• False Gospels
• Jesus Christ's Return
• Life after Death
• Repentance
• Resurrection
• The Gospel
• The Kingdom of God

sermon: Ambassadors for Christ

Ambassadors of Reconciliation
Martin G. Collins
Given 06-Jan-18; Sermon #1413; 70 minutes

Description: (show)

We have just come through a year of unprecedented cultural and political confusion. It was frustrating and unsettling, to say the least. We watched as society moved further into the post-truth era. Fake news propaganda became the norm for reporting. Moral and ethical standards were increasingly ignored and replaced by whatever seems right in their own eyes. In many areas of society, civility was almost entirely discarded.

Dave Barry, an author of humor and parody who has a way with words unlike any other, expressed his view of the confusion of the last year in this way.

It was a year so surreal, so densely populated with strange and alarming events, that you have to seriously consider the possibility that somebody—and when we say somebody, we mean "Russia"—was putting LSD in our water supply. A bizarre event would occur. It would be all over the news, but before we could wrap our minds around it, another bizarre event would occur, then another and another, coming at us faster and faster, battering the nation with a Category 5 weirdness hurricane that left us hunkering down, clinging to our sanity, no longer certain what was real.

He may be a man of humor, but there is a lot of truth in what he said there. And I think he aptly described this past year.

As Christians, we often feel utter frustration over the negative things happening to our homeland, that is, the country that we call our home. It does not matter where we live or where we are from. It does not matter whether we are American, Canadian, South African, Namibian, Zambian, British, German, Trinidadian, Filipino, or Australian—we have all been bothered by what has been going on. If we dare to listen to or read what is called news—which is mostly gossip—we often find ourselves disgusted and/or discouraged and depressed. And most of us are distressed by the perverse reengineering of society which has become so obvious to anyone paying the least bit attention.

Please turn with me, if you will, to John 17, verse 10. As Christians, how can we maintain our sanity in such a demonically driven world? How can we withstand the negativism coming at us as a continuous psychological bombardment? What are we to do? What should be our mindset? The apostle John records Jesus Christ's answer.

John 17:10-12 "And all mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them [speaking of the church, each one of us as members]. Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are one. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me, I have kept."

Three times in these verses, Jesus speaks of keeping His disciples: once in reference to the Father and twice in reference to Himself. But in two of these instances, He also speaks more specifically of that by which we are kept and it is in God's name.

What does it mean to be kept in God's name? Well, Jesus said that He had revealed God's name to those who had been given to Him. "The name of God" is a Semitic phrase for speaking of God's attributes. It also does include the actual name, but for us it is speaking of His attributes.

Now to be protected by the name is therefore to be protected by the One who is sovereign and holy, all knowing and wise, compassionate and anything else that can be properly said of God. And there is more because to be kept in the name is not merely to be kept by God as if He were some distant force that could be called in to defend us, if it were necessary. It is rather that we are actually in Him much like being in a fortress. And thus His power and other attributes surround us constantly.

Proverbs 18:10 catches this exactly by saying, "The name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run to it and are safe." Can anything touch us when we are in that fortress? Obviously, we must have a spiritually healthy relationship with our Father and our Savior Jesus Christ to be in this fortress, this safe fortress.

But how do we represent God from that safe fortress while we are in this world? And, at one and the same time, not being of the world? What is our responsibility? For whom do we live?

Turn over to II Corinthians 5, verse 14, please, as we build this introduction. Now, the apostle Paul was mindful that God would someday judge him. Nevertheless, Christ's love compelled him to be eager to represent the Father, Christ, and God's Kingdom as an ambassador. However, first, we must become a new creation with a new nature in order to properly represent God's Kingdom.

II Corinthians 5:14-17 For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if one died for all, then all died [so this is inclusive with us and He died for all]; that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again. [This is our commission: to live for Christ and live in representation and for God the Father.] Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh, even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; all things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

The term new creation or new nature here refers to the spiritual transformation that occurs within the inner man. When a person accepts Jesus Christ as his personal Savior, the Christian becomes a new man as opposed to the old man that he was before he became a Christian.

Now, this concept of newness can be traced to an important choice between two Greek words both meaning new. One word means new in the sense of renovation or to repair; the other in a sense of fresh existence.

It is sense of fresher existence that is used to describe the Christian. He is not the old man renovated or refreshed. He is a brand new man with a new family, a new set of values, new motivations, and new possessions. The old man is still present in the new life and expresses himself in corrupting deeds such as lying. The new man, to be visible, must be put on as one would put on a new suit of clothes. In other words, the new nature must be cultivated or nurtured by spiritual decisiveness to grow in Christ with the help of God's Spirit. (We heard somewhat about this in the sermonette by Bill [Onisick] that it takes work.) We have to work at it in order to grow in Christ.

