Jesus?
3. What role do believers take on according to 2 Corinthians 5:20, and what does this imply about their responsibilities?
4. How does the sermon describe the concept of the "already but not yet" Kingdom of God? [05:44]

#### Interpretation Questions
1. What does it mean for the Kingdom of God to be "at hand" as stated in Mark 1:15? How should this influence a believer's daily life?
2. How does being transferred from the domain of darkness to the Kingdom of God (Colossians 1:13-14) change a believer's identity and responsibilities? [08:46]
3. What are the implications of being an ambassador for Christ as described in 2 Corinthians 5:20? How does this role affect how believers interact with the world? [15:15]
4. The sermon emphasizes the importance of character for ambassadors of the Kingdom. Why is character considered the most critical attribute, and how does it impact one's representation of Jesus? [29:08]

#### Application Questions
1. Reflect on your current understanding of the Kingdom of God. How does this understanding shape your daily decisions and interactions? [03:57]
2. In what ways can you actively embrace your new identity as a citizen of God's Kingdom? Are there specific old identities or affiliations you need to let go of? [10:07]
3. As an ambassador for Christ, what practical steps can you take to grow in knowledge, wisdom, and character? Identify one area to focus on this week. [21:41]
4. How can you incorporate prayer and fasting into your routine to seek God's guidance and strength in fulfilling your role as an ambassador? [37:21]
5. Think of a situation where you struggled to represent Jesus well. What could you have done differently, and how can you prepare to handle similar situations better in the future? [29:50]
6. Identify one person in your life who does not know Jesus. How can you intentionally build a relationship with them and share the message of the Kingdom? [19:59]
7. What specific actions can you take to ensure that your character aligns with the values and principles of the Kingdom of God? How can you stay accountable in this journey? [33:57]

Day 1: Embracing Kingdom Identity
Understanding one's identity as a citizen of the Kingdom of God is transformative, affecting every aspect of life. This new identity supersedes all former affiliations, aligning one's behavior, relationships, and decision-making with the values and principles of the Kingdom. As children of God, believers are called to live out this identity authentically, reflecting the nature of the Kingdom in their daily lives. [06:19]

Colossians 1:13-14 - "For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."
Reflection: How does your identity as a citizen of the Kingdom of God shape your daily interactions and choices?

Day 2: Living as Kingdom Ambassadors
As ambassadors of the Kingdom of God, believers are tasked with actively representing Jesus Christ in the world. This role involves sharing the message of salvation and exemplifying Jesus' character in every interaction. It is a commission that calls for dedication and a deep understanding of what it means to be a representative of the Kingdom. [19:21]

2 Corinthians 5:20 - "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."
Reflection: In what ways can you more effectively represent Jesus in your daily life as His ambassador?

Day 3: Cultivating Wisdom and Knowledge
Knowledge of Jesus' teachings is essential for Kingdom ambassadors, but it must be paired with wisdom to be applied effectively. Wisdom allows believers to navigate different contexts and communicate the Gospel in a manner that resonates with others. It is through prayer, experience, and learning from others that wisdom is cultivated. [26:12]

James 1:5 - "If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you."
Reflection: What is one situation where you need God's wisdom today, and how can you seek His guidance in it?

Day 4: Authenticity Through Character
The authenticity of an ambassador of the Kingdom is judged by their character. Walking closely with God, renouncing sin, and staying accountable to fellow believers are key practices in developing a character that truly reflects Jesus. It is through character that the world sees the reality of the Kingdom's transformative power. [29:08]

Ephesians 4:22-24 - "You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness."
Reflection: What character trait do you need to develop to better reflect Jesus, and what practical step can you take today to cultivate it?

Day 5: The Urgency of the Kingdom Mission
The mission field is vast, and the need for laborers is urgent. Believers are called to take their role as ambassadors seriously, recognizing the significant number of people who have yet to hear the good news. Prayer and fasting are powerful tools in seeking God's direction for effective ambassadorship in this plentiful harvest. [37:21]

Luke 10:2 - "He told them, 'The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.'"
Reflection: How can you participate in the urgent mission of the Kingdom this week, and who can you invite to join you in this endeavor?

You can be rich, but if you're without God, what do you have? You have nothing. The Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy and said, "Instruct those that are rich in this world's goods not to be proud. Don't fix your hopes on the uncertain things that money can buy. Fix your hope on God."

