Video Transcript: Session 36 Final considerations
Welcome back, you made it. This is the last session in this class preacher preparation presentation, a class on making and preaching sermons. We've been a long way together in this process of looking at the technicalities of preaching a sermon, but also the dependency on the Word and the Holy Spirit. And we've been a long way. And so I've titled this final reflections or final considerations in this consideration section. And I've thought long and hard about what do I say to you in this last session. And I've thought many things that, you know, there are other things that we could talk about excited about preaching on various subjects, and I'm preaching on money. When you're leading the church into a new chapter somewhere, those kinds of things. And I am reflecting on those in my blog, which is preachingacts.com, and invite you to go there for further reflection on those types of topics. But for today, I just want to reflect on some roles that you play as a preacher that are important. And the first one is the role of ambassador. Now, the role of ambassador is an important one, if you are part of a leadership in a country in our country in the United States, our president sends ambassadors to various countries, and throughout the world, His ambassadors are sent there with a very important role to play. And we'll talk about that in a moment. Paul talks about the fact that we are ambassadors for Christ. In other words, Christ is the king is the head of the church. And he has sent out ambassadors into various places. In the various times this is how Paul puts it, for Christ's love compels us, he said, so we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. So from now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here. All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us, be reconciled to Christ. Now, I wan't point out a couple of things in these verses. These verses, first of all, Christ's love compels us. The word there is somebody that's a hand of the back and is pushing you forward. You know, somebody won't get into a boat. So you've compelled them, you pick them up your kid and you put them in the boat, they won't get in the car, you compel them to get in the car, if something forcing you into this, what compels you in ministry? Well, there are many things. Some feel compelled because church is a place where you can get a lot of money. I hate to say that, you know, years ago, there was a guy named Marjoe. Young started preaching his young kid is parents were kind of traveling revivalists. And so Marjoe at the age of five, began preaching and people to come to the revival to hear this five year old kid is filled with the Holy Spirit. And when he grew up to be an adult, he said it was all said it was all a sham. It was just get those offerings. Yeah, that can compel people to be influential, to be in a position of influence, and sometimes be the thing that compels people they want to climb some ladder of influence. And so that's what's compelling them to what they do now in the
world, we know what that's like, right? People are compelled to climb the ladder in their company. So there, they want to be a vice president, that they want to be the CEO someday. So they're working hard, working hard, working hard, that's compelling them. That's what's driving them forward. What drives us forward, as preachers of Jesus Christ. Paul says, it's the love of Christ. It's, it's his love for us. But it's his love for the people around us. We know that he loves these people, he told us that God so loved the world. And he's not talking about trees there. And he's not talking about mountains and streams. He loved this human kind that he created in His image so much that He sent His only Son into the world, that whoever would believe on him would not perish, but have eternal life. That's what compels us forward, we've experienced that love. And so we want to share it. And then look at that next line there. So from now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view. In other words, we start to see people around us with the eyes of God. I just have the privilege of going back to the church. I served in California. For a long weekend, they were celebrating 50 years of ministry and they invited all their former pastors back and back I got to meet the wife of a man who was probably one of the sweetest people I've ever known in my life, a sweet spirited person. But when we first met him in the church, he was pretty rough edge. He knew his wife was attending our church. He was an unbeliever. He was again hostile to Christianity, but He loved to play baseball. In fact, he had been a minor league player. He had hoped to go into the majors one day, but some injuries kept him from that he hadn't played in years he worked construction. And now he volunteered to play on one of the church softball teams. They put him in right field, which he was a little resentful of. Later, he told us but fly ball comes out to him. And he began, they hadn't played in years, and he flubbed it. And he got up after the ball rolled back to the fence, and he didn't bother going after the ball, he threw the glove down, he stomped on and he was swearing a blue streak as only somebody who's well practiced and swearing and swear that this was in our church league. So there's all these people are out there, the guy who goes to that church, and my partner in ministry of back then Manny, Don went and helped him get up, do glove up, go, go get the ball guy got out in the park home run, right? And said, hey, I want to introduce myself. I'm Pastor Don, that began a relationship with that man, and the Holy Spirit got a hold of him. And when we talked about a girl we were kidding about as he was sharing this story with me, my friend, Pastor Don, and we were laughing about him saying, he says, You know, I wouldn't give a nickel for this guy's chances to be converted. And here he was. Well, I look at people with whom I deal with, in my church, I, I can't see them from a worldly point of view anymore. I've got to see them for the potential of what they can become. Great story in the Old Testament of Gideon, remember, he's a, he's a fearful the Midianites are going to steal his grain. So he's hiding in a wine press. And he's trying to thresh out a little bit of grain so he can get food, and the angel of the
