Tell The Story

This podcast is a ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.

For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.

Let's pray together.

Lord, we've uh we're here today to better understand how to do exactly that, to bear our cross while we wait for the crown.

But but really an emphasis today on that last part.

Uh we're here to tell the world of this treasure that we found.

We confess today, God, that you're the treasure hidden in the field.

You're the pearl of great price.

And we want to we we want to sell everything we have to buy the field that contains the treasure.

Because you're the treasure.

The kingdom of God is the treasure.

We are not the treasure that you're gonna sell everything to purchase.

That is a bad hermeneutic.

That's no gospel at all.

That's just human enlightenment and the centrality of mankind.

But God, you're the treasure hidden in the field.

And we want to sell every other way of life, every other way of thinking, every other thing that we've kind of given allegiance and affection to.

We want to say, no more of that.

So, Lord, uh, we uh I want to invoke that great line from the hymn that says, You break the power of canceled sin, you set the prisoner free.

Your blood can make the foulest clean, your blood availed for me.

Because the blood of Jesus was enough to change me, it could change anybody.

Uh and so uh we're not at the mercy of our addictions or our appetites.

So we just apply the blood of Jesus over that today and say, Lord, silence and quell that voice in us that says, you know what you need right now.

And turn up the volume on your voice in our head and in our heart today, Lord.

Uh we believe that you're a God whose arms are open wide to anyone.

And so whosoever will, let them come today.

Make of us the kind of men and women uh that you're telling your story through.

That's our prayer, God.

Equip us for this reality in Jesus' name.

When everyone said, Amen.

You can have a seat.

I invite you, if you've got a Bible, to take and open up to 2 Corinthians chapter 5.

2 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

And uh we're gonna finish the series we've been in called The Story.

The story has just been a three-part series that we want to just kind of refresh and remind and reorient ourselves around the story that God is telling.

Uh, the first part of it was knowing the story, knowing the story of what God is doing in the world and what God has always been doing, uh, so that when you get in conversations, you can contextualize the gospel uh in an appropriate way.

You don't have to bend the conversation and awkwardly bring up something like, hey, hey, Bill, if you come to the point in your life, you know for sure if you died tonight, you'd go to heaven.

Because if I'm Bill, I'm looking at you like, what are you talking about?

But being gospel fluid means we can bring the gospel to bear on any conversation, any circumstance.

The first step of that is just kind of knowing the story God's been telling.

Last week we talked about living the story.

We begin to live the story of God when we subject our story to God's story.

In churches nowadays, there's a lot of language about our story and our story and our story.

If we're not careful, our story becomes preeminent, and the story of God is just kind of a baseline to our story.

Uh that's not the that's not the gospel.

And so we escape the self.

Uh we we we we stop living this false identity and we become, step into who the Bible says we really are.

This morning I want to talk to you about just telling the story.

Telling the story.

Now, by the way, when I say tell the story, I'm not I'm not gonna say I want you to go out and share Jesus with three people, though that would be wonderful.

Uh, that's more about behavior modification because here's the reality uh this is not about sharing your faith.

This is about getting to a level of understanding where your faith shares you.

Let me say that again.

This is not about me trying to motivate you to go out there and share your faith.

This is about you understanding the gospel to such a point that your faith just shares you.

Allow me to demonstrate.

Yesterday, did some yard work.

By the way, it was hotter than Hades yesterday.

It was like my house was a mirage.

I was standing in the front yard, like, whoo! Hurry up and mow.

And so then I thought, I there's some stuff down at the church I need to get taken care of.

So I came down here and did some work.

I go back, I take a shower.

My wife, being the good woman that she is, has recorded the PGA championship golf tournament.

I am fantasizing about showering up, laying on my bed, and watching the whole thing undisturbed all afternoon.

So I get home about three, I shower up, I lay on the bed, I'm kind of like, oh, about 20 minutes into that, I thought, you know what, I never ate lunch, so I thought a savory snack would be good right now.

There's two kinds of snackers there's sweet snackers and there's savory snackers.

