Fourth Sunday in Lent
Fourth Sunday in Lent
Light of Christ Anglican Church
The Rev. Michael Moffitt March 30th, 2025
Ambassadors For Christ
Text: 2 Corinthians 5:17–21
You may have noticed that sports, sports reporting and analysis takes up a surprisingly large percentage of the news nowadays. Every day the internet offers dozens of stories analyzing the teams and stand out players. Right now as a nation we are in the middle of “March Madness” (aptly named) which is comprised of playoffs between the best teams in college basketball. As the name would suggest the tournament begins in March with the top 64 teams playing for the title of best team in College basketball. Today they are down to the “Elite Eight” and on Saturday April 5th will be the “Final Four.” Then On Monday April the 7th final two teams play for the National Championship.
Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on the advertising and airing of games. Hours upon hours are spent with sports broadcasters analyzing every aspect of the teams, and especially those players who are exceptional and clearly belong on the Mount Olympus of college basketball.
When the final game is played, and the godlike winners are celebrated it will be time for the baseball season to begin and the whole process starts again, until the football season. Of course tucked into these games is soccer, golf, boxing, volleyball, rugby, lacrosse, hockey, table hockey, tennis, table tennis, archery, softball, swimming, squash, car races, bicycle races, bowling and that’s not counting women’s sports. As a matter-of-fact Women’s college basketball had their Sweet sixteen this weekend and their elite eight begins tonight. I’m sure that there are other sports that I’ve forgotten about. Has “pickleball” gone pro?
I remember a friend who was absolutely over the moon when his favorite football team won the Super Bowl. He jumped up and down and celebrated the victory and had one of those, “Boy, we showed them” moments, referring to the
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losing team. I was amazed that he was identifying himself as one of the victors even though he was not a part of the team in any way. I suspect that on some level he knew that, but he was really a fan.
I remember years ago when pastor and author Kyle Idleman wrote a book entitled Not a Fan: Becoming a Completely Committed Follower of Jesus. As you can assume from the title, the book challenges you to go beyond being a fan of Jesus and become a true, committed follower of Jesus Christ.
Today as we continue our journey through the season of Lent we must intentionally focus on our sins as the reason the cross was necessary. Our sin has separated us from God, and in truth we have no way to make amends for that. We have nothing to offer God that he is lacking. We are helpless before the God who is holy, holy, holy. Everything in the universe reveals his power and majesty. The God who is more powerful, glorious, more majestic, more dangerous than we knew. The creator and sustainer of the universe who is far more wonderful than we could ever hope to imagine.
Hebrews 10:31 reminds us that, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
But then there is Jesus Christ the Son of God who came willing to become one of us, God in human form. It’s called the “Incarnation” and Jesus came to pay the price for our sins. He lived a sinless life and was willing to become the perfect sacrifice shedding his blood for our sins. The Creator of all things allowing those whom he created to humiliate Him, beat him, mock Him, torture Him, and nail Him to a cross.
Why? Because without His sacrifice you and I would have no hope. He invites whoever will to bow their knee to Him accepting the offer of forgiveness promising to follow him in obedience to the will of God as revealed in his word.
Initially we bow down before Him because we don’t want to face God’s wrath but then we encounter His love and mercy through the gift of the Holy Spirit imparted to us. Then we should invite God to change us into those who follow Jesus, no longer out of fear but out of love for Him. Our goal should be to arrive at Easter morning to truly celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Our only hope.
The question I want each of us to consider this morning is, Do you identify with
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Jesus Christ in such a way that you long for him and really celebrate the truth of the resurrection as your only hope for eternal life? Or when you examine your heart do you have to admit that the fact of the resurrection is something you know but it doesn’t really have much to do with your life and how you live it.?
Last week we looked at how God appeared to Moses first in a burning bush in Exodus 3:1–15. Then in some powerful ways as Israel wandered in the desert for 40 years. I pointed out that Moses wrote the stories in the Pentetuch to encourage Israel to seek intimacy with God and willingly follow him to the Promised Land. Of course, the other reason for the Lord to move through Moses was to chronicle those stories so that future generations would be able to remember how God saved their forefathers and left them the stories and laws of God as a written witness.
I believe that Moses’ greatest frustration was that most in Israel could not or in some cases would not see that God wanted them to know him intimately like Moses. Moses wanted to know God and experience his presence more and more. The longer he knew Yahweh, the more he wanted to know Him. How could that not be the case.