Lord appears to him and says hail, mighty warrior. Well, he's not a mighty warrior. He was a coward, huddling, fearing the Midianites as far to people. And yet God knew he could become a mighty warrior and would become would become a mighty warrior. I've got to view people from what they could become, as a mighty warrior, through the influence of Jesus Christ. So then we become ambassadors, you are Christ's ambassadors, what does an ambassador do? An ambassador represents the home country. ambassadors for the United States are representing the United States in that country. When they are there, they speak for the United States. The words they speak, the things they communicate to the government of the country in which they are living. They are words that are taken that these are words from the government, the officials of the United States, they speak for their home country, they live though not in their home country, they don't just fly into the country where they live, they live in the host country. They under they come to understand the culture there, they come to understand the government there they get, they understand everything about that country that they can possibly understand and gather the information. And they report back to home back to the United States in this illustration about what they're learning about what they're finding, about the desires of that government for a relationship with us. All of these are part of the responsibilities of the ambassador. Now, when you say we are ambassadors of Christ, we represent Christ where we are, whatever task you have, whether you preach all the time, or whether you preach only occasionally, or whether you're just thinking about learning to preach, and you've taken this course as part of that desire. You represent Christ in your community, the place where you live, and we know from what Scripture says that this is not our home. You know, the old song says, This is not my home, I'm just a pilgrim. I'm just a passing through if Heaven's, not my home Lord, I don't know what I do. We are here living speaking for the king. And we are His ambassadors. And we are given responsibility to understand the culture where we live, what are the ways and messages that are going to speak effectively, on behalf of the king? What are his words that need to be spoken to my culture, my place and in the process, we're gathering information, and then our prayers, were reporting back home and saying, God, this is what's needed here by your Spirit moves. Now, in the in the secular world. The job description of an ambassador requires three things at least. It requires knowledge. You've got to know what what the government that you represent, wants to say? You got to have wisdom. You've got to have wisdom on how you say it when you say it, where you are and the people to whom you're going to say and you've got to have wisdom that will speak effectively to them. And you've got to have character. In other words, you don't speak just on your own, but you represent a country and so you've got to live a life that will bring honor to your country. Now, it's easy to transfer this, the fact that we are Christ's ambassadors, we need knowledge, right? We need the knowledge of what God wants to speak, we
need, we need the words of Jesus, we need the presence of the Holy Spirit, we need wisdom. We've got to be wise in how we present our message to people because it might be different with different people. In fact, you know, there's some theories about gifts of evangelism, that each of us can have a different style in evangelism. You know, my style tends to be the let's discuss this and get together. But you know, I've worked with people who have gifts of evangelism. And here's the message respond. But different, different approaches are needed with different people at different times in different places. So we need wisdom. And we need character, so that when people look at us, they don't see it's just great people that we live the perfect life. They can see us as failures too, but as failures, who get back up and go again, because we've got a God who inspires us to move forward. So we are ambassadors, that's one of the final considerations I want to make with you. Picture yourself as an ambassador of Jesus Christ carrying his message to the people to whom you preach. And then you also need to lead where you've been, or at least lead where you're going. Let me put some context to that statement. This is a picture from one of my favorite movies. It's Indiana Jones, and the Last Crusade. Now, I introduced the people to you in this picture, if you don't know them, Indiana Jones is on the left. He's kind of a swashbuckling archaeologist, and he kind of wanders around in these action movies, digging up artifacts in the Middle East and fighting the people who are trying to get them first. And so he wears a fedora. He uses a bullwhip. He's just the typical kind of swashbuckling hero, right. And many kids like me, who grew up in the 80s imagine ourselves as him. The man in the middle is Sean Connery. But he's playing Henry. He is Indiana Jones father. So that's Henry Jones in this movie. And the guy on the right is the one I will call your attention to Marcus Brody. Now Marcus Brody was the head of the museum that funded Indiana Jones research according to the movie, and Marcus Brody had a characteristic about him. And that is he got lost easily. They didn't never knew where he was going. And, in fact, Indiana Jones once said to his father in the movie, says Marcus Brody once got lost in his own museum, he's head of this museum and couldn't find his way through it. Now, what is interesting about that is at the end of the movie, all three of them are horseback. And they're riding away from this site where they have found the Holy Grail, the grail of supposedly the cup that Jesus drank out of at the Last Supper, they found it now they're riding away into the sunset, the end of the movie, and it's Marcus Brody, who cries out, follow me, I know the way and he takes off and he almost falls off his horse. Now, the point I'm trying to make here is leading where you've been, a people will follow you, as they listen to your messages, when they know, you know where to go, when they know, you know what you're talking about. And this requires a very important thing from you in a virus. You know, I originally woke it read it originally wrote it as a working knowledge of God, I crossed out working involved involves an intimate knowledge of God.