Now, if you like sweet, can I see your hand?

Anybody like sweet?

Losers, put your hands down.

If you like savory, yes.

And so I go in the kitchen to get a savory snack, and I come back and I'm watching, and I glance down at my phone, and I had a message, and I thought, oh, this is horrible.

You know what I thought?

I hope that person doesn't need something.

And I picked it up and I hit play and I heard the voice of my friend David from San Antonio that said, Hey Neil, this is David Guy and I'm broke down on I-10 at exit 753.

I wonder if you knew a place I could get my truck towed to.

I was driving down I-10, all of a sudden my truck just stopped working.

And I thought, no! Surely in the greater Houston area, he knows somebody besides me.

But this is one of those moments, I'm not making that up.

And I'm just saying, this is one of those moments where if it was up to me to share my faith, I would have done it.

But my faith shares me.

And so I found myself just hitting callback, and I called him and said, Hey, buddy, where are you?

I'm sorry I don't know when you call.

I must be in the kitchen.

But what's the deal?

He said, I'm I'm I'm getting my truck towed to Mack Chevrolet up on IT.

And he's a worship leader of a church in San Antonio.

And I said in the phone, I said, Hey, listen, I am so rich.

I've got two trucks.

I'll bring you one, and you can drive back to San Antonio.

And when your truck gets fixed, just come back and we'll have lunch.

And he goes, Oh man, that would be awesome.

Now, I got one truck that's a lot nicer than the other one.

And so I walked out and I was like, hey, let's give him the nice truck.

And I pulled up in the Mac Hyke yesterday at about six o'clock last night, because I didn't get to see the golf tournament.

I didn't get to take a nap.

Did I mention that part?

Uh and so my wife follows me over there, got out.

He goes, Man, you should have brought me your old prison truck, that beat up truck.

I'm like, listen, not anybody can drive that truck.

You can drive this truck, the nice truck, but you can't drive my special truck.

I reserve that to myself.

My kids learned to drive on that truck, okay?

That thing's gonna go in the Smithsonian when it's done.

And he's like, Well, I feel bad.

And I said, Here's the deal.

This thing, I had the key, I said, hit this button twice, it cranks the truck and turns the air conditioning on.

And he was like, Shut up.

I said, I know, shut up.

And then after I drove away, got five minutes down the road, I thought, what did I just do?

And then I got up this morning and I walked out of my house, and it was like a sauna.

I was like, we live in hell.

Why do I live here?

And I got in my truck and it'd been sitting with the windows up all night, and it was like an easy bake oven.

I was like, unscrew the light bulb.

It is miserable in here.

And I thought, I bet David Guy and just went beep, beep, and it cranked that truck.

I told him, I said, when you about two minutes before you leave, just hit this button twice, he'll crank it and turn the air on, and you'll be cold.

You can hang beef in this thing.

I I live a minute from here.

I was sweating profusely when I pulled into the parking lot.

I was like, I hope he enjoys that truck.

Why do I tell you that?

Because sometimes your faith shares you.

You don't have to share your faith.

What I'm talking to you about this morning, telling the story, is about understanding three basic principles from the Bible that just cause you to kind of, your faith begins to share you.

You don't try to figure out what to say, you embrace these truths this morning, and you'll find yourselves in conversations, situations, and circumstances that you by nature wouldn't get into.

But, because God, you are the medium through which the message of God finds expression.

You realize that if you're a Christian, right?

You are the medium through which the message of God finds expression.

And I'll show you that in the Bible.

Let's read in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, start reading in verse 11.

2 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

He says, Therefore we know the fear of the Lord, we persuade others.

But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is also known to your conscience.

We're not commending ourselves to you again, but we're giving you cause to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance, and not about what is in the heart.

For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God.

If we're in our right mind, it is for you.

For the love of Christ controls us, because we've concluded this that one has died for all, and therefore all have died, and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

Verse sixteen.

From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh.

Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation.

The old is passed away, and behold, the new is come.

All this is from God, who is who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.