Jesus said, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." Put God first; God will take care of the rest. But if you put money, pleasure, and power first, you're going to be deceived. You're going to come up empty; you're going to come up short-handed.

Man, I never knew I was going to have to speak after Billy Graham. This just put a lot of pressure on me. But here we go. We are kicking off 2024 with a brand new series. Today, we're going to be talking about the kingdom, and I think that this conversation today is actually going to shape a lot of the conversations that we're going to have all throughout this year as we tackle this subject of the kingdom.

The concept of the kingdom is actually the thing that Jesus talked about the most—more than he talked about love, forgiveness, hope, money, or even heaven and hell. Jesus talked about the kingdom a lot. In fact, it's how he opens up his ministry on Earth. He gets baptized by John, he's led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit to be tempted and to fast and pray for 40 days. How many of you are excited that we're only fasting for 10 and not 40? Thank you, Jesus, for that.

So, he comes out of that time of prayer and fasting, and he walks into Galilee talking about the kingdom. We see it in Mark chapter 1: "Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God and saying, 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel.'"

But it wasn't even just the thing he talked about there in Galilee; it's actually the message he took everywhere he went. It says in Luke 8, "Soon after, he went on through cities and villages proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God."

And it wasn't just the thing he talked about; it was actually the thing that he told his followers had to be the priority in their lives. We already looked at this today, but it says, "But seek first, before you do anything else, the first thing you need to be doing is seeking the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all of these things will be added to you."

He even made it the focal point of the prayer he taught people to pray. You recognize that one in Matthew 6. He says, "Pray then like this: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come; your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven."

He talks about the kingdom a lot. It's even how he describes or sums up his entire purpose in coming to the Earth. He says this in Luke chapter 4: "I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well, for I was sent for this purpose."

The whole reason Jesus came is to tell people about the kingdom of God. So, this message of the kingdom of God is pretty important, would you agree?

The question then is, what is it? What actually is the kingdom of God? Because sometimes we talk about things without actually defining what they are, and we just assume that everybody knows what the kingdom of God is.

But here's the interesting thing: Jesus tells a lot of parables. If you read through the New Testament, he's always using parables—these stories to try and explain truths. Did you know that 30% of his parables are just trying to describe what the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God is like? Thirty percent! That's a lot of them.

In fact, he says the kingdom is like a pearl, the kingdom is like leaven, the kingdom is like bridesmaids, the kingdom is like talents, and the kingdom is like a feast. It's so many different things. In fact, just in Matthew chapter 13, he has seven parables in a row talking about the kingdom. You might want to look through those seven parables later today.

But here's my problem: usually, after Jesus would try and explain what the kingdom was like, his audience, including his own disciples, were left confused. This means if the people had a hard time understanding Jesus when he talked about this, I feel like this one might be a little bit over my pay grade. If they had a hard time getting Jesus's point, I'm a little bit worried about trying to tackle this one myself.

I think the only thing harder to explain in scripture is probably the Trinity, and so we're going to do that in a couple of months. But I'm going to do my best today to explain what the kingdom is.

I guess the best way to start with this is there's a theological concept that you may have heard of, maybe not, but it's this idea of the already but not yet kingdom. The already but not yet.

It's this idea that the kingdom of God is already here to a degree, but at a later date, it's going to come fully. So, it's already but not yet. That's why Jesus can say the kingdom of God is at hand; it's here, but then also tell us to pray that his kingdom would come. It merges those ideas of how can something be here and we still need to ask for it to come.

If that's not confusing enough for you, there's another thing that kind of confuses people a little bit, and that's that sometimes Jesus used the phrase "kingdom of God," and sometimes he used the phrase "kingdom of heaven." If we read through the scriptures, these two phrases are synonyms. They're synonymous.

In fact, in one conversation, I think it's with the rich young ruler, Jesus starts by talking about the kingdom of God and he ends by talking about the kingdom of heaven. He just kind of weaves in and out of both of them, clearly implying that they're the same thing.

In fact, I think it's Mark and Luke that use "kingdom of God," while Matthew uses "kingdom of heaven" in the same exact stories. So, this is just the same concept, just different phrasing for it.

But the complication there comes in that we have an idea of what this is, right? And so it leads us to believe that the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven is talking about a physical location—that it's talking about heaven. But that's not what the kingdom is about.

In fact, the Greek word used for "kingdom," the deeper meaning to it, it's not about a location; it's actually better translated as the reign of the king. It's this word that's used to depict the power and the authority of the king, not the location of the king.