We must not revert to putting back on our old suit of the former life; rather, we must continue to grow in this new life, in this new nature. This newness of life gives us great hope even in the face of what is going on in the world. Christ working in us through God's Spirit can accomplish a life-changing transformation if we are reconciled to God through Christ.

Continuing on in II Corinthians 5, we are going to read verses 18 through 20.

II Corinthians 5:18-20 Now all things of are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God.

What we see here is a connection of being an ambassador for Christ and reconciliation, and the importance that an ambassador reconcile, help to reconcile people to God as well as to one another.

Having established that he and his brethren are Christ's representatives, Paul encourages the Corinthian Christians to whom he is speaking, and also to us, to be reconciled to God by being reconciled to himself, that is, to Paul. Treatment of a messenger reflects one's attitude toward the sender. Paul was the messenger, Christ was the sender, and of course, ultimately, God the Father.

And so that is why Paul is asking the congregation to be reconciled to him. And what is interesting is later on in the Ephesian church, he says a similar thing. The Ephesian church was known for its love and its faith so it was not that they lacked it. It is that he was saying that everyone needs to reconcile.

To be true ambassadors for Christ, we must ourselves be reconciled to God and being an ambassador for Christ is to be a reconciler. To be an ambassador for Christ, we must be a proper witness of God's way of life.

Now, the Greek word used in verse 20 for ambassador is from the word presbeuomen, which means to act as an ambassador or sometimes merely to deliver a message for another, without being empowered to do anything more than to explain or apply it. The ambassador is an authorized representative who represents the sovereign or people who sent him and negotiates for them. More than simply the deliverer of a message, the ambassador is authorized to act on behalf of the sender. The status of the ambassador is generally related to the status of the ruler that he represents.

Who do we represent as God's children, as God's people? We represent the Sovereign of the universe. So how valuable is that ambassadorship that not only the ministry carries, but each and every one of us as a royal priesthood.

The ambassador is bound implicitly to obey the instructions of his sovereign and as far as possible to do only what the sovereign would do were he himself present. Ministers are ambassadors for Christ because they are sent to do what He would do were He personally present. They are to make known and to explain and enforce the terms on which God is willing to be reconciled to people.

They are not to negotiate on any new terms nor to change those which God has proposed, nor to follow their own plans or devices. Sadly, this is what we see many in the ministry and in mainstream Christianity doing. They are following their own terms and their own devices. They do not go to promote their own welfare, not to seek honor, dignity, or reward, but they go to transact the business which the Son of God would engage in were He, again, personally on earth working directly with people in that way.

It follows that their office is one of great dignity and of great responsibility and that respect should be shown to them as the ambassadors of the King of kings.

Man has something to do in this work. He has to give up his resistance. He has to submit to the terms of the covenant and he is to be reconciled to God. How can a person be reconciled with other individuals if he is not first reconciled with God? And the great purpose of the ministers of reconciliation, as Paul words it, is to encourage others to do the same. They are to do it in the name of Christ and they are to do it as if Christ Himself were present and personally urging the message in the context of a plea for reconciliation.

Paul, as an ambassador, urged the Corinthians to make peace with God the King and for they themselves to become reconcilers with their relationships with one another as well as with the world.

Now Christ, while on earth, represented the Sovereign of the universe; His apostles and their successors represent Christ, the King of kings. In that sense, not only ministers, but all members of God's church are ambassadors for Christ.

Ambassadors for Christ must be citizens of heaven. How can they be an ambassador of a country or a nation or a kingdom if they are not truly a citizen? An ambassador must be a citizen of the nation that he represents. Paul, as is every Christian, was a citizen of heaven where conversion is equated with citizenship. The nation supplies our ambassadors every need and stands ready to protect them. And likewise, Christ supplied Paul's every need and stood with him in every crisis.

Go with me, if you will please, to Philippians 3, verse 20. What does it mean to be a citizen of heaven? There is a change that must take place in us before we can become citizens of heaven. There is no greater change known to man in any realm than the change that we all undergo when we become sons of the kingdom of heaven. It is a new creation and nothing less. And the apostle Paul confirms that our citizenship is in heaven if we are indeed Christians.

Philippians 3:20-21 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.

Turn over to Ephesians 2, verse 19. Also, there comes to light the privilege of our position as Christians and as members of God's church, as members of the Body of Christ.