That is, in Christ, God was reconciled in the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us a message of reconciliation.

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.

We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

For our sake he made him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Now, by the way, if you're our guest today for the first time, we've been in the same passage for three weeks.

Sometimes we have to read things over and over to let our sight and our senses sink into what the text is actually saying.

When it comes to telling the story, there's three things that the Bible is saying today.

And the first one is simply this: a change in how you see people.

It involves a change in how you see people.

Look at verse 16.

Paul says, by the way, in verse 16 to 21, three times he uses the word, therefore, therefore, therefore.

He basically what he's doing, he's saying, hey, I'm making a point, and then because of this, what I just said, what I'm saying now is predicated on what I just said.

And so when I say a change in how we see people, look at verse 16, he says, So from now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh.

Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.

Now, if you're taking notes, write this down.

How you regard people informs how you respond to people.

How you regard people, because Paul says, hey, we regard no one according to the flesh.

In other words, we don't just kind of look and judge the book by its cover, because we as a culture and a society, we do that.

And this past week, uh uh up in Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, this past weekend, uh a 20-year-old white man got in a car and drove over a crowd of people just because he he disagreed with their political and civil views, killed somebody and injured over 20 people.

That is just crazy.

That is so unnecessary.

But the gospel comes along and says, hey, one of the things it does is it changes the way you see people.

I read an article uh uh about regarding people according to the flesh, and in the article, the the author said this.

He said, There's a there's there are basically 10 ways that we kind of assess people, make judgments about people based on these ten categories.

I'll just list them off here for you.

Appearance, ability, age.

Age.

Someone said to us this morning, actually it was Travis Dunham, our new connections pastor, who this is his first Sunday.

He said, Hey, is your back hurting?

And I was like, Yeah, well, you're walking kind of funny.

That's age discrimination.

I'll be suing him tomorrow.

When the courthouse opens up, I will be there.

Yes, his name is Travis Dunham.

He worked at my church for a half a day.

He's been fired because he made fun of the way I walk.

Yes.

Sometimes I get up in the morning and I'm just kind of I can't feel my legs.

I'm like walking in the kitchen, like, and my kids are like, what's wrong?

Your mother, that's what's wrong.

But we do that.

We discriminate people according to their age, uh, their friends, who are they friends with, their race.

By the way, Fort Bean County is the most ethnically diverse county in the nation.

It just is.

And so you look around this room, our church is ethnically diverse.

The kingdom of God is not a bunch of crackers, which is not.

That's white people for you old folks.

It's just not, okay?

And it's never going to be.

If you look around the throne in the in the book of Revelation, there's a picture, and God says, I saw a multitude of all kindreds, all nations, all tribes, all tongues, all people.

If that's what's going to be in heaven, then that's what it should be in the church.

Not as an effort, not as like, hey, we're going to be ethnically diverse.

People ask me all the time they come to our church, how did you get such an ethnically diverse congregation?

And I just say, Have you been to Walmart?

I mean, you hear seven languages and they ain't none of them are English, okay?

And so we can't be a church in this city and just fill the building with Caucasians and kind of go, we're bringing in the kingdom.

No, you're not.

You're hiding from the culture.

Uh-oh.

Uh-oh.

Oh, don't encourage me.

We'll be here till one.

Uh race, gender, work, uh, home, family, and experience.

And see, here's the reality.

Here's something that's unique and wonderful in the body of Christ.

These things that make us different according to the flesh are overwhelmed in this new life of Jesus that we share in the body of Christ.

You say, I don't I don't know what you mean.

See, who we are according to the flesh died with him.

And now who we are in Christ is born from him.

The Bible says it like this in Galatians chapter 3.

Galatians 3 · chapter mention

He says, For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no, neither male and female, for you are all one in Christ.

Only the gospel has the power and the capacity to take people who are ethnically, culturally, so radically, lifestyle-wise, so different, and put them together in this one homogenous reality called the church.

That's why he says, hey, there's no slave, no free.