So, the kingdom isn't about a space; it's about the person. The kingdom of God is God's authority and his right to rule, and you can't really limit that to a location. How do you limit that to a location when he is the creator of heaven and earth, when he's the God of the universe?

The realm in which God can exercise his authority is all of it. The king's domain—if you take this word "kingdom" and break it down into its Latin roots, it is the king's domain. So, this isn't like Mufasa, okay? Everything the light touches is his domain. No, no, no. With God, it's all of it. He has dominion; he has authority; he has the right to rule over everything.

Are you with me?

Okay, so the question then is, what does that have to do with us? Well, it's a great question, and I'm so glad that you asked it today. It has everything to do with us.

Here's how Paul puts it in Colossians: "He has delivered us from the domain of darkness, from one kingdom, and transferred us, taken us from one kingdom and moved us over to the kingdom of his beloved Son."

You were once part of the kingdom of the world, the domain of darkness, and now you are moved into the kingdom, the domain of Jesus. And you aren't just a part of this kingdom; you are actually a citizen of it.

As he tells us in Ephesians 2, "Then you are no longer strangers and aliens. You're not outsiders anymore looking in. You are now fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God."

You are citizens of this new kingdom, which means you have rights and responsibilities as full citizens. I love how Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."

So, let's put all these ideas together real quick. You have been transferred into a new kingdom. You have been given citizenship in that kingdom, which means that you have a new identity as a citizen of the kingdom.

This identity should shape every single thing about us. The world has this habit of trying to make identity the most important thing, but they make sexual identity, gender identity, political identity, or ethnic identity the most important thing about you. But Jesus doesn't give you that option.

Jesus says, "Lay down everything. All of those old identities are dead and buried, and now identify simply with him as a citizen of the kingdom." In fact, Paul says in Galatians that you were all baptized into Christ, and so you were all clothed with Christ.

This shows that you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. Now, in Christ, guess what? It doesn't matter what you were. It doesn't matter what the world says your identity should be. It doesn't matter what your identity used to identify as, what you used to tie yourself to.

It doesn't matter if you are a Jew or a Greek, a slave or free, male or female; you are all the same in Christ Jesus.

Identity isn't about what the world tries to describe; it's about the kingdom of God. That is our identity. It doesn't matter what you used to identify with. The moment you put your faith in Jesus Christ, you are given a new identity that is immeasurably more important than any other identity you may have once claimed.

You are now, first and foremost, a child of God, a citizen of his kingdom, and that identity should shape everything about you.

What do I mean when I say everything about you? I mean in the biblical sense, everything about you: what music you listen to, what shows you watch, the words that come out of your mouth, the people you hang around with, the behavior that you engage in, the way you approach work, the way you approach relationships—every single thing about you should be shaped by this new identity that we have in Christ.

When culture tries to define your behavior, you can say, "Whoa, wait, no, no, no. That might be how your kingdom operates, but my kingdom, the kingdom I'm a part of, operates in a different way. We have a different way of living within this kingdom."

So why is the kingdom so important? Well, it is because it's within that context that we find our identity and our purpose on this Earth.

See, the world tries to say, "You're the king, so act like it." But Jesus says, "I'm the king, so act like it." And there's a big difference between those two.

You are now a citizen of a kingdom that already has a king, and guess what? It ain't you.

So, you've got two options: you can either submit or you can rebel. But this kingdom does not offer dual citizenship. There is no provision for part-time or sometime Christianity. This is one of those where either you is or you ain't.

It might be an old preachy quote, but he is either Lord of all or he is not Lord at all.

It's an all-or-nothing question. And so I got to ask: how much power and authority—if that's the kingdom—how much kingdom does God really have in your life? Have you submitted everything to the king, or are you trying to give God partial rule?

You know, it's like we come to God and we say, "God, I submit to you. You can do everything that you want. I give you full control as long as you let me choose who I date. Don't tell me who I should and shouldn't date; just let me hold that part."

"God, I'm fully submitted to you, just my bank account—that's mine, okay? So, I'm submitted to the king, but my money is mine."

Saying, "God, I submit everything to you as long as you don't make me change myself too much because I'm kind of comfortable with how I am."

Is your life part of the domain of the king, or are you trying to be an independent territory with good trade relations?

I might have gotten a little too political for you; I don't know. But good trade relations is, "I just want the benefits of the kingdom. I want to be in God's good standing, but I still want to do my own thing."

