I know of, and I'll put that wireless back on in just a moment, one of the best songs I know of to sing in the shower and with the windows wide open so that you're giving testimony to your neighbors of a couple things, your redeemed life and your inability to sing. I'm sure there's a better way to do this quickly and efficiently than I have mastered here. Alright. Turn in your Bibles, please. We're not going to be long, I promise. 2 Corinthians chapter 5. 2 Corinthians chapter 5. Are we on, brother? Alright, good. This is a great chapter in a great letter. And obviously, we're not going to exhaust it in just a few moments. I want to park on one of the concepts, one of the words that Paul zeros in on here in this chapter. You follow along as I read. We'll begin with verse 14. For the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead. And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again. That's essentially the same message as Romans 12, 1, the end of the verse where it says, and this is your reasonable service. Wherefore, henceforth know we no man after the flesh, yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. All things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new and all things are of God who has reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and has given to us the ministry of reconciliation. Father, I pray. That you would instruct us by your Holy Spirit this evening as we consider the heart, the message of the Apostle Paul here in this letter to the Corinthian church. Make it profitable to every heart. I pray if there's one here that's not yet saved that this might be the hour of their salvation. Grow in your children's lives and in their hearts. Christ likeness, we pray in his precious name. Amen. The word we want to park alongside of tonight is the word reconciliation. Reconciliation. It's a $5 theological word and it basically means there's a number of definitions in the dictionary if you look it up. One of them might be the removal of an enmity. When I was a kid, I thought enemy and enmity were the same word. They're related, but they're not the same. The removal of an enmity, the bridging of a broken relationship, the resolution or bringing about of peace between warring parties. As a musician, I love this one to bring back into harmony. The world tonight has conflicts like, well, I can't say like no time in history because man has always had conflicts. There are no less than probably 100 armed conflicts going on in the world this hour. We think of the war as the war in Iraq and maybe even branched out into the war of Iraq and Afghanistan, but there are not less than 100 armed conflicts going on in the world. Many of them are on my blessed nation or continent of Africa. And most of these conflicts are either tribal or they're religious or they're a combination thereof. In fact, that's true of man's history. Most of the conflicts have been either tribal or religious or a combination of those two. But I'm here tonight to tell you that based on the truth of scripture, there is no greater enmity There is no greater gulf than the gulf between the holiness of God and my sin. And yet the scripture says that God has reconciled us to himself. Now think about that for just a moment. Our father in heaven, our heavenly father is the author of reconciliation. The scripture never says in any verse that I'm aware of that we reconciled ourselves to God. We could not reconcile ourselves to God. There is nothing about us that allows us to move one millimeter toward God. God is always the initiator. God is always the one that draws man. We like sheep have gone astray and everyone has gone unto his own way. We're scattered like sheep running away from God, but one day Through the testimony of another believer and my exposure to the Word of God God the Father drew me to himself and brought me to that place where I understood that I was lost and He is the author of reconciliation It was my sin that brought about the great chasm Think with me for just a moment of David's sin. Now David was a rank sinner. Even though the Bible refers to him once in the Old Testament and once in the New Testament as a man after God's own heart. If I played a word association game with you tonight and I just said these two words and you could only respond in one word, the two words are David's sin. Your one word response would almost exclusively be Bathsheba. And yet, there are a number of other of David's grievous and heinous sins listed for us in scripture. But isn't it interesting? It's in which Psalm is it in? 37 or 51, where David says, now Bathsheba has been violated. Bathsheba's husband, Uriah the Hittite, has been slain in battle. David's family is going to suffer the consequences of David's choice for generations. And yet, what does David say? Against thee and thee only have I sinned. Because our offense primarily and firstmost is against the holiness of God. God is absolute holy, has always been, is now, forever will be, and He is diametrically opposed to sin. Romans 5, verses 6-10, For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die, But get the contrast. But God commended