Now, back in then, people were like, oh, and then they'd go to worship in the temple, and they had what was called the court of the Gentiles, and they had a wall where the Jews didn't associate with the Gentiles, and they had a way back further out, they had a little roped-off area called the that's where the women, the court of women, women said back there.

And that's why the Bible says, hey, there's no male or female.

You can't distinguish, you can't discriminate against somebody because they're they're not as religious as you, or they don't have the religious pedigree, or that they're they're a woman.

No, no, no.

Jesus abolished all of that.

Matter of fact, the Bible even says in Ephesians chapter 2, he is our peace that has broken down every wall.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

And so that's the reality.

It's demonstrated in the church.

What makes us different according to the flesh falls away in light of this new creating work that Jesus is doing.

Now, this new creation includes men and women from every race, people of all kinds of appearance and age, people of every background and experience, people from every trade, every profession, every level of ability are all brought into this peace with God and this oneness with each other because of the death of Jesus on the cross.

See that when you become a Christian, you don't just get your sins forgiven and you suck it up and suffer well until you die and go to heaven.

No, no, no, no, no.

It's more than that.

You're brought into peace with God, but also you're brought into this oneness with this diverse group of people that God is reconciling to Himself called the church.

And so that's why I always try to say, hey, don't run out when we dismiss you.

Look around and see some of the people around you that are older than you and younger than you, and their skin's a different color than you, and meet those people because you together are the church.

The church is not the people standing up here on the stage.

The church is the people that sit out there in those seats.

You're the church.

You're the people that God entrusts to send his message to the world.

That's why we have to understand there's a change that happens in us.

And this means you don't see people, when I say a change in the way we see people, this means we don't see people through the lens of what they are by nature, but what they can be because of grace.

Let me say that again.

It means that you you don't see people through the lens of what they are by nature, but instead you see people through the lens of what they can be because of grace.

Second thing this involves is a change in what we hope for, a change in what we hope for.

Look at verse 17.

He says, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation.

The old is passed away, and behold, the new is come.

All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.

That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

See, a change in what we hope for.

Here's what's happening in verse 17 and 19.

I think we we lose this sometimes.

Paul is explaining to the people in Corinth why he and his friends live like they do.

That's what he's doing.

He's just kind of laying it out.

That's why in the beginning and in verse 11, he says, Hey, we're giving you guys uh an opportunity to boast in us because you live with people who boast about what is what is seen rather than what is in the heart, but you guys know our heart.

We're not hypocrites, we don't say one thing and do another.

And now he's kind of explaining, he gets to this part in verse 17.

I think sometimes we misunderstand the context.

Let me say this.

When reading the Bible, remember this context is king.

If you take something out of context, you can make it mean something it was never intended to mean.

And I say a change in what we hope for.

Notice that what Paul is doing, he's he's explaining, and he says, this one phrase that I want to break down in three parts.

He says, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation.

Let me just break that down.

If anyone.

Think about that.

Because what Paul is saying, he's not giving his testimony.

What he's saying is, what happened to us can happen to any of you.

Now, you don't get that unless you understand the context of Corinth.

Corinth would make New York City seem like a moral place.

Yeah.

And I've been in New York City.

We took our kids to Times Square.

I had to cover my daughter's eyes and go, let's go over here.

It's just bizarre, just craziness.

Corinth was much worse.

They had temple prostitutes, they had shrines to these false gods and goddesses, and men and women worked there as male and female prostitutes.

And Paul and his friends started taking the gospel to them, and those people became Christians and started coming to church.

And they were, I mean, that's why later on in Corinthians, when Paul says, Hey, women, be quiet.

He's not saying for all time women don't talk in the church.

He's saying, you temple prostitutes that came out of that and you don't know anything.

Hey, learn in quiet submission at home from your husband.

We can't get anything taught here because y'all are asking all these questions.

But what we do is we take that out of context, and some churches go, and women should shut up and learn from at home and don't talk in the church.

Are you serious?

That's not what the Bible says at all.

But these are the kind of people, because here's why.

