Now, I don't know about you, but when I hear that my natural reaction is this, yuck, yuck, I don't want that. Oh, I want Jesus. That's for sure. Oh, I want eternal salvation. Yeah, I know I want that. I even want to study the Bible and learn how to be better at this thing called Christianity. But do I want to stand between the God of heaven and earth and simple people and bring about reconciliation? No, I really don't. In Orlando, we don't have manly barber shops, at least I haven't been able to find one. All we have is unisex places. You know, the kind of place you go with men and women do it, okay, together, okay. And that would be okay, except that somehow in these stores they get training and part of the training is that they talk to the customers. I mean, they would just sit there and just cut your hair and be fine, but no, they have to ask you things. They have to talk to you and gauge you. I guess they think that's good public relations and things. I just hate it. Because you know what they do. They pull my little ticket out and they say, well, good Richard is so good to have you here today. Where do you live? Well, I live here in Orlando. Well, you know what's coming next, right? What do you do? Now, I so do not want to engage people. I so much do not want to be a minister of reconciliation to stand between God and people. That is many times I have done this. How much are you sure? You're what? I'm a teacher. Well, what do you teach? Just religion. You teach religion? What do you do that in the old days? I would say, a seminary. Are you a rabbi? See, we don't have Protestants in Orlando. You're either Catholic or rabbi, okay. If you have a seminary. And of course, inevitably, then the conversation is moving in the direction, right? And it's just terrible because quite often. It doesn't happen every single time, but quite often. By the time my hair cut is finished, the whole store has stopped and they're listening to me talk about that I really believe in the Bible. You really believe that Jesus is the only way for people to be saved. How can you possibly believe that this day and age? And you know what I wish they would do is just leave me alone. Don't you have enough burdens in your own personal life not to take on the burdens of other people? Don't you? I do. Don't you have enough troubles and worries about your own family life not to bring other people in who are just going to make it even more complicated and more difficult? I do. I want them to lead me alone. Let me have a private life, please.
So what I do that is because God has reconciled me to Himself in Christ and He has given me and you a ministry of reconciliation. Now, we almost naturally say, Yuck, but I want you to hear what the Apostle Paul said. We are there for Christ's ambassadors and He chooses that technical, political word, ambassador. Because what He's trying to communicate here is at least two things. First that this is a great privilege, not a burden. To be an ambassador is absolutely remarkable. I remember the first ambassador I ever met. It was Shirley Temple. Shirley Temple Black was the ambassador of the United States to Czechoslovakia. And we were over there with a church group and we were doing evangelism and things and Senator Trent Lott got us an appointment with the ambassador Shirley Temple Black. I remember being awakened early in the morning. I think we had just arrived at night before. And the leader of the group said, hey, really, really, really, do you want to go see Shirley Temple? I didn't even know what was happening. You want to go see her? We got the appointment. I said, well, sure, sure, of course. So I jumped in the car and you know how it is over there. You know, you make a 30-minute trip and 15 minutes in the taxi. I was in the back putting my shoes and socks on and things because I was just jet lagged terribly. And for some reason, everybody in the car kept saying, rich, rich, what are you going to say? I said, what? I'm not going to say anything. Come on, Richard, what are you going to say? What are you going to say? Finally, I came up with it. All right, this is what I'm going to do just to spite you. I'm going to ask you to sing Good Ship Lollipop. You may not know me, but that's exactly the kind of thing I do. So I'm trying to remember the words. I'm singing the song and working through it, remembering candy shop. Yeah, that's right. Okay. I got it. Okay. I got it. Now, I'm ready. So I walk up to the big Plexiglass window where there was standing behind it a the largest ugliest US Marine Corps man I've ever met in my entire life. He was huge. And he didn't like the fact that I was Good Ship Lollipop in front of him. I mean, he stared me down until I put my hands in my pocket like this. And finally, I got enough courage to give him my passport. Apparently there had been some kind of bomb for it or something. They were on high security alert. He didn't like the fact that some guy was dancing around trying to remember the words the Good Ship Lollipop. So we were marched up to her office under armed guard. We went into the office about 15 of us. And we sat there. She wasn't there. So we all just sat there. Or I should say they all sat there because I'm remembering Good Ship Lollipop. And I don't have any regard for her at all. So I'm walking around her office. Well, everybody else, these Mississippians, we're sitting there with their hands folded and their laughs. Okay. So I'm walking around the office just kind of noticing she's got all these pictures around. And as I walk around, I notice, well, they're Shirley Temple with Mount St. Dome. They're Shirley Temple with the Queen of England. And she wasn't bowing before, curtsing before the Queen of England. They had to arm around each other. There she is with Ronald Reagan. There she is with older George Bush. There she is with this world leader and that world leader. And I'm all of a sudden impressed. Okay. This is not an ordinary person. It's amazing. And just as that happened, the big double doors opened up. And she was on the opposite side of me from the group, the group was in the middle. And there