All right, so you've got a lot to wrestle with as we dive into the kingdom over these next few weeks.

Here's the thing: we're going to be looking at the kingdom and this idea of how it affects the way we live, how we look at our finances, how we approach work. We're going to look at all of this through the lens of the kingdom.

But right here, with the 21 minutes that I have left with you, I want to look at what I think is maybe the most important aspect of this identity that we have in the kingdom, and that is your job title.

How have you knew that being a citizen of the kingdom came with a job? It did! It came with a job, and you've got work to do.

In fact, after Paul says that you are now a new creation in Christ, he then goes on to say in verse 20, "Therefore, in light of this new creation, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us."

So, your salvation in Jesus came with a job title. You are all now ambassadors. We'll have business cards made up for you later, I guess. But you're now an ambassador sent from his kingdom back into your old kingdom so that you can reflect and represent him to the world around you.

Let me break it down like this: we started 2023 looking at this word "discipleship." I don't know if you remember; that was our focal point really throughout the year. Because we're called to be more than just casual Christians that make following Jesus an optional weekend activity.

No, we are called to be disciples, where every single day we wake up with this idea of, "I want to become more like Jesus today than I was yesterday."

I'm not always going to get that right; sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't. But every day, I still wake up and I say, "Jesus, more of you and less of me."

Because I'm not just going to church; I'm a disciple, and I want to pour my life out for you.

With that approach, we walked through this whole year, looking for more and more ways that we could equip you to be more than just Christians—that you could be disciples.

So, we shaped a lot of our sermon series this past year around this idea of discipleship. We walked through the New Testament together, and we looked at discipleship from a workplace standpoint. We learned how to pray better together, and we kind of walked through all of these series to just help you be better disciples.

In fact, we added a few programs and a few things. We added a podcast between sermons where we could continue the conversation from Sunday to give practical resources so that you would know how to live out what we were talking about in a more practical situation or sense.

We started the podcast, we added something called Life University so that we could equip you to have a better understanding and knowledge of who God is, but also what it looks like to be one of his disciples.

We did all of that and a few other things, and we're going to continue adding things now because this endeavor for us to become disciples is not a 2023 thing; it's just a CLC thing.

In 2024, we're going to add some more things to help you become better disciples. But I also think right here at the start of 2024, it's time to give you the other side of the coin.

And you didn't even know that there was a coin at all, but there is, and it's called following Jesus. On one side of the coin, the coin—I don't know, I'm fasting tomorrow; I'm already thinking about food—so one side of the coin is discipleship. The other side of the coin is being ambassadors.

See, we sit at the feet of Jesus as disciples, but we walk into the world as ambassadors. It's the two parts of this relationship that we have with Jesus.

When you become a better disciple, it makes you a more effective ambassador. They work together, and as you grow in one area, it makes you better at the other area.

It's this really important thing. Now, this idea of ambassadors—we carry with us an important function, and it's actually connected to the natural idea of ambassadors.

The natural definition of ambassador is an authorized messenger who represents their head of state while in a foreign territory. So, that describes you, right? Because as an ambassador, you are representing—who's your head of state? Jesus. And you are in a foreign territory called the world.

You're now a citizen of the kingdom, which means the world is foreign territory. That's why sometimes as a Christian, you walk out there and you're like, "Man, this place is weird," and some things just don't make sense anymore. Well, it's because you're in a foreign territory.

Your job as an ambassador is to represent not your feelings and not your opinions, but it's your job to represent the character and the will of Jesus—of King Jesus—wherever you go.

That's actually why Jesus uses these phrases in Matthew 28. He says that all authority in heaven and on Earth has been given to me. "Go therefore"—therefore is in light of the authority that he has—"go then and make disciples of all nations."

That's what a king does. A king takes his authority and then commissions ambassadors to go out and represent him, to stand and to speak on his behalf.

So, you come to Jesus as a disciple, and then you go into the world as his ambassadors. Everywhere that you go, you are on assignment for your king to represent him to the world and take the same message that Jesus preached about salvation in his kingdom.

You're supposed to take that message and share it with others. In other words, if you know Jesus, your job is to tell the world about him.

Pastor Jerry used to always tell this story. I can't tell you how many times I heard it growing up here at CLC about this little girl who, I think it was in the middle of the night, she was really afraid. There was a storm, and she didn't want to be alone. She cried out for her mom, and mom came.