How did that happen?

Because Paul believed, if anyone, if anyone think of the most unchristian person you know, and can you see them come into faith?

Because Paul says it's possible.

He says, if anyone is in Christ, is in Christ, because in Christ, that's where things that are impossible become possible.

You taste and you see that the Lord is good, you realize and you become somebody, you who by nature and effort could never become.

If anyone is in Christ, he or she is a new creation.

Is a new creator.

The old has passed away.

Can you believe in the God that would never hold your past against you?

That's what the Bible means when it says the old has passed away.

And the new has come.

Two questions I want to ask you under this thing about a change in what we hope for.

See, first of all, there's telling the story means involves a change in how we see people.

Secondly, it involves a change in what we hope for.

Are you hopeful that, hey, you know what?

This if anyone means that these people that come out of the of the temple shrines, that the gospel is for them.

That's what Paul says in Romans chapter 1, by verse 16, he says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel.

Romans 1 · chapter mention

Why?

Because it's the power of God and of salvation for anyone who believes.

There was this if anyone, if anyone element that we got to recapture when we interact with people that get on our last nerve.

Two questions I want to ask you.

First of all, what is your message of reconciliation?

Because he says here in the text, he said that God's committed to us this message of reconciliation.

So what is your message?

Because the world's problem is not that they don't understand that they're sinners, that they the problem is they don't they don't grasp what God has done about it.

Let me say that again.

The world does not grasp, the problem is not that they don't get, understand that their sin and their sinfulness.

No, they get that.

Here's the problem: they don't understand what God has done about their sin.

For example, I have a confession.

I really enjoy the onion rings at the Sonic.

And there was a point in my life where I went and ate them a lot more than I do now.

You say, what happened?

It's called marriage.

And so, but every once in a while, I if I especially if I'm out of town or somewhere, I will go to the sonic and have a foot-long cheese coney and a grape slush and some onion rings as an act of rebellion.

Fight the power, stick it to the man.

And my wife will say, What'd you do today?

And I'll tell everything I did.

I'll just leave out that I went to the Sonic and ate like a gluttonous pig.

And so I'm sitting at the Sonic one time, and this is my confession, okay?

There was a period of my life, it's not true anymore, that I was kind of not afraid, but kind of like, ooh, around bikers.

Because their motorcycles were loud.

I just thought, ooh, ooh, I loved you in breaking bad.

You're probably cooking meth somewhere.

Uh and so I'm at the Sonic one time, having my little onion rings and enjoying myself, and a biker pulls up, and I'm just like, oh man.

And as soon as he pulled up, clear as a bell, I knew the Lord was going, Hey, I want you to share the gospel with him.

But he rides a really loud motorcycle.

See, I was regarding him according to the flesh.

That's horrible.

And then I was like, well, you know, God, I have to roll down that window, and I got crank windows in this vehicle, and it's you know, that'd be awkward.

And he pushes the button and the button doesn't work, so he cranks that thing up.

My my sternum vibrated was so loud.

He backs up and he pulls around on this side of me, right there by my window.

And my window is down, not the I should just crank that up so I'm getting those biker cooties on me.

And he's all tatted up, and I'm kind of like, I got the silver jewelry and everything.

And he's not doing anything wrong.

I'm doing something wrong because I'm regarding him according to the flesh.

And my window's down and I'm eating my onion ring.

And he says to me, Hey, the onion ring's good.

Yeah.

Because I don't want you to think, man, our pastor knows what to say in every situation.

No, I was just like, damn, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm.

And so I was just like, and all of a sudden I realized what was happening.

What am I doing?

And something just came over me.

Just a sense of calm.

And I just began to talk to the guy.

I said, man, I highly recommend the onion rings and chase them down with a grape slush.

He goes, Yeah, I don't know.

I'm between, what do you have?

And I'm between that and a hamburger.

I said, get the number two.

The supersonic cheeseburger.

I highly recommend that as well.

And so he's sitting there talking, blah, blah, blah.