Ephesians 2:19-22 Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

So the privilege of our position as Christians is the subject that the apostle Paul is addressing here and he is looking at the new man that has come into being—the member of the Family of God. And what a wonderful thing it is! There is nothing more wonderful than being in this position.

Paul shows this by using three pictures. The first is the picture of a state. Christians are fellow citizens in a great kingdom or a great state. Second, is that Christians are members together of a family of the household of God. And third, is that individual members and the church as a whole is a temple in which God Himself dwells.

Now that is the great theme here, the privilege of being a citizen of heaven.

In Ephesians 1 Paul said that he had been praying for the Ephesian members of the church, asking that the eyes of their understanding might be enlightened so that they may know what is the hope of His calling, and what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe.

Ephesians 1:15-19 Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints [see, this is what the Ephesians were known for that I mentioned earlier, for their faith and their love for all the saints], do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him [this is telling us to ask for exactly what Bill was talking about in his sermonette, to ask for emotionally mature intellect], the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power.

So as representatives of God's Family, as saints, we have access to that power, so to speak. God empowers us with what we need to do to overcome and to be able to be a reconciler, so to speak, as ambassadors. That is what Paul wants to us to see, the privilege of being a Christian. And the privilege is so much greater than anything else on earth or anything that any man on earth can give. It is just beyond understanding. In other terminology, it is the abundance of spiritual blessings.

Ambassadors are chosen for the assignment and Christ had chosen Paul to be His representative. Paul did not represent himself but Christ, and his goal was to please Christ and be faithful to the task given to him. And that is what motivated him and that is what should motivate us.

In our lives, if we truly realize exactly what we are and who we are as Christians, many of the problems of our daily life and living would automatically improve and even be solved. And often it is because we do not realize the full extent of our privileged position that the problems arise. If we did, we would not envy people who are not Christians. We would never try to live as near to their way of life as possible and sometimes almost feel sorry because we are not living like them, or do not have access to the things that they have, or have to have the freedom that the world has. This is more a problem in the youth than it is in mature Christians. But nevertheless, it is still there. All that is due to the failure to realize what we are.

Paul refers to this in the 11th and 12th verses of chapter 2 where he says,

Ephesians 2:11-12 Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh—who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands [Of course, Gentiles. This is talking about anybody who lives in a worldly way.]—that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens in the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

Paul says that we are no longer strangers and foreigners because it is no use our going on to consider the privileges unless we are perfectly certain that we are citizens of heaven. And as members of God's church and as members of the household of God, that is exactly what we are, citizens of heaven.

We are all interested in privileges, are we not? I mean, who is going to turn down a privilege or who is going to not want them to come their way?

Ephesians 2:19 Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.

We are familiar with the type of person who subtly brags that he has privileges and is untouchable. Those are people in the world of course, and we see this in politics all the time. And it is the person who has connections and uses them. The result of worldly privileges is partiality, which is a sin.

But what are the privileges of our citizenship in heaven? The first and greatest privilege is this: our King! People brag about their citizenship and their countries. They quote their history and talk about their great heroes. They put up monuments to them and write about them. They are proud of their association with them. But all that pales into insignificance when compared with our privileges as citizens of the kingdom of heaven. Above all else, we glory in the fact that we have a King who is the King of kings and Lord of lords—the Son of God Himself, the King of heaven.

But let us go on to now to consider the sphere of this Kingdom. This is a very important and interesting theme. The sphere of all earthly kingdoms is on this planet and the center, the capitol is always on earth. Many of us belong to the United States, to a union of sovereign states, and we have a capitol city, Washington, DC. Nations take great pride in that, that is, having a capitol that they are proud of. And often their rivalries and jealousies have brought them into conflict and that shows their appreciation of the privilege and their pride in the sphere and the extent of their kingdoms.

But you remember how Jesus Christ defined and described His own Kingdom in this respect. He said, "My kingdom is not of this world." He spoke of it as the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of the heavens. And the apostle Paul in writing to the Philippian members says,

Philippians 3:20 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ [our King, I will add].

Now we are here on earth but our spiritual citizenship is there. We are here on earth, but we are only a colony, so to speak. Our capitol is not Washington DC, but this time it is heaven itself.

So what is the city to which you and I as Christians belong? According to the book of Revelation, it is the New Jerusalem that is going to come down out of heaven and be established on earth—the New Jerusalem! And that is where the King lives. That is where He is seated at the right hand of God the Father at this moment, not an earthly Jerusalem, but a heavenly and everlasting Jerusalem. What a privilege to belong to such a great Kingdom, such a wide domain as beyond the universe! It is just breathtaking to even consider. Our puny minds can hardly fathom it.