She asked her to read a story to just be with her, and she finished the story, and the little girl asked for another story. Any parents in the room, you know. And then she asked for another story, and then another story. Finally, the mom said, "You need to go back to bed. I need to go back to bed."

The little girl said, "I'm just afraid. I don't want to be alone. Just stay with me." The mom said, "But baby girl, you're never alone because Jesus is always with you, and he's even closer to you than I am. He's always by your side."

A great mom moment, which the little girl responded, "But mommy, I need Jesus with skin on."

And you know what? The world needs Jesus with skin on, and God knows that, so he sent you as his ambassador. You are Jesus with skin on to a world that needs him.

If we're going to represent King Jesus well, there are three things that we need to have, and we're going to go through this rather quickly. I encourage you to take notes.

Number one, you need knowledge because you cannot represent what you don't know. If I'm going to represent Jesus to the world, then I need to know what Jesus said. I need to know what Jesus did. I need to know what Jesus likes. I need to know what he doesn't like. I need to know what he wants. I need to know what he doesn't want. I need a lot of knowledge in order to represent him well.

There are a plethora of resources out there to help you know God better. It's our focal point here at CLC. The number one thing we want for you is for you to know God.

But there are three ways that we get to know God that I want to highlight for you today. Number one is you got to start with your Bible. If you want to know God, you better be reading your Bible. If the only Bible you get is when I put it on a screen on Sunday morning, then that is not enough Bible in your life.

We've talked about this a lot over the years. If you need help with that, contact me. Stop me in the lobby; I'll help walk you through it. But you can use things like SOAP—Scripture, Observation, Application, Prayer.

Start! This is the start of a brand new year. What a better time to create a new habit around reading scripture and studying scripture. Find a translation that makes sense to you. Get a devotional that walks you through scriptures. Get a reading plan that'll take you through the Bible. But spend more time in his word.

If you want to know him better, don't just listen to what a preacher has to say about the Bible; read it for yourself. The Bible's better than any sermon I will ever preach. Just go straight to the source; go straight to the book.

After the Bible, I would encourage you to take notes when somebody's preaching. Here's the reason for that, and this isn't just for my sermons or Pastor Jerry's sermons or whoever's on this stage or if you're watching a sermon online or you're going to a different church.

Wherever you are, take notes. I see some of y'all doing that, and you get a bonus crown in heaven, I think, for doing that. But I just want to nudge on you a little bit on this one.

When you were in school, if you were taking a really hard class, did you take notes? I would imagine you did. And if you didn't, you probably regretted it at some point. You may not have done well on the test; there may have been something that came up later, and you're like, "Man, I wish I could go back to my notes on that one."

The whole point of sermons is not to entertain you for 35 minutes. The whole point of a sermon is to equip you. But if we're not taking notes—like I referenced Matthew chapter 13, there's seven parables. I didn't even tell you a single one of the parables. Most people would probably write down in their notes, "I should read chapter 13 later and see what those parables are all about."

As we're talking about things, I go through stuff quickly. Everybody complains I talk too fast and I put too much in the sermon, and I do, and I'm so sorry. Take notes; study it on your own later.

Whoever's preaching, take notes; you'll gain knowledge that way.

The third thing—and this is a shameless plug, I admit—but use Life University to go deeper. We created these courses for your benefit so that you could gain knowledge and understanding. We've got 16 courses already completed; there's another 16 that are going to be happening throughout this year starting in March.

There's a lot of stuff that we don't have time to talk about on the stage, but we can go deeper into it through Life University. So, take advantage of that, and you can get details on that online. You can message us, and we can show you how to access all of that.

But you need knowledge. Knowledge on its own is not enough. You know what you need to combine with knowledge? Wisdom.

Wisdom tells you how to use what you know, when to use what you know, and when not to use what you know. Wisdom is very vital. In fact, the most consistent prayer I have prayed—I started praying it when I was a teenager. I'm pushing 40 now, and I'm still praying the same prayer: "God, give me wisdom."

Here's the thing: I'm a nerd. I own it; I admit it. I can study; I can research; I can learn all that there is to learn about a subject. I'll get into the nuances of stuff, and it'll just confuse and annoy people. But I love to study; I love to learn.

I can gain knowledge on my own, but I need the Holy Spirit to give me wisdom on how to use it, how to communicate it to others, when it's right to apply it, and when it's not.

See, knowledge is great, but it's not enough on its own because you don't need to just know things; you need to know how to use the things that you know.