was this parting of the Red Sea of the group as they all stood up. Okay. And they were saying, come on, Richard. Come on, Richard. So I walked down, right down the Red Sea and some of the students that were in the group were going, Richard. Richard. Richard. They really wanted it to happen. So I went up to her and I put my hand out like this. And I said, how do you do, Madam Ambassador? There is a great privilege to be here with you. Why? Because I realized how significant she was. I have to tell you something. And I hope you can begin to believe it. Surely Temple's job was nothing compared to the honor that has been given to you. Because these United States of America will come and go just like every other empire the world has ever seen. And that's all she was representing. But you are an ambassador of the kingdom that will never end. The king of the entire universe is chosen to speak to people through you. Having this role of ambassador is not something to be ashamed of or hesitant about or wishing I really didn't have this burden in my life. It is the highest privilege we could possibly imagine having as members of the kingdom of God. A privilege to let other people know how they can be reconciled to God. Let other people know what Jesus has done for you. Let other people know what you believe. It's a great honor to be able to speak on Jesus behalf. Can you believe that? If you can start believing that, you might actually not shrink back when the opportunity comes up. When the conversation goes a particular direction, you might not shrink back and want to stay private but actually open your life to someone. And say, this is who I am. Do you want what I've got? A reconciliation with God? You can have it too. Now, that's the one side of being ambassador. But I want you to understand the other side too. These days, if an ambassador goes to a foreign country, they're under protection. They have helicopters sometimes flying over them. They have soldiers and Marines surrounding them, making sure that the ambassador is safe. Well, in Paul's day, in the Roman Empire, that's not the way it was. A lot of you saw the movie Gladiator. Do you remember this movie? And how it opens in the beginning? The Roman soldiers are waiting to see whether or not they're going to fight a particular battle with Germanic barbarians. And they're waiting because they have sent an ambassador over to the Germanic camp. They are suing for peace. They don't want to fight. They're ready to fight if it's going to come, but they don't want to fight. So they send the ambassador over. And this is the way the movie begins. The ambassador's head is thrown out of the woods into the front of the Roman army and the battle is on. Because you see, in the ancient world, that's what ambassadors did. They went into the camp of the enemy and often lost their lives suing for peace. When the Apostle Paul says that his life is one of them being an ambassador, he considers it a great honor. But he's not naive about what that meant. Because he goes on right in this very book and he says, what this meant was, I was beaten up in one city. I went to the next, I was beaten up there and left for dead. I went to the next, they threw me in jail and on and on and on. He goes and he says, you know what? He was all going from glory to glory to glory to glory. To be an ambassador of Christ means that you live in a way that actually opens yourself up to being hurt, to being rejected by people. And at certain times, in certain places, even physically harmed by people. Now Francis Schaeffer said something that I think is very true about evangelicals. For the end of his life, he said, even evangelicalism began to fail in this country when evangelicals took on the priorities of the middle class of America. And this is what he meant by that. Peace of mind and safety and security as your highest goods. As the thing you want more than anything else, security, peace of mind, safety. Life is like that for us, isn't it? Isn't that what we strive for every single day? He said we lost our fire when that became our ethic, when that became our goal, when that became our dream. And I think he's right. He called it the great evangelical disaster. And we are now seeing the results of it because you and I have taken on the dream of being safe, comfortable, secure and having peace of mind. Thanks be to God that Jesus didn't have that. And thanks be to God that the Apostle Paul didn't have that. Because he knew that the privilege of being a servant and an ambassador of Jesus, one with the Ministry of Reconciliation meant that yes, he was actually going to be injuring himself. I mean, we are so concerned about this that just two years ago now, I had the opportunity. I was invited to Egypt, to Alexandria Egypt that you've seen on TV recently, to give a talk, a public talk that was advertised in newspapers and on the radio. And this was the talk public, a public arena. Does Israel have a right to the land of Palestine? They said, would you come and talk about that in public, Muslims, everybody. I said, sure, I'd be happy to be great. And I actually had people call me up and try to dissuade me from going. I actually had people call me up and offer to hire bodyguards for me. I said, are you crazy? If I can lose a hand over there or lose an eye, can you imagine the amount of money I can get for third millennium? I mean, if I'd come here tonight and say, do you see this? Do you see this? I did it for Jesus. Give me some money. You did give me money, wouldn't you? I said, what am I afraid of? How could I possibly be afraid of what they might do to me? Why would I ever want a bodyguard when I have Jesus and His angels, when I have Holy Spirit and the angels? If I lose a hand and eye, if I lose my life, well, that'd be just great as far as I'm concerned, way to go. So I tested it out when I got there. The last line of my hour talked with them was, and the king of the Jews, Jesus, owns Mecca. I thought it was going to happen, but there was not even an Alawah Akbar or anything. They just sort of sat there. It was a disappointment. But there were less. The