his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us much more than being now justified by his blood. We shall be saved from wrath through him for if when we were enemies. Now we don't like to think of ourselves as enemies of God but that was our state before our salvation. Enemies. Enemies of God for yet when we were enemies we were Reconciled to God by the death of his son much more being reconciled We shall be saved by his life. Who is the author of reconciliation our loving Heavenly Father Who is the agent of reconciliation go to the text? verse 19 to wit that God was next two words class in Christ and Reconciling the world unto himself Jesus Christ is the author or excuse me the agent of Reconciliation Peter says it this way for as much as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold From your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot first Peter 1 verses 18 and 19 and Have you thought recently about all that you have in the person and work of Christ? You have escaped from the horror of hell. You have the indwelling Holy Spirit. You have the free gift of eternal life. You have the privilege of serving him. Just start a list and continue the list. I was telling the folks at lunch today that I used to ask my seventh grade Bible class. I love seventh graders. Are there any seventh graders are gone? Are they here? Be brave. Confess if you're a seven. There's the one. There's a couple. unique critters, seventh graders. I used to ask my seventh grade Bible class, I say, OK, guys, take out a sheet of paper and I want you to list for me the unrevealed attributes of God. And they take the paper out in 10 minutes of silence, you know, and. Pastor Anderson, yes, would you repeat the question? I want you to list the unrevealed attributes of God. Another five minutes of nothing. Can we know those? No, we can't. We don't know everything about God. We're going to continue to learn about God through eternity. The more we learn, the more it will force us on our knees before Him in worship. We've been clothed in the absolute righteousness of the Lamb that was slain. We've been judicially declared righteous on the merits of another. We have the wrath of God satisfied or propitiated. erased, effaced, the price of redemption has been paid, the ransom, we've passed from darkness into the light of his presence, we've passed from death into life everlasting, and the list just goes on. How is it that we have all those things? Because of the agent of reconciliation, the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me put a parenthetical advertisement in, political advertisement free of charge. Make your heirs on the side of calling him who he is, the Lord Jesus Christ. What am I saying? I'm saying don't don't allow yourself to develop this Jesus is my good buddy mentality. You know, when Jimmy Swigert fell, he's still in the ministry, by the way, That's wrong. But when his affair and his habits came to light, not long after that, John MacArthur was having lunch with a Assemblies of God pastor friend of his. And this Assemblies of God pastor was telling John MacArthur that every day when he got up and he went into the bathroom and he was shaving, he could look in the mirror and Jesus, his good friend Jesus, was standing next to him in the bathroom. And John MacArthur didn't say anything, he just proceeded to eat his lunch. And the Assemblies of God pastor said, you don't believe that, do you, Brother John? And John MacArthur wiped his mouth off and put his napkin down. He said, now, let me get this straight. You say that when you look in the mirror in the morning, you're shaving, you can see the Son of God standing next to you. He said, that's right, Brother John. MacArthur said, I just have one question. Do you keep shaving? that you're in the presence of God, you should be on the floor. We have brought, we have tried to bring God down to our level and make Him our friend. Folks, we have no allowance to do that. Now, if you look at the Gospel accounts, you'll see the Lord Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, Christ the Lord, the Son of Man, Jesus. You'll see Jesus many times because that was His name of humanity. But if you leave the Gospels, and I'm not saying reject them, I'm just saying depart from the Gospels and go through the epistles, you'll see the name Jesus all by itself rarely. Now you see the Lord Jesus Christ, Christ Jesus the Lord. Why? Because he is on the throne. Now he's not on the millennial throne. Don't get me wrong. I'm not a post millennialist. We're not living in the millennium. This is the millennium folks we have. We're in deep trouble because that is a reign of a thousand years of righteousness. But we need to err away from the tendency in our day and in our world in which we live of making Jesus just one of our pals and buddies. He is God in the flesh. All of this we have in the person and work of Jesus Christ. How about the adequacy of reconciliation. To what extent is the reconciliation. Is it only for the elect. Look at the text. To wit that God was in Christ, reconciling next to world the words class. Reconciling the world. Unto himself. Limited atonement, I don't think so. John 1, 29, behold, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the elect, no, taketh away the sin of the world. It's it's efficacious for the elect, but it's sufficient for all mankind. He is the propitiation, 1 John 2.2, not for our sins only, but for the sins of the entire world. 