We need to grow in wisdom. Three ways you can do that: First of all, there's a supernatural component to this. Did my mic go out? Nope, there we're back; we're good.

So, there's a supernatural component of this, and the supernatural side of it means that we need to go to God and ask for wisdom. In the Old Testament, Solomon is told that he can ask God for anything he wants. What does he ask for? Wisdom.

In the New Testament, Jesus's half-brother James says, "If any of you lacks wisdom, what should you do? Ask for it." So, if it worked in the Old Testament, it worked in the New Testament, I am fairly confident that it still works today, right?

So, if you need wisdom, start by asking God for it. But I also believe it's not just a supernatural thing; there's a natural side to wisdom, and you can actually gain it through experience.

There is an experiential component to wisdom, and that's why you need to pay attention to things. A situation comes up, and you apply your knowledge to that situation. If it goes well and you were paying attention, you just gained wisdom in how to apply that knowledge.

If a situation comes up and you apply your knowledge to that situation and it goes poorly, if you're paying attention, you have just gained wisdom in how not to use that knowledge.

As ambassadors, every conversation we have with anyone, wisdom becomes the most important thing in it. Because you can walk up to a stranger on the street and say, "You're a sinner going to hell unless you repent." From a knowledge standpoint, you're right, but let me tell you, there's not a whole lot of wisdom in approaching people that way.

So, you've got to have the knowledge, but then you've got to combine it with the wisdom in how to utilize it.

The third way that we gain wisdom is when it is imparted to us, and this is why we can learn or how we can learn from the experiences of others.

So, you sit at the feet of a mentor, a leader, or somebody, and you ask questions, and they can impart wisdom that you didn't earn. You didn't have to go through it; you didn't have to experience it for yourself. You can gain the wisdom from someone else to accompany that knowledge.

Knowledge, wisdom, but the third thing that you need as ambassadors is the most important thing, and that is character. Because you've got to be able to walk the walk.

If your job as an ambassador is to represent Jesus to the world, our character then becomes the most important thing about us. Because when the world looks at you, if all they see is a reflection of themselves, that is not a good representation of Jesus.

So, when you lose your temper and cuss somebody out, how well do you think that represents Jesus? When you lie, when you cheat, when you steal, when you gossip, when you abuse, how well do you think that represents Jesus?

Let's make it super practical: if a U.S. ambassador showed up to work drunk, what do you think would happen to that ambassador? They'd be done.

Now, what about a Jesus ambassador? Just saying.

Here's the challenge for you: when it comes to being an ambassador of the kingdom of God, there are no days off. This is a 24-hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week job. That means you don't get to have a bad day.

You know what? I'm just real frustrated today, so I'm just going to let it rip. You know, I'm fasting right now, so I'm really hungry; I'm getting a little angry, getting a little cranky. No, no, no, no, no. You don't get a day off.

You don't get a, "Well, I'm just going to take a personal day." Uh-uh. You don't get those.

Somebody's like, "I'm really glad I signed up for Christianity; this is great."

But as ambassadors, there's no days off. Now, are you going to be perfect? No, I'm not perfect; you're not perfect; none of us are perfect. But as ambassadors, we should be striving. Amen?

We should be striving to represent Jesus well to the world around us. And when we mess up, we own it. We admit the mistake.

Look, the reality is sometimes we give Christianity a black eye, and it breaks my heart every time it happens. But we repent; we ask God for help. We own those; we don't excuse them, and we don't try and justify them. We just say, "I messed up, and I need to do better."

Because we are getting better and better. That's the whole point of this: that today I want to be more like Jesus than I was yesterday. Am I going to be exactly like him, perfect in every way? No, but I'm getting better. I'm getting closer to him every single day.

Three ways, real quick, to grow in character: First, walk closely with God. I found that the closer I am to God, the better my character is.

When I start drifting from God, guess what drifts? My character. The closer I am to God, man, you may look at my life and be like, "Man, Brent's so good; he's got it all together." Or maybe you don't; I don't know.

But I know that the closer I get to God, the more like the blemishes, the mistakes, the issues, the little things that other people don't notice, the more those things get magnified. It's like, "Wow, next to God, I am awful."

The closer I get to him, the more I recognize how important character is.

Make it practical for you: think about all the bad things you've done in your life. Would you have done any of them if your mother was in the room at the time?

I mean, some of you probably would do some of them. Would you do all of them? No, it would definitely affect situations, right?

Okay, well, you get close to God, and guess who's in the room with you every time you're about to do something foolish? God is.