Two weeks ago we considered what it means to experience the presence of God. We found that it wasn’t merely the fact that God is omnipresent, meaning he is in all places, all the time, and there is not one place in the universe where he is not, but we saw examples of God manifesting himself to people, meaning he showed up in a way that clearly revealed that God was before them.
We asked the question, “Are we right to hope for a continual and conscious sense of God’s presence?”
I concluded that, If you are a Christian, one who has come to Christ by faith and committed your life to him as Savior and Lord then his manifest presence should be something to expect. I’m persuaded of it. I believe that God wants to make himself known to those who pursue him and long for him.
Does it come with a price? Of course, it will mean that God will change you to resemble his Son, Jesus Christ and he may ask you to serve him in ways that make you uncomfortable. Do you long for that intimacy with God, do you think it worth it?
The advantage that we have today is that we come with the understanding that
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God sent his Son, to pay the price or our sins. During Lent we approach Easter morning with the certainty that Jesus went to the cross on our behalf. We know that He died but was resurrected. That’s the story that we are remembering.
The question we must face this morning is has this changed everything else in your life? Or is the story so familiar that it has lost the luster it once had.
Daniel Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe once said, “The soul is placed within the body like a rough diamond, and must be polished, or the luster of it will never appear.”
I’m reminded of what the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy in 1Timothy 4:7b–8,
Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.
What God has for us in Christ can’t be replicated by anything or anyone else and it is only through Christ can we be reconciled to God. There are two points that we want to understand from our passage:
1. The only way to be reconciled to God is to die with Christ.
2. Those who have done so are a new creation and should model the example of Christ in how they live and what they reveal about God through their lives. In that sense Jesus Christ must be our focus, our hero if you will.
Before we turn to our Epistle reading this morning I first want to back up a few verses for context. 2 Corinthians 5:14–15,
For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, 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.
It was because of Paul’s love and devotion to Christ that he was compelled to give his life to the proclamation of the gospel, the very same gospel that had changed him. It was Christ love that had compelled him to give his life for sinners and he did so that those for whom he died might no longer live for themselves but for him who died and was raised for their salvation. Paul had earlier written to the church in Corinth in 1 Corinthians 6:19–20,
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Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
Most of us here this morning likely remember the Bob Dylan song from his 1979 album, Gotta Serve Somebody. Listen to the first verse and the refrain,
You may be an ambassador to England or France
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world
You might be a socialite with a long string of pearls
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the Devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
The truth of the matter is that we are made to serve, and we will either serve Christ or another master. To live for self is sin. To live for Christ is to bow down to him as Lord of our lives. and his place before God. Let’s read 1 Corinthains 5:17. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”
Paul confidently wrote that every person who came to Christ through faith and repentance was a new creation, no longer under the curse of sin and death. The image was being restored to the place that was intended for man from the beginning. Paul was using language and imagery from Old Testament passages like Isaiah 66:22, “For as the new heavens and the new earth that I make shall remain before me, says the Lord, so shall your offspring and your name remain.”
The same language was used by the Apostle Peter in 2 Peter 3:13, “But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.”
Dr. Richard Pratt in his commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians writes,
New creation describes those who follow Christ because they have begun the transformation that will eventually lead to their full enjoyment of
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salvation in the new heavens and new earth. Christ’s death and resurrection introduced a foretaste of that new world to come.”
Paul was a living example of what in meant to be a new creation in Christ because that is exactly what had happened to him. Because of his relationship with Jesus Christ he looked at people differently. He went from being a dangerous persecutor of Christians to someone who was being persecuted for being a follower of Christ. His primary ministry as an apostle was to bring the gospel message to the Gentile nations. In his former life as a Pharisee he would have considered them pagans and not those for whom he would labor and sacrifice. His view of the new believers in Christ was that they were new creations and those who were not as those who needed Jesus.
The change in his perception mirrored the heart of Jesus Christ and compelled Paul to do whatever was needed that those without Christ might be transformed into new creations.
Paul had been a passionate Jewish Pharisee and zealous for the law of God, but after encountering the manifest presence of the Son of God, his passion was transferred to the proclamation of the Lordship of the very one that the law and prophets had pointed to. To really encounter Jesus as Savior and Lord means that there can never be a neutral response to him. Many of the members of the church at Corinth were still living by the values of the world, as they assumed that claiming to believe that Jesus was Lord and the way to salvation didn’t necessarily call for them to change their behavior and live their lives for the glory of God.