And I said, So let me ask you, do you go to church anywhere?

And he was like, uh, no.

Uh and my mom was like, yeah, he does cook mess.

He is in a bad gang or something.

And so we started this conversation.

And we're just kind of going back and forth.

And he said to me, man, I sin a lot.

And I said, You sin a lot.

What do you mean you sin a lot?

I mean, I do all kinds of sin.

And I said, Hey, wouldn't it surprise you if I told you that the God that I'm talking to you about, he doesn't count your sin against you, or you say my sin doesn't matter?

Not what I'm saying at all.

I'm just saying that God does not go around keeping a record of your sins.

Matter of fact, the Bible says, way back in the Old Testament, and I didn't tell him where it was, it's Psalm 130, verse 3 and 4.

Psalms 130:3

The Bible says in the Old Testament of God that if he kept a record of sins, who could stand but with God there is forgiveness?

And he said, That's some straight up bleep.

And I was like, Awesome.

And he goes, I'm sorry.

Now you probably don't use language like that.

I said, only at elder meetings.

And he was like, well, I mean, I mean, I I I try to be a good person, but I mean, people get on my nerves and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I said, Oh, talk to me, brother.

People get on your nerves.

And I said, here's the thing I want you to understand.

Just take away this, because he'd ordered his food's getting ready to come.

And I said, here's the thing.

Look at me, beloved.

You don't have to close the deal.

You're not selling ginsu nice at the sonic.

Sometimes you just got to speak a word.

You just got like a like an apple of gold in a setting of silver.

You just, or as I like to say, spitting their hair.

One of you just looked up and said, I'm not writing that down.

Have you ever had anyone spitting your hair?

You'll never forget it.

You should say things in such a way, look at me, don't check out.

You should say things in such a way that people, not to be novel, but to be consequential.

Because God's making his appeal through us.

I said, here's the thing, and I reference what Paul says right here.

He says, hey, all this, verse 18, all this is from God who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.

That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.

And he's entrusted to us the message of reconciliation.

So when I say, what is your message of reconciliation?

Here's what I'm saying, and what I'm trying to say to my friend at the Sonic is that God has so provided a solution to the problem of your sin that the Bible says he does not count your sins against you.

Now I'm not minimizing sin and saying sin is no big deal.

I'm saying just the exact opposite.

Sin is a big deal, but the gospel is a bigger deal.

The Bible says it like this in Romans chapter 5, where sin did abound, grace did abound all the more.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

And I said, So that's what I'm trying to say to you, man.

When you think about God, don't think he's looking down on you, kind of like, man, I'm gonna get you for all the bad stuff you've done.

Jesus died on the cross so you can be forgiven for everything.

He goes, I don't know, but I sin a lot.

That's what I hear.

But I'm just telling you, he is not counting your sins against you.

See, what is your message of reconciliation?

Is it based more on people's sin or on God's solution to their sin?

Second question is is your message big enough?

Because here the Bible says that in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself.

That word world refers to the cosmos, not just people, but land and trees and grass and water and sky and stars and Milky Ways and galaxies.

God was reconciling everything created to himself.

And so sometimes my concern is, especially in this day and age of causes, and everyone's willing to, you know, I'm saving the wells and I'm doing this and I'm protecting the rainforest and blah, blah, blah.

That we Christians have a really small message of what God is reconciling.

And the Bible says that God is reconciling everything.

He is making right everything that He created.

And it's a bigger response than just decide which side of the issue of global warming you are on, Al Gore or Donald Trump.

So much bigger than that.

And we need to represent the bigness of what God is doing when we open our mouth and talk.

The third thing that needs to happen, we see in the text, is a change in how we see ourselves.

Look at verse 20.

He says, Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ.

God making his appeal through us.

We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Hear that again in verse 20.

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ.

When I say a change in how we see ourselves, keep in mind, uh once again, in this section of Scripture, Paul's explaining to the Corinthians this gross, immoral, greedy, sin-soaked city.

He's explaining to these people why he and his friends live like they do.

And because they so stand out from the culture.