And look, God loves you even more than your mama does, but just like your mama, he don't play.

Number two: stop entertaining sin. I don't have a soft way to say this—just stop. No more excuses. Sin is sin, no matter how you want to justify it.

King Jesus said, "Go and sin no more," so that should be our aim. Like we said, are you going to be perfect? No. But let me tell you, there is a huge—there's a mile of difference between entertaining sin and having a mistake, slipping up, having a moment of weakness.

There's a huge difference between just saying, "You know what? I know this is sin, but I just don't want to give it up," and saying, "Man, I'm struggling in this area."

As ambassadors, yeah, we'll struggle in areas, but we cannot entertain sin as if it's okay. Mile of difference there.

Stop entertaining sin.

Number three: stay accountable. I don't think character is built in isolation. You need other people around you because you have what's called blind spots.

There are some things in your life that you don't recognize need to be worked on, but when you get around accountability, when you've got people who are going to hold you accountable, they're going to encourage you—maybe somebody from your life group, maybe a fellow ambassador in the room—but you find somebody that can help identify those weak character areas in your life and help you make those things solid.

So, you are a citizen of the kingdom of God, and while you aren't the king, you are his ambassador. Our goal is to represent him well, so we got to gain knowledge, wisdom, and we got to walk in character.

Okay, I know this is a lot crammed into a short amount of time, but one last passage for you as we close. This is Matthew 9, and I think a lot of it becomes kind of a model for us as ambassadors.

It says that Jesus traveled through where? Through all the towns and villages. That means Jesus just went where people were. You are not an effective ambassador if you're only an ambassador at church.

You have to go somewhere to be an ambassador. He says that he taught in their synagogues and told people the good news about God's kingdom. That's what we do. We go and tell people the good news about God's kingdom.

It says that he healed all kinds of diseases and sicknesses. I think there's two components to this for us today. One is the supernatural side of it—that yes, the Holy Spirit still does miracles today.

So, you may encounter somebody that is sick, and you pray for their healing; the Holy Spirit heals them, and this amazing moment happens—absolutely.

But I also think that there's a natural side to this where what Jesus was doing was he was meeting the needs of the people. You can do that whether the Holy Spirit shows up or not.

I know that just sounded really sacrilegious, but trust me, you can. Because you can meet the needs of somebody by giving them some money. You can meet the needs of somebody by buying a cup of coffee and sitting and listening with them.

You can meet the needs of somebody by being a shoulder for them to cry on. But we have to go into the world and do good to meet the needs of people.

There may be a supernatural element of that, but there also may be a natural element of that. We need both as we go.

Then it says Jesus saw the many people and felt sorry for them. I kind of—I'm using the easy-to-read version. I love this translation, but I hate this specific translation here because feeling sorry for somebody feels kind of like a negative, like, "Oh, I feel sorry for you."

But the translation here, the word is actually compassion—that he felt compassion for the people. That means he felt what they felt, and it broke him.

That's how it should be for us—that we should be able, when we go into the world, it isn't in judgment. It isn't in, "Oh man, look at those people; I feel so sorry for them."

No, we go into the world, and we have compassion because they—I used to be as well—and we can feel their pain.

In fact, Jesus goes on to say that they were worried and they were helpless. In 2024, the level of anxiety and worry and the problems that people are facing, where they feel like there is no hope, there is no help out there—this scripture describes 2024 perfectly.

He says that they were like sheep without a shepherd to lead them.

Jesus said to his followers, "There is such a big harvest of people to bring in. There's a lot of people out there that need this message, but there are only a few workers to help harvest them."

There's a lot of people that need to know, but there's only a few ambassadors going.

Then he says that God owns the harvest, so ask him to send more workers to help gather his harvest.

That's what we're going to do over these next 10 days. We're going into a time of prayer and fasting as a church, and I think that this scripture should be kind of the heart behind these 10 days—that we would be praying and asking God to send the workers while at the same time, while we're praying that prayer, recognize that we are the answer to the prayer.

We're praying that when we say, "God, send more workers," we would follow it up with, "Here I am, Lord; send me."

So starting tomorrow, we're going on 10 days of prayer and fasting. I want to encourage every single one of you that calls CLC home to participate in this.

Honestly, I don't care what you fast or how you fast during the time, just that you fast. You can choose a Daniel fast; you can do a fast of a certain meal each day, certain days of the week. You could choose to fast certain foods—whatever works for you.