But it is not only true to say that the headquarters, the capitol, is in heaven. The citizens of this Kingdom are scattered throughout the whole earth. It includes men and women out of all nations and kingdoms and peoples and tongues. What a Kingdom, what a sphere! People belonging to great empires have always been filled with pride in the fact that they were Roman or they were British and so on. And Christians are citizens of a far greater Kingdom, physically and spiritually. Headquarters is in heaven and the King eternal is immortal, invisible, as our king.

Presently, we are citizens in every kingdom in every land and continent on earth, physically. But wherever we may live and wherever our nationality may be, it makes no difference. We belong to God and Jesus Christ and the headquarters is the same, the heavenly Jerusalem. And what a privilege to be citizens in such a city and such a Kingdom.

In the case of the Ephesians, there was no doubt or question whatsoever about this matter. These people, when pagans, had lived a certain type of life, a spiritually inferior type of life. The Jews on the other hand, had lived a different type of life and followed a very different pattern of worship.

Now, no one could turn from paganism to Christianity and be in the Christian faith with converted Jews without having undergone a very great change. The pagan had to leave behind certain practices and customs and he had to renounce gods whom he had worshipped before, and many other things. Hardest of all, he had to admit and confess that he had been totally wrong and sinful. And it was an obvious change to change from being a pagan to a Christian.

Paul said, you are no longer that, you are this. And this is something that is always true in what we may call "first generation" Christians. But it is not so simple when you come to the second generation Christians and still more difficult when you come to the third and fourth generation Christians.

So that the change was perfectly plain in the case of these previously pagan Ephesians, it is not always quite so plain now. It is never as easy and as simple as in a country where many assume their country is primarily Christian, as people try to say ours is today. It is not as easy when people have been brought up in churches and in a professing Christian atmosphere and have always had a convenient place of worship.

It is important, then, that we interpret this not only in the setting in which it was originally written, but also in our own particular setting because, as I will try to show, the principle is always exactly the same; it is the application that differs.

The apostle Paul here in Ephesians 2:19 is primarily concerned about the principle of life. He has been doing that all along in this highly spiritual paragraph. It was obvious that the Ephesian Christians had once been nonbelievers, but that they were now believers. And the two words used by Paul in Ephesians 2:19 help us to realize our position with regard to the world.

The first word is the word "stranger." Once again, Paul says, "Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers." What is a stranger? Seems like a simple enough word to understand. Strangers are those who find themselves among a people not their own. They all belong to one another, but you are a stranger. You do not belong to them and they are not your own people.

The second word is the word translated in the King James and the New King James as "foreigners." "Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners." Sometimes you will find it translated sojourners. Both terms are good translations. What does this word mean? Well, originally, it was a description of someone who dwelt near a community, but not in it. For example, a man who lives just outside the city limits. He is near the city, but he is not in it. He does not belong to the city. That was the original meaning. But now it comes to mean those who find themselves in a place that is not their own country.

The first term "stranger" conjures up more the idea of the family unit and of a kind of blood relationship, whereas this other word, "foreigner," or sojourner, compels us inevitably to think more in terms of a state, a country, or a kingdom. A foreigner is a man who finds himself in a place that is not his own country. It means that though this man is living in the country, he does not possess the citizenship of that country. He is not naturalized. He does not have the right of permanent residence in that country, or to put it more simply, he is a man who is living on a passport.

Now, these are the two words the apostle Paul uses: strangers and foreigners. People may be living there for a long time, but still they are always sojourners, they are still aliens. The other place is their home, they are living here on a passport, as I mentioned, and they have to renew it periodically.

That is the picture that Paul sets before us. And you notice that when he comes to the positive in Ephesians 2:19, he just reverses this. He starts with the citizenship and then goes on to the family relationship. The second part of verse 19 says, "but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God." But for the moment, we are concerned primarily with the negative, "You are no longer strangers and foreigners."

Notice what a subtle matter this is. We have all often seen it in practice. There may be someone living in the family, someone who has lived in the family for years and is almost one of the family and yet not one of the family. And though this person may be sharing in the life of the family in almost every conceivable manner, still he or she actually does not belong to the family. And there is where the difficulty comes in. An outsider, upon observing this person for a short while, might say this person is obviously one of the family. And yet, after knowing them for a while, he would discover that this was not the case.

It is exactly the same with a country. There may be people living in a country, a resident for many years, and somebody coming on a visit to the country looking at them would take it for granted that any one of them was actually one of that country. Just a typical citizen. The foreigner may be doing the same thing as the citizen: going to work in the morning, returning home at night, following exactly the same routine. And yet, actually that person does not belong to that country. He is not a citizen but just living there temporarily.