They're so different.

And the way it men, it's the equivalent, modern-day equivalent, is that you and I are called to stand out from the culture, not because we're better than them, but we we love our wives in such a serving way.

We raise our children in such a way, we spend our money in such a way, we speak to our neighbors in such a way.

The people on our cul-de-sac or our street are kind of like, hey man, what's with you?

And you don't have to use this word, but you understand, oh, I'm I'm God's ambassador.

An ambassador is someone that's from this country and goes to another country and they live there and they represent the interests of America in that country.

The Bible says that's exactly what's true of you and I.

So when you go to work tomorrow, you are God's ambassador in your workplace.

You're like, man, you don't know the people I work with.

Sure don't.

You don't know the people I work with either.

And some days I gotta go, I'm God's ambassador.

I'm God's ambassador.

Yeah, that means, students, when you start back to school on Wednesday or two weeks from now, you walk in that classroom, there's 32 people in that room, you are God's ambassador in that classroom.

You are the medium through which the message of God is gonna break into expression and come out.

They're gonna get a whiff of the king in the kingdom from being around you.

And it's a change in how you see yourself.

So, how does ask yourself this question?

How does this inform and influence the way I approach work tomorrow?

How does this inform and influence the way I show up at school when my school starts back?

How does this inform and influence the way you do uh being a stay-at-home mom when no one's looking?

And your thought is, hey, my kids watch four hours of TV and I don't even feel guilty and I have no idea what I'm cooking for supper.

How does the fact that, hey, I'm God's ambassador?

It is as if Christ is making his appeal through us.

Because here's the reality: every one of us that has had the experience of becoming a new creation in Christ is no longer free to live for yourselves.

No, you've escaped the smallness of a self-obsessed, self-driven life.

And now the Bible says, because you've been rescued from that, you're now ambassadors.

You're sent here to represent the interest of God in this country.

And he makes his appeal through you.

Let's pray together.

Just take a moment and think about what you've heard and just kind of ask the Lord, hey Lord, what what stood out to me?

Where do I focus my attention and my intellect today?

Is it do I need to change the way I view people?

By the way, if you have the same response to people every time, the answer is yes.

You're regarding them according to the flesh.

Maybe for some of us it's just a change in what you hope for people.

Is there anybody in your life that you've given up on?

You've just thought, man, there is no hope for that person.

Truth be told, for some of you, it's you.

You've given up on yourself.

And I'm here to tell you that God has not given up on you.

And today you need to walk out with these two words, if anyone.

If anyone.

That's you, my man.

That's you, lady.

If anyone is in Christ, can you see yourself in Christ today?

And if not, why not?

That's what Jesus died to make available to you.

He's a new creation.

Translation, he or she in that moment becomes more than the sum total of all their fears and failures from their life up to this point.

They're a new creation.

The old is passed away, and behold, the new is come.

That's what we desire for you.

That's what God created you to experience.

And if you've never experienced that, why not this morning?

Why not just say in your heart right now, God, I want that.

Yes, God, that's exactly what I want.

I'm so sick and tired of trying to manage this on my own.

Or maybe it's, hey, I need to change the way I see myself.

Instead of wishing somebody else is here to have this conversation.

Maybe you need to embrace it.

I am God's ambassador.

I am sent into this situation to represent the interest of God in this moment, right now.

What that means is that God trusts you.

He trusts your priesthood.

He trusts your personality.

He does not want you to be like somebody else.

He wants you to be you to the glory of God.

Let's think about these things, beloved.

Father, we're mindful today.

We're mindful today of the privilege that is ours because of the gospel.

We are who we are because you've made a change in our life.

Most of us, for most of us in some room, that change has already happened.

And for some of us, it's yet to come.

But we're believing.

We're asking you to reveal yourself to our friends.

Make obvious.

We're not here as coaches, God.

We're not here to give them a set of things to do and hoops to jump through.

We're here instead as midwives to facilitate what the Holy Spirit is birthing in people.

And so, Lord, have your way with us.