My wife and I, we're doing a liquid fast for those 10 days. You can join us in that, but find something that works for you health-wise but is also a sacrifice, right? Because that's the point of fasting.

This is not weight loss, okay? I need that, but that's not what this is. It's not about a kickstart to 2024's health journey. No, fasting is about sacrifice.

It's about saying no to something your body wants and then replacing it with something your spirit needs. If all you get on a fast is hungry, you weren't fasting; you were dieting.

What you should be getting is more of God to replace what you have removed from your life.

Here's the beautiful thing that happens when you fast: Your body is awesome. You get hungry; your stomach growls; you get cravings for things. You smell something from like three buildings away, and you're like, "Who is cooking?"

Your body is just aware of all that, and every time your body becomes aware of the fact that you're fasting, that should be an alarm clock in you to say, "I need to pray."

Every time you're like, "Oh man, I smell coffee, and I already said I was giving up coffee, and I really want some coffee," you could spend the next 20 minutes talking about how much you miss coffee and how much you love coffee, or you could spend that 20 minutes reading your Bible, spending that 20 minutes praying and talking to God.

What are you going to use as a replacement?

I say, "I'm getting rid of something my body wants for something my spirit needs."

In order to help you do that over these 10 days, we're going to do some prayer gatherings. So, every weekday starting tomorrow from 12 until 1, we're going to be right here in this room praying together, worshiping together, and we're going to have a short teaching to give you encouragement.

Then on Saturday, same thing from 9 to 10, and then on Sunday, it'll just be us here. But I want to encourage you to join us either in the room or you can join us online at live.clc.tv during that time to say, "You know what? I'm pushing away from the table, and I'm drawing close to God."

I want to make this thing serious. That passage that we just talked about about that huge harvest—that's going to be our focal point.

That we say, "CLC, it's time for us to step up and be the workers that God needs."

I mentioned this at our New Year's Eve service, but I ran the numbers, and I found out that there's roughly 2 million people that live within 15 miles of this building, of this church—2 million. That's a lot of people.

The most conservative number says 70% of them do not know Jesus as their savior. That means your job and my job is to represent Jesus to 1.4 million people that don't know him.

That's why Jesus said the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. We need to represent Jesus everywhere we go.

So, I want to pray for you, but first, if you're here and you'd say, "You know what, Brent? You can count on me. I'm with you on this one. I'm going to join you on those 10 days of prayer and fasting, and I'm going to take this assignment as ambassador seriously over these 10 days and even beyond."

If that's you in the room, I just want to invite you to stand to your feet so I can pray for you. For those of you online, you can drop down in the chat and say, "I'm with you, Brent," say, "I'm fasting too," or "I'm there," whatever you want to say. Drop some fire emojis, whatever it is.

But let's pray.

So, Father God, we just thank you because you are awesome. We are so grateful for the fact that you took us from one kingdom and you transferred us into your kingdom. Jesus, thank you for that. We couldn't have done it on our own.

But God, today we're saying I recognize what you've done in my life, and I know that there are other people that need that too.

So today, we are committing ourselves to you over these 10 days. We are going to seek your face; we're going to seek your voice so you would speak to us, guide us in how we can be the ambassadors that you have called us to be—that we would take this job seriously and that we would represent you to a world that needs you, and we would represent you well.

Give us wisdom, give us knowledge, and help us walk in character. In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen. Let's worship together as we close.

"The Greek word used for Kingdom... it's not about a location, it's actually better translated as the reign of the king... it's this word that's used to depict the power and the authority of the king not the location of the king." [07:26] (Download)

"In Christ, it doesn't matter what you were, it doesn't matter what the world says your identity should be. The moment you put your faith in Jesus Christ, you are given a new identity that is immeasurably more important than any other identity you may have once claimed." [11:21] (Download)

"Your salvation in Jesus came with a job title; you are all now ambassadors... sent from his kingdom back into your Old Kingdom so that you can reflect and represent him to the world around you." [15:15] (Download)

"Knowledge and wisdom are crucial, but the third thing that you need as ambassadors is the most important thing, and that is character. Our character becomes the most important thing about us because when the world looks at you, if all they see is a reflection of themselves, that is not a good representation of Jesus." [29:08] (Download)

"Jesus said to his followers there is such a big Harvest of people to bring in... but there are only a few workers to help Harvest them... we would be praying and asking God to send the workers while at the same time recognize that we are the answer to the prayer we're praying." [37:57] (Download)