There we see in a picture the idea we have to understand. That is the sort of thing that God's church is dealing with, with regard to the world; this very position of living with a family, but not belonging to it, being in a country and not yet being a citizen.

Spiritually speaking, Christians are not citizens of the world, neither can we be. An ambassador for Christ is a foreigner of another kingdom but is not a foreigner of heaven. And that is the difference.

Now it is possible to be in a company and yet not be of the company. You remember that when the children of Israel went up from Egypt to Canaan, we are told in a very interesting phrase that a mixed multitude went up with them. Turn with me, if you will please, to Romans 9, verse 6. They went with them. They shared the same hazards, the same problems and difficulties as the children of Israel, but they did not belong to them. They were a mixed multitude. But the apostle Paul takes it still further here in Romans 9.

Romans 9:6-8 But it is not that the word of God has taken no effect. For they are not all Israel who are all of Israel, nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but "In Isaac your seed shall be called." That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as the seed.

What a phrase that is! You look at them as a mass and you say they are all of Israel. But that does not follow, of necessity. There is a physical Israel and a spiritual Israel and that is what it is talking about here. And there is an Israel of the Spirit as well as an Israel of the flesh. There is a remnant in the mass.

Turn over to I John 2, verse 18, please. You can be of a company and yet really not belong to it. The apostle John says the same thing about certain people who had gone out of the early church.

I John 2:18-19 Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.

So they had been among them, members of the church, but they were not of them. And they had been in the church, that is, at least attending and they seemed to be Christian, but they had never really belonged. That is the type of principle that is raised here for us.

Now, let us consider it by putting it in the form of a number of basic principles. The first principle is that the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is clear and definite. Now that seems pretty obvious, does it not? But we know that there are tares in the church. So maybe it is not quite as obvious.

In spite of all I have been saying, the principle remains that there is a clear distinction between a Christian and a non-Christian. And Paul puts it like this, "you are. . . no more." There is a change, a changeover. "You are no longer strangers and foreigners." So he is making a distinct difference between being in the church and not being in the church.

Turn over to Matthew 7, verse 13, please. Now, obviously, there has been a change externally, but we are not concerned as much about the external, but about the internal. And so there does not need to be any hesitation in asserting that every one of us at this moment is either a Christian or is not a Christian. We are either in Christ or else we are outside Christ. Jesus emphasizes this point in Matthew 7. You cannot be on the narrow way and the broad way at the same time. It is one or the other.

Matthew 7:13-14 [you are very familiar with this] "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it."

You cannot be going through two gates at the same time. It is impossible. You cannot be passing through a turnstile and going through a wide gate at the same time. It is impossible. That is the thing that starts off the difference between the Christian and the non-Christian. The Christian goes in at the strait gate, he walks on the narrow way, and the other does the exact opposite. It has to be one thing or the other. And Christ goes on repeating this principle: true prophet, false prophet; good tree, bad tree; good fruit, bad fruit. And finally, in that vivid picture of the house on the rock and the house on the sand, Christ makes the distinctions very clear.

It is always one or the other. It is either or you are a Christian or you are not Christian, and these things are absolutes. You are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are Christians in the Body of Christ. Of course, I am speaking of the wheat and not the tares.

The Christian position is not a vague one. It is not indefinite, it is not uncertain. Of course, if you think of it mainly in terms of superficial conduct and behavior, then it may very well be vague. I can easily draw a picture and show you.

Two men, one is a man who is highly moral, never does anybody any harm. His word is his bond. He is honest and just and upright and a thoroughly good man in every sense of the word by the world's standards. But now look at the other man. You cannot say, looking at them generally, that the second man is as good as the first man. He sometimes does things that he should not and maybe he is not as lovable or polished. And yet it may be the case that the second man is a Christian and the first man is not.

The thing that determines whether a man is a Christian or not is not his general appearance or the surface behavior, which is part of it. But it is the inward heart of the man. It is the good fruit and the true witness from the heart and spirit that he produces in his life in service to God and others that shows that he is a Christian.

That foreigner living in this land looks like an any other American and he does the same things and so on. But the fact is that he is still a foreigner in the way he thinks. A man even that appears moral in the world thinks totally different than a Christian, a true Christian. It is the good fruit and the true witness from the heart and the spirit that he produces in his life.