Have your way with us.

We are your ambassadors.

We are here in this world to represent you.

And we're humbled by that privilege.

And so for that, we say thank you.

We say thank you in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

Amen.

Thanks for your presence today.

If you're a guest, when you came in, you were given on a worship folder, has information about different things at our church.

On the far right side, it has a little tear-off part, ask for some personal information.

Utilize that if you would.

We'd love to know that you were here.

We're not going to show up unannounced at your house.

It would just, you matter to God and you matter to us.

If you have a question or something got stirred up in you, you'd like to have a conversation with somebody, myself and some of our pastors and elders will be available down front.

We're also available during the week if you just say, hey, I I got some questions about this whole Christianity thing.

We would love to help you.

Like I said in my prayer, we're not here as coaches.

We're not here to try to get you to like doing something you don't want to do.

We're here as midwives.

We just want to facilitate what God's birthing in you.

We believe God speaks a language that you understand, okay?

And God's going to use you in a way that only God can.

We don't want to use you for our purposes.

We want to help you be prepared to be used by God for God's purposes.

Make sense?

Two things I want to make you aware of by way of announcement, we'll get out of here.

Number one, this next Sunday is promotion day.

That means they're all the way from our two-year-olds all the way up through uh fifth grade that we promote up to the next level.

And so for our children's ministry, if your children are age two up to fourth grade, going into the fourth grade, they will promote up this next Sunday.

And so we have a promotion party on Saturday, August 19th from 9.30 to 11 in our children's building, which is the closest building to us right here.

Uh it's a great opportunity for your kids to meet their new teacher and to see their new classroom so that when they come the next Sunday, it's kind of uh okay, I got this.

They kind of get a sense of who's gonna be in the room with them.

Uh there'll be a special guest at the party.

It'd be a great time, 9.30 to 11.

For the parents that bring your kids, there'll be plenty of coffee.

Amen.

There you go.

I got you.

Uh and so anyway, make note of that if you would.

The second thing I'll remind you of is we have new Bible studies kicking off next Sunday.

Bible studies happen at this hour at 10 o'clock.

Upstairs, there are classrooms.

There's a classroom in this corner on the ground floor over here, and right behind me is the fellowship hall.

And there'll be a classroom kicking off in there, uh, a Bible study kicking off next Sunday.

Instead of me telling you all about the different studies and what they do, let me just direct your attention to the screens and I'll let the teachers introduce themselves and what they'll be the topic they'll be covering.

My favorite part is that is David's reminding you where your head and where your heart is.

Anyway, hopefully you can see that we have a varied and and and and diverse list of gifted uh teachers, and we'd love for you to come be a part of that.

You don't have to know a whole lot.

Uh the reason we have these classes is that we want to help you understand more and grow in your knowledge and understanding of God and yourself and Christianity.

And so all those kick off next week.

Uh we have uh you say, what up, what well, I'm in this service.

You can come to the 8:30 service, then go to Bible State at 10, or you can go to Bible State at 10 and come to the next service, which starts at 11:30.

Uh, we just want you to know there's options available to you.

We'd love for you to be a part of those, okay?

One last thing by way of announcement.

Uh, if you see these people, we've had two summer interns in our student ministry, Caleb McTank and Madison McClendon, and they both wind up this week.

Tuesday is their last day of work.

I told them, I left them a little happy note and said, Hey, by the way, your last day is Tuesday.

I want you to work all the way to quitting time on Tuesday.

Don't cheat me because I'll cheat you back.

And I saw them this morning, they were like, We got your note.

I said, That's right.

We're gonna work all the way to the finish line.

So they have done that.

And so if you see them, please speak a word of appreciation to them because they're both heading back to college, one to Baylor, one back to AM.

Uh, one's Christian, one's clearly not.

But anyway.

So pray for Baylor because it's not.

Anyway.

Whoop!

Uh stand to your feet, let me speak a blessing over you.

Hold your hands out.

You are the medium.

What you have to ask yourself is what is my message?

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you dismiss.