Missio Dei: WK5 - WED
AMBASSADORS IN BETWEEN
2 Corinthians 5:17-20 (NLT) “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him... So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us.”
Remember the middle school cafeteria? Long before cell phones, if your friend liked someone, they didn't send a text or DM. They wrote a note on a piece of notebook paper, handed it to you, and made you the messenger. You didn't write it. You didn’t compose the feelings inside it. But you had to carry it across a room that felt a mile wide, because your friend was too terrified to do it themselves. If you’ve ever done that, you already understand the core of what it means to be an ambassador. You’re just carrying someone else's message.
They don’t become citizens of the place they’re sent to. But they don’t hold the place at arm’s length either. They are fully present , learning the language, understanding the culture, navigating its systems , while remaining rooted in their commission and their identity. They are there on behalf of someone else, carrying a message they did not compose and an offer they did not generate, but which they are fully authorized to make.
Paul says that is what we are. Christ’s ambassadors. Which means we are people of the in-between: fully present in the world, genuinely engaged with the culture, the neighborhood, the workplace, the political reality. But present on behalf of another kingdom, carrying a message of reconciliation that did not originate in us, but in the God who, in Christ, was already reconciling the world to himself.
“God is making his appeal through us.” This sentence should stop us in our tracks. The appeal of God to a broken world is, in some genuine sense, mediated through the lives and voices and presence of his people. He could have done this differently. He chose this , the same pattern as the incarnation, the same downward, present-in-the-mess method. He sends people. He speaks through them. He makes his appeal through ordinary lives that have been made new.
You are in the middle of an era that has not yet ended. The new creation has begun, Paul says the old has gone, the new has come, but the reconciliation of all things is not yet complete. You live in the overlap, the in-between, the now-and-not-yet. And in that in-between, you are not waiting. You are sent. You are an ambassador. God is making his appeal through you.
2 Corinthians 5:17-20 (NLT) “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him... So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us.”
Remember the middle school cafeteria? Long before cell phones, if your friend liked someone, they didn't send a text or DM. They wrote a note on a piece of notebook paper, handed it to you, and made you the messenger. You didn't write it. You didn’t compose the feelings inside it. But you had to carry it across a room that felt a mile wide, because your friend was too terrified to do it themselves. If you’ve ever done that, you already understand the core of what it means to be an ambassador. You’re just carrying someone else's message.
They don’t become citizens of the place they’re sent to. But they don’t hold the place at arm’s length either. They are fully present , learning the language, understanding the culture, navigating its systems , while remaining rooted in their commission and their identity. They are there on behalf of someone else, carrying a message they did not compose and an offer they did not generate, but which they are fully authorized to make.
Paul says that is what we are. Christ’s ambassadors. Which means we are people of the in-between: fully present in the world, genuinely engaged with the culture, the neighborhood, the workplace, the political reality. But present on behalf of another kingdom, carrying a message of reconciliation that did not originate in us, but in the God who, in Christ, was already reconciling the world to himself.
“God is making his appeal through us.” This sentence should stop us in our tracks. The appeal of God to a broken world is, in some genuine sense, mediated through the lives and voices and presence of his people. He could have done this differently. He chose this , the same pattern as the incarnation, the same downward, present-in-the-mess method. He sends people. He speaks through them. He makes his appeal through ordinary lives that have been made new.
You are in the middle of an era that has not yet ended. The new creation has begun, Paul says the old has gone, the new has come, but the reconciliation of all things is not yet complete. You live in the overlap, the in-between, the now-and-not-yet. And in that in-between, you are not waiting. You are sent. You are an ambassador. God is making his appeal through you.
- What does it mean to you to be an ambassador for Christ?
- How can you remain fully engaged in the world while rooted in God’s kingdom?
- In what ways might God be making his appeal through your life right now?
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