Turn over to I Samuel 16, verse 7, please. Now the test is not just the general, superficial appearance, although that does matter. This is the very thing that the New Testament is always emphasizing. We are definitely either a Christian or else we are not. If you are simply hoping or halfheartedly trying to be a Christian, you may not be one, but only God can discern the heart.

I Samuel 16:7 But the Lord said to Samuel, "Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."

That is where the determination comes from. It is from God Himself as to who is Christian and who is not. So we cannot judge one another. We cannot look with distain upon other members who may not be living life perfectly. We have to realize that God is working with them. We all have our problems and we should cover other people's sins, and we should also help them to overcome them without being judgmental or condescending. So it requires humility.

To be on the doorstep is not to be inside. Christ paints the picture of people coming and hammering on the door and saying, please open the door. But the reply comes from the inside, No, you are outside, you do not belong. So we are either Christian or we are not Christian.

The second principle is this: to stress the vital importance of knowing which we are. Here again, Paul's illustration helps us. How does it become clear and obvious whether we are strangers and foreigners, that is, sojourners, or whether we really belong? Eventually, it always becomes clear. It does not matter how intimate a relationship may be, however friendly you may be with someone who is living with you and your family. There is a saying that puts it all in a nutshell, "After all, blood is thicker than water."

Certain points arise in life when the one thing that matters is the blood relationship. And it is at that point that the poor stranger begins to feel that he is only a stranger. After all, he may have felt for years that the distinctions were irrelevant. And he may have said, "I am one of them. I'm a member of the family and have always been treated as a member of the family." But suddenly, in a crisis, he discovers that he is not. Blood is thicker than water. We cannot fully explain these things. We may even say that there is a great deal that is wrong about such a situation. That may well be. But that is how it works in practice. It just seems to be part of the way human beings think.

We know that the "blood is thicker than water" principle also applies to us with Christ. I mean, Christ gave His blood for us, did He not? And that is the thickest of all blood relationships.

Something fundamental, elemental, suddenly comes to the surface; and we find a whole family that may have been at odds suddenly becoming one and the poor stranger is aware that he is an outsider. Or take another illustration that may put it still more clearly: take a person who is a sojourner, a foreigner in another land. He may have lived there 20 or 30 or 40 years and enjoyed living there, and liked by all and happy. All distinctions seem irrelevant.

I remember a couple of years ago, I think it was about three years ago, that there was a man and his family who had lived in Bermuda their whole life, at least 30 or 40 years, and they had children there and they considered themselves Bermudian, but they were not, they were British citizens. And so when employment got very tight in Bermuda, they were kicked out of the country. They had to leave their family and all that to their citizenship country, which was Britain, which they were not familiar with, did not really know.

And so you see how important citizenship is in those types of things. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the country to which that man belongs and his country in which he is living, have a dispute and the dispute cannot be settled, and war is declared. And this man who may have lived in the country for 40 years suddenly realizes that he is a foreigner and that everyone looks at him with suspicion. He may be interned and sent back to his own country. He appeared to be a member of the country previously. Sometimes it is almost tragic, as I mentioned about the family in Bermuda. But it has happened and will happen again.

We turn again, then, to the principle that we find running right through the Scriptures. Why is it important to know whether you are a Christian or not? Because it is at the time of testing that this thing becomes of vital importance to know. It is in the tests and trials of life that this thing comes out. You go on for years while you are well and vigorous. You are in the church; you seem to be of the church; you may have even grown up in the church, and your interest is there and you are one with the congregation.

But suddenly you become ill and you find yourself sick in bed for months. It will not be long before you know whether you are a Christian or not. It makes a crucial difference then. Or when there is an illness in a member of the family, and when there is a deep empathy or a death, some terrible heartrending sorrow. It is during times like this that we realize how essentially important it is to know whether we are a Christian or not. If you are simply a stranger or a foreigner, it does not help you. But if you really belong, it makes all the difference in the world. But let us take it on to the ultimate.

Turn with me to Matthew 7, verse 21. Here, Jesus addresses this concerning fake Christians. And it is the major point in the concluding section of Matthew 7. There are people who seem to be Christian and who say, "Lord, have we not done many works wonderful works in Your name?"

Matthew 7:21-23 "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesized in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!"

A fake Christian is a foreigner after all, a stranger in the final analysis, shipped abroad, sent out of the country. So you see that it is vitally important that we are absolutely certain whether we are still strangers and foreigners or whether we really belong and are ambassadors for Christ.

To be practical, here is the third principle as a question: How can we know that we are citizens for sure? What are the tests? And here are some very simple answers based on the illustration used by the apostle Paul. I will start first with the most superficial thing of all. Here is the general idea. This is so you can test yourselves if you want to know if you are a stranger or a foreigner or not.