point is, is that we're so afraid of rejection, so afraid of people not liking us, so afraid of losing status, so afraid of losing life and men that were actually not willing to be the ambassadors of the king of the universe. So yes, we have to be changed in the way we think about people, but we've also got to realize what a great and wonderful calling we have to be ambassadors of Jesus, even as He was an ambassador of the Father. And then there's a third thing that the Apostle Paul says here, and I want you to hear it because it's just so important. This is the hard part for you and me. Verse 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. Did you hear the message that He gave? We implore you. The old King James says, we beseech thee. That's how I remember. I stood as a child. We beseech thee. Be reconciled unto God. Some translations say, we beg you. We plead with you. Be reconciled to God. Notice what it doesn't say here. We command you. Be reconciled to God. We preach at you. Be reconciled to God. We invite you to be reconciled to God. No, no, none of that because that doesn't express the intensity that the Apostle wanted to convey at this moment. Why am I interested in you, Corinthians? Why am I sent to you? Why am I giving my life to you? It's because this is my attitude. This is my approach to you. This is my outlook on you. I am imploring you. I am begging you. I'm pleading with you. Be reconciled to God. Well, when do you beg and plead and implore people in that way? What does this reveal about his heart? It reveals that he actually cared about them. Some of you parents have gone through this. When you've seen your teenage children taking the wrong path and you know they're ruining their lives, you know, at first you might have gotten angry and yelled at them and told them they're never going out of the house again and things like that. But you know, if they stay on that track, they're wandering away. Eventually, you know what starts happening. You eventually get to the point that you plead with them not to do this. You beg them. Don't do this. Why do parents do that? It's because they care about their children. It's so easy, isn't it? For you and me, when we see this country of ours changing like it has, when we see politics going the way it is, when we see morality going the way it is, when we see public life going the way it is, isn't it easy? To have the attitude of anger and bitterness and resentment toward the people around us. Isn't it easy? You know it is. But it's not the attitude that the apostle had. We implore you. Means we care about you. We really want good for you. And you know as well as I do that if we're not for Jesus, you and I would be a part of the deterioration of our society. So it's time for us to replace the resentment, replace the bitterness, replace the anger with care and concern and love. Because if we do not do this, you know what's going to happen. Bitterness, anger, simply closes the door on people and says to them, we don't want you with us. We don't want to have to exercise patience with you. We don't want to have to be kind to you. Stay away from us. Stay away from our church. Stay away from my family. I want nothing to do with you. I want nothing to do with you. Who invited you to move into my neighborhood and where Berka anyway? Who invited you here? This is my country. Go back where you came from. They're not going back. They're not going back. The only way for you and me living now to have any hope that our children are not going to be facing a nightmare is for us to change the bitterness and the anger and exchange it for. I really care about you. What's it like to live inside of there? Of course, I'm talking about Muslims, but it works with other people too. But let me just tell you one of the things that happens. The surveys have been done among Muslims who have converted to Christianity in the Middle East. The question was, what was it that caused you to convert? The number one answer, you might be surprised at this, is they saw a miracle. You've probably heard some of those stories of Muslims having a dream about Jesus. This doesn't even know what the image is and he says, someone's coming and talking to you tomorrow. That's a common thing that happens, apparently. And then tomorrow a Christian just happens to come and talk to them. Things like that, a child's sick, taken to a preacher and the child becomes well after the preacher prays for him. That was the number one. Do you know what was number two? In those countries where Christians are looked upon badly and pushed aside into the minority and mistreated. The number two reason why they converted was because the Christians cared about me when my fellow Muslims did not. I suspect we're not going to have a lot of miracles happen here at Carriage Lane, but we can have a lot of caring going on. And for the sake of our children, if nothing else, we've got to exchange the bitterness for the love. So here we are then, sort of asking ourselves, is it possible really to be a significant part of the mission that Jesus has sent us to perform? The answer is yes, it is. If we can be changed people. If we can realize what kind of wonderful yet risky calling we've been given. And if we will learn to care, let's pray together. Our Lord Jesus, we don't want to be these kinds of people. We don't want to be people who exclude and divide and separate those that are important and those that aren't. We don't want to be like that because we know what that would have meant for us and we know what it would have meant for you. We don't want that. And we also want to be people who can see the risky business of being an ambassador as a privilege and an honor. We really do want to be that way. And we want to be people who can look at others lost in their sins and not become bitter and angry with them, but love them. We really want to be like that, but we just can't do it on our own. So we need you Holy Spirit to change us, to empower us, to make us aware, to write these things on our hearts so that we won't turn away from them. We need you Holy Spirit to make us like Jesus.