2 Peter 3.9, God is not slack concerning His promise as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come unto repentance. The adequacy of the reconciliation offered in Jesus Christ goes to every soul. 800 million in Africa, 300 million plus in the United States, 1 billion souls plus in India, 1 billion in China, We were talking at the table this morning about the 10-40 window. How many of you are familiar with the concept of the 10-40 window? It's from 10 degrees north to 40 degrees north and from the extreme of Western Africa all the way to the edge of Asia, excluding Japan, excluding the Koreas. It takes into account that square, that rectangle rather, 10 degrees north, 40 degrees north. If you're looking at me, the map, West Africa over to the edge of Asia, that's 80% of the world's population. It's 1% of the missionary dollars spent. It's 4% of the missionary manpower. Because that that's a hard place. That's the world's hardest languages. It's the world's most ingrained religiosity, Buddhism, Shintoism, communism, Hinduism. I mean, it's all there. And we avoid it like, you know, like it's a plague. Those people need to hear the gospel, it's it's, you know, good news is a synonym, a scriptural synonym for the gospel. But it's only good news if it gets there in time. By the way, if you're here without Christ, let me share the good news of salvation with you. You need to trust Christ while you're alive. You say, well, I'll be living for a long time. You don't know that. There's no guarantee. Most people that died today and thousands of people died today, very few of them knew that they were going to die. Every breath is a gift from God. You have no right to think that you can wait and do something later that God would have you to do now. Today is the day of salvation. Now is the accepted time. Who are the ambassadors of reconciliation? Verse 18. All things are of God who has reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and has given to us the ministry of reconciliation. What a plan. On my short list of things to ask God about when I get to heaven is why would he choose to have us do the ministry of reconciliation? Because frankly, we're not doing very well. How many of the 6.8 now, 6.8 soon to be 7 billion people on the planet, how many of them are still waiting to hear the gospel the first time? The guesstimate is between a third and a half. Never heard Jesus Christ's name once. We're not doing so well, folks. We have the technology, we have the methodology, but it's a labor problem still. And you and I are ambassadors of reconciliation. Verse 20, now then, Paul says, we are ambassadors for Christ. What a commissioning. Did you know that ambassadors are chosen representatives of heads of state? Every ambassador in every embassy and consulate around the world, when Barack Obama was elected president and then inaugurated on the 20th of January, every ambassador was required to tender their resignation to President Obama. Because they're not in their post to represent the United States of America, but to represent the President of the United States of America. Now think of the privilege of being an ambassador of the president, the most powerful person in the free world, probably the most powerful position in the entirety of the world, to be their ambassador. We've got one better than that. We're ambassadors for Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords, and we dare never forget it. Did you know that ambassadors are protected? I didn't know when we first went to the embassy in Lomé, Togo. It was several trips later when I found out that when we went across the dirt road in the capital there and went past the Marine Guard, in those days there were two Marines at the Lomé, Togo embassy, U.S. embassy. Now there's probably 20 because the security is greatly increased now over what it was in the early 80s. But when we would step onto that sidewalk, we were no longer on Togolese soil. We were on United States soil. That's true of every embassy, U.S. embassy in the world. It's U.S. soil, right in the middle of that foreign country. You want to give a lift to your song, this world is not my home. I'm just a passing through. My treasures are laid out somewhere beyond the blue. Think about that. Everywhere you go, you're on foreign soil. And yet you're that little place where you stand is a piece of heaven. And you're an ambassador of heaven. You're an ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ. Ambassadors will all give an account one day of their task. That's, by the way, in this chapter, verse 10. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that everyone may receive the things done in his body, according to that he has done, whether it be good or bad, every one of us, we're not going to stand there in mass as a group of believers. I'm going to stand by myself and look into the two eyes of the Lord Jesus Christ and give an account of how I served him. And you are, too, if you're a believer. Ambassadors are called home before the war is declared. That's a rule. And it's a scriptural rule. When the tribulation starts, if you're a believer, you won't be here. You'll be called home before the war starts. You say, well, you know, I don't know that I want to be an ambassador of Christ. What a privilege. There's no higher privilege. What a responsibility. This gives brand new significance to the to the what we sometimes think of as the burden of witnessing. Witnessing is not a burden. We get to be ambassadors for Christ. We get to knock on that door or knock on that heart and share with them the unsearchable riches of Christ because we are ambassadors. Christ isn't coming back to win people to himself. He's given that task to me and to you believer friend. Think of that. We've looked at the author of Reconciliation, the agent, the adequacy, the ambassadors of Reconciliation, and finally, the antagonist of Reconciliation. What is it that makes us do this? It's in the text. It's the verse we started with. The love of Christ constraineth us, literally takes a cord and binds us up. We can't do anything else. We have to be an ambassador. We get to be an ambassador. We're constrained to do that and to do that only and to do it well. It is the impetus. It is the catalyst. It is the provocation. The love of Christ. You might say, well, is that love of Christ there? Is that Christ's love for me or my love for Christ? I would say the answer is yes. It's both. Why do we love him? Because he first loved us. Oh, the bitter pain and sorrow that a time could ever be when I proudly said to Jesus, all of self and none of Thee. But He found me. I beheld Him hanged upon that cursed tree, and my foolish heart said faintly, some of self and some of Thee. Day by day, His tender mercies, healing, helping, full and free, drew me closer while I whispered less of self. and more of Thee. Higher than the highest mountains, deeper than the deepest sea, Lord, at last Thy love hath conquered none of self and all of Thee." What a privilege we have to be ambassadors for Him and His love is the constraining force. Umm Nidal. The woman known as Mother of Martyrs made headlines for a day around the world in January of 2006 when the major news outlets picked up on an interview that she gave December 21st of 2005. Umm Nidal was a Palestinian mother who was a parliamentary candidate for Hamas in then the recently held Palestinian legislative elections. Omni doll is the mother or was the mother of ten sons to date when this was written She had voluntarily sacrificed three of her sons for the sake of resisting the occupiers Who are the occupiers? Israel My Bible says the nations that bless Israel. God will bless the nations that curse Israel. God will destroy It said it since the time it was written and God's not going to change it Her son, Mohammed, was the most recent to give his life for the cause. In her own words in this interview, she says, Mohammed carried out his operation at a military academy. They were all soldiers. This was not a bombing operation. He carried a regular weapon, a Kalashnikov. Who makes Kalashnikov? Russia. Communism, folks, is not dead. It's just changed its clothing. He carried a Kalashnikov and hand grenades. He went in. There were several rooms. He went from room to room and shot them. He continued for 22 minutes, during which time he was in total control until he ran out of ammunition. Martyrdom was inevitable in this operation. The interviewer asked Umm, did you cry? She says, at first I did not cry. I said Allah Akbar and bowed in gratitude. The truth is, I was ashamed to say Allah help me in my tragedy because I consider this a blessing, not a tragedy. As a human being, I feel these emotions very deeply. Believe me, when it comes to my sons, I am one of the most compassionate mothers. But this is a sacred duty which no emotion can supersede. Now listen carefully to what Umm Nidal says next. We cannot stop sacrificing just because we feel pain. What is the meaning of sacrifice? One sacrifice is what is precious, not what is of little value. My children are the most precious thing in my life. That is why I sacrificed them for a greater cause for Allah, who is more precious than them. My son is not more precious than his God. The interviewer says, you have 10 sons. If another is killed, will your heart be filled with unbearable sorrow? She says, no, no. Allah be praised. I am preparing myself. I will sacrifice them all. If my duty requires me to sacrifice them all, I will not refuse, even if it costs me 100 sons. And as an ambassador for Christ, I get to leave a gospel tract at a restaurant or hand it to a clerk in a store, in a motel, and I get to say to them, the Bible tells us that you can know that you're going to spend eternity in heaven. But I don't do that because to do that might be an embarrassment to me. It's an inconvenience for me to carry tracks where I go. It's an inconvenience to speak to my neighbor. May God help us to stop being ashamed of being ambassadors for the Lord Jesus Christ. Father in Heaven,