Paul points out that they are holding on to the old way of living and thinking. Critics of Paul pointed out that he was living in such a way that would indicate that he wasn’t successful according to the standards of the world. Paul is pointing them to a new standard where those who are in Christ are to live for the glory of God and as servants to those around them.
I’m afraid that is still a misunderstanding within Christianity today. It is very common to see those who are supposedly leaders within their churches living as kings and in order to justify this lifestyle encourage others to expect great financial blessings when they come to Christ. The same mentality was very present in the Corinthian church and Paul wanted to point out that what God was offering them as new creations in the kingdom of God was life with God
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both now, which may be difficult, but life in the age to come. Jesus taught his disciples to not “lay up for yourselves treasure on earth…but lay up for yourselves treasures in Heaven…” In order for this to happen Paul knew there needed to be a change in their way of thinking.
2 Corinthians 5: 18–19,
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.
Paul explained the change within his own life and way of thinking in terms of reconciliation and that even this had come from God. Reconciliation is the establishment of peace and harmony between those who had once been enemies and at odds with one another. Where there was once hostility there is now mutual love. In his writings to the churches Paul often shared the story of his opposition to the ways of God and his persecution of the followers of Jesus. Now he writes that it was God who established peace between himself and Paul, through Christ. This act of divine love and grace is what transformed the apostle.
In so doing, God raised up Paul and then raised up those who responded to his message to have a ministry of reconciliation. It would be a ministry that changed how Paul viewed people and would be a ministry devoted to making peace between God and humanity through the preaching of the gospel.
Remember that we saw a few weeks ago the example of God coming to men and manifesting his presence to them in a tangible way. In each case we saw that it wasn’t based on their righteousness and understanding of God. Quite the contrary, God inserted himself into their lives in order that they might know him and join him in accomplishing his sovereign will.
We see the same thing with the Apostle Paul. Jesus did not come to Saul, later to be called Paul, because of his righteousness or because he was seeking to know Jesus. On the contrary he was seeking to destroy the followers of Christ and had a hatred of Christianity. God had a mission for Paul and transformed his life through Jesus Christ and sent him to be the messenger to those who by in large had not been seeking God or showed a real interest in knowing Jesus Christ. The fact is that the majority of those in the Gentile world who Paul initially went to had never heard of Jesus Christ, much less the resurrection.
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God, the reconciler sent Paul to preach the gospel message that God was reconciling the world to himself, in spite of their evil living and idol worship. God was willing to offer peace with those who by nature lived in opposition to him. Paul wrote in Ephesians 2:3–5,
among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
As a Pharisee Paul’s vision for what was important was that the law of God be honored and obeyed. Richard Pratt explains,
The Pharisees were the most numerous and influential of the religious sects of Jesus day. They were strict legalists. They stood for the rigid observance of the letter and forms of the Law, and also for the Traditions. There were some good men among them, no doubt, but for the most part they were known for their covetousness, self-righteousness, and hypocrisy.
God uprooted Paul from this life of respectability and comfort in ancient Israel but instead gave him a vitally important role in the kingdom of God. Paul writes, “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”
In Paul’s day the term ambassador was much the same as its usage today. An ambassador represented a nation or kingdom to other nations. An ambassador was an honored position because they represented the authority of kings on whose behalf they spoke. God was making an appeal for peace to those who had rejected his authority and dominance as God and King of all and had chosen to do that through his ambassadors.
The message of reconciliation is a startling one and we see that in 2 Corinthians 5: 21, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” The Creator God, who rules and reigns in power, glory, majesty, and strength, who is far more wonderful and amazing than we can even begin to imagine, was willing to lay down his life in payment for the sins of those who he had created.
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It wasn’t a matter of mankind making a few mistakes or lapses in judgment, it was a case of the created defying, blaspheming, betraying, ignoring, and (we all know I could go on with a longer list of sins) God. They were the very ones that God had lavished upon them with his love and affection, who had forgiven them times without number, even after they arrogantly turned away from his entreaties. He came to pay the penalty of their sins.
Paul wasn’t expecting that when he encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus, but once he understood there was only one thing he could do. He gave up his life and everything that it entailed to be the ambassador of such an amazing and loving King. He even died the death of a martyr and was honored to do so.
This week I encourage you to ask the Lord to show you if you’re holding back. Ask Him to take you deeper in your relationship that He may be glorified in you like never before. If you don’t want that I encourage to ask Him why.
Let’s pray.
©2025 The Rev Michael J. Moffitt
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