Answer this question. Do you feel at ease in the church? More specifically, are you quite at ease among brethren in the church? Do you feel at home or do you have an uncomfortable feeling that you are somehow an outsider? This is what happens when you go to stay with a family. They may be very nice and friendly, but you feel that you do not belong, you are not quite at ease, you are conscious of the fact that you are not in your own home and you cannot relax. You are a stranger after all, though the family is very kind and pleasant and friendly.

Are you at home among God's people or do you feel like you do not really fit in?

Let me clarify this question with another question. Are you as much at ease among God's people as you are in other social groups and in other types of groups in the world?

Go with me to Ephesians 3, verse 14, please. With the other types of groups there is the silly laughter, the coarse joking, the worldly fun, and perhaps the overdrinking. Are you free and open with them or are you at ease with them? This is tremendously important. When you put it in terms of a family, you see how inevitable it is.

Ephesians 3:14-19 For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man [There is the inner man now. That is what really matters, what is happening inside.], that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Our physical bodies need to be strengthened every day. Similarly, our hearts and minds need constant supplies of God's Spirit. Dedication needs to be constantly invigorated or it withers and decays, and every Christian needs spiritual help given each day to enable him to bear trials, to resist temptation, to carry out his duty, to live a life of faith. God's Spirit helps us to be zealous!

Is your interest real and full of life, that is, in God's way of life, in His written Word? When you belong to a family, you are active and alive in your interest. And more than that, you really enjoy it. Your heart is in it. It is what you love and it is where you like to be. You like to be at home, you like to be in your own country, so to speak, and you should like to be in God's church because it is your spiritual home, in a sense.

With respect to our relationship to the church, a person who truly belongs is happy in it. It is not a matter of effort to him. It is not a matter of duty, it is something he enjoys himself and that he values above everything else.

Let me summarize this whole section with the words of King David just very briefly with a scripture you are very familiar with.

Psalm 133:1 Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!

And so you see here where reconciliation comes in having to do with being an ambassador for Christ. We all must be reconciling and helping others to reconcile because it is our duty. It is our responsibility, it is our commission.

We belong to them and are unified with them, that is, members of the church, because they are our brethren. They are not just brothers and sisters in a physical sense, they are deeply in the inner part of us our brethren.

Now we come to a second test: understanding. When you are staying with a family, this question of understanding becomes tremendously important and it is the same when you are a foreigner in another country. Think about this: do you know and understand what is being talked about? Is there anything that makes you feel more uncomfortable than to have that feeling that, though you are seated with the family, somehow or other you are outside the conversation and do not enter into what they are talking about?

Any time you go to a country that speaks a language different than the one that you understand and know, you feel helpless. The signs are different and you do not know what they say or where to go. It is quite unnerving, to say the least. They all seem to understand one another. They use certain phrases. They look at one another in a significant way and they are all in it, but you are somehow not in it. You are listening, you are part of the group, but you are not able to enter into it and to enjoy it.

Do you understand the language of God's people? We speak a different language. The meanings of different terms are different than mainstream Christianity. Born again means something totally different to us than it does to someone else, as does the representation of heaven and hell and that type of thing. We go on and on and on with the doctrines and it is totally different than what mainstream Christianity understands it to be. They speak a different language. And how much more different is the language of the world, those who are not even associated with Christianity? So how can we feel at ease, so to speak, with them speaking a different language and quite often a very coarse language?

The family has its own language, as I mentioned. There have been some who have said under their breath, "I can't stand this talk about justification and sanctification and all these terms." Do you feel like that or are these precious terms to you? You may not understand them fully but they should be precious to you because they have such great meaning for your eternal life. They are precious terms to the children of God.

Impatience with biblical terminology may show that you are an outsider and you do not understand the language. Granted, it takes a long time to learn a new language, but have you made sufficient effort? But it is not only a question of language, there is something more. Do you know anything about the subjects that God's people are discussing? Or does it always go over your head?

Again, let me use an illustration. We have all had this kind of experience. Maybe we are staying with a family and they are all so nice and kind and pleasant and we are engaged in conversation and then suddenly somebody comes in and you can tell by looking at his face that something has happened and that is of great concern to the family. They all feel awkward and they want to talk about this together, but you were there and they cannot. So they talk in hints and suggestions and in an indirect, roundabout way. You do not know what they are talking about. They behave like that because you are a stranger. They like you and they are not insulting you but you do not understand. And so you feel awkward.

Probably every one of us have had that happen sometime or other. It might have been just one sentence or who knows what, but it happens sometimes. But we feel real awkward because we know that they are talking in code with one another, so to speak. There are these intimate problems and questions that they cannot share with you (though they like you very much) because you do not belong to the family.

It is the same with a country and it is like that in the Christian life.

Now, let us look at it in a way that may be one of the ultimate tests. Are you in on the secrets? There are family secrets, there are national secrets. It is possible for a person to be interested in religion, to be interested in theology, to be interested in philosophy. And as long as you are dealing with abstract theoretical questions, he appears to be right in on it and one of the Family.

You have met this kind of person before, he is a kind of religious hobbyist. He knows the terms and he can speak quite a bit about them. But then you begin to talk about spiritual things and immediately the person who has been so interested theoretically feels he is an outsider. It is possible to have a general interest but not this intimate personal interest in the secrets—the mystery—of the Christian life.

Let me give you just three scriptures very quickly that mention the same thing.

Romans 16:25 Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began.

We, as members of God's church, have access to that secret, that mystery, that most of the world has not understood since the world began.

I Corinthians 2:7-8 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

And then the final scripture in this grouping.

Colossians 1:26 The mystery which has been hidden from the ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints.

So the mystery kept secret has only been revealed to God's saints and no one else. Are you in on the secrets? Do you understand the mystery?

Let me give you some other tests. Are you conforming in general to the laws and the customs of the country? Of God's Kingdom? How can you be a true ambassador representing your country if you are not a law-abiding citizen of your homeland? The apostle John says, God's commands are not heavy or oppressive. But someone who is not a Christian, not truly Christian, finds them oppressive, finds them heavy, burdensome.

I John 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome.

If you disagree with that statement, you might ask yourself, am I really a Christian? They are oppressive to everyone else but not to the Christian. David said, "Oh, how I love your law!" Do we say that at all ever in our lives? Oh, how love I Thy law, Your law. Do we believe it?

We proclaim where we are and what we are by the way we live. If you go from this country, say to the UK or South Africa or Trinidad, and continue to drive your car on the right side of the road, as we do here, in a matter of a few seconds, you will know you are a foreigner, if you live that long since they drive on the left. Are there any people driving on the wrong side of the road within the church? They may not know it, but they are proclaiming that they are foreigners and strangers by spiritually driving on the wrong side of the road. They do not know and honor the laws and the commandments of God's Kingdom.

These people are usually contrary to others and not reconcilers. They are not behaving in a manner that is consistent with the customs and the habits of this particular family and country. They are strangers and foreigners, though they are living in the family or country or church.

Please turn over to Romans 8, verse 14. Another test is concern for the state and condition of the family or country, and its well being. Now this arises instinctively. It comes to this. I have started on the superficial level and have gone deeper. And here is the last proof I will give you today. Do you have a birth certificate from heaven? This is actually a legal question. Do you have a birth certificate from heaven?

What is the Christian's birth certificate? It is above and beyond everything else I have been saying.

Romans 8:14-17 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, "Abba, Father." The Spirit Himself [that is, Jesus Christ] bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.

So if we have God's Spirit of adoption, we have a spiritual birth certificate, and therefore we are children of God. It is the assurance that can only be given by God through the Holy Spirit. Now, you may be a true Christian, though you have no tangible proof of the sealing of the Spirit. It is not something you feel necessarily, it is something you know, it is something you understand. It requires belief, it requires faith.

Ephesians 1:13 In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.

Now, please do not be content with just passing these tests. Insist on hanging on to your birth certificate. Do not be a stranger and a foreigner temporarily appearing to be in the church membership. Every morning remind yourself, "I am a fellow citizenship with the saints. I am of the household of God. I am an ambassador for Christ." If you can remember this, to say that to yourself every morning, it will help in how you deal with what you see in the news, what is going on in the society because you are able to remove yourself from it and you are able to remind yourself of where your citizenship truly is and what your responsibility and duty is.

I Peter 2:9-10 (ESV) But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a royal nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

The glories, the privileges, the advantages of membership in the church have been given to us and those privileges and that membership is far more valuable than anything the world has to offer, or could even come close to. This is only possible as long as the eyes of our understanding are enlightened.

We have seen the importance of knowing for certain that we are no longer strangers and foreigners, that we really do have our birth certificates, that we really do belong. And now we must live our lives on that foundation as reconciling ambassadors for Christ.

MGC/aws/drm

The Bereans "received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so" (Acts 17:10-11). This daily newsletter provides a starting point for personal study, and gives valuable insight into the verses that make up the Word of God.