Now, one thing I have learned in my life is this can be faked. Now imagine, let's imagine a native in the Amazon, let's say, and he's never come across a civilization. And yet civilization reaches him. And somebody in that civilization decides to share with him about airplanes. He never seen an airplane, he's maybe heard some of the distance as civilization began to creep closer in the Amazon. But he's never seen one never been on one. But the person who's showing a book about airplanes, and shows him the airplane, talks to him about how the engine drives the airplane forward and the propeller, or takes the air and pushes it over the wings, and how the flaps work and all of that and, and, and this native who's never been on a plane, never seen a plane becomes an expert. He's obsessed with planes. And so he studies the book, and he begins to tell the other people about the book about planes. And then the day comes when somebody takes him out of the jungle, and takes him and puts him on an airplane. And his experience. His knowledge of airplanes is now not just theoretical, not just something in a book, but it's real. He watches the RPM list as it goes up as a plane lurches forwards And he feels that, that press back as the if the plane starts going up into the air, and he feels the pressure as a turns right and less, and he feels the release as it starts going down and he feels that first bump on the ground. And now he talks about airplanes in an entirely different way. Because he has felt what it's like to be in an airplane. Now, that's a long illustration of one simple point. If you're going to preach, you've got to have an intimate knowledge of where you're going, ultimately to heaven. But in this time, to become more like Jesus Christ to the process of sanctification. I love the way Charles Capps put it, a preacher here in the United States, he says, I don't practice what I preach. He said I preach what I practice. In other words, I'm somebody who's studying the Word of God, not just because the word of God is there, but I'm studying it. And as I study it, and learn these truths, and experience these truths about prayer, about spiritual disciplines about stewardship, about intimate relationship with Jesus Christ, about how God answers prayers, about how you live, in pain, all of these things, I've experienced them. And so what I am sharing with you comes out of my experience, my knowledge base. Here's how Peter put it. In II Peter, he said, May the grace, may Grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ, our Lord, His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by His own glory and goodness. Now, what I want you to notice here is that word knowledge. Now there are different kinds of knowledge. You know, there are people who can know the Word of God. In fact, you know, during World War II, there were people who were speculating what would happen if the Nazis were taken over and the world and carried out one of their threats, and that was to destroy the Bible. They were going to destroy the Christian church that was a threat made by some, what would happen if that hammer who they
said, The Word of God was to be saved, because at that time, there were nine people in the world who had the whole thing memorized, Genesis to Revelation. But the interesting thing about that is seven of them were not believers, for them was just an exercise in memorization. You can know things, but not know them. In fact, the word know here is a very intimate word. It's the word where the Old Testament was translated from Hebrew into Greek, this word was used to translate the phrase, Adam knew his wife, and she conceived and bore a son, so that there's this knowledge, that intimate about God. And if we don't have that intimate knowledge about God, we're not going to be able to tell it to other people effectively. And so we lead people where we have been we're ambassadors, we come with a message from God, and we lead people because we are experienced in this where we are growing together, this is my encouragement to you, as a preacher. And as you grow, you look for new experiences of God, how can you grow more fully? How can you enrich your prayer life? How can you gather more people to pray? How can you experience God in your church, and as you experience those things, you share them. If you don't lead where you're going, people will wander around, remember those words of Jesus when he saw the crowd, and he said he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. sheep without a shepherd are very vulnerable. Any animal can kill them and eat it. And they won't be able to starve to death because they don't know how to find pasture to depend on the shepherd to lead to pasture. And so if you don't know where you're going, if you haven't experienced things together, harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd, they need to know that you know, where you're going, that you've been with Jesus. That was the thing that was member very obvious when the disciples were first called before the Sanhedrin after Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to them, and recognize that they were unschooled men, but knew that they had been with Jesus. Interesting story, and that is, this was a preacher in the United States here back in the late 1880s. To the early 1900s. His name was Milton. And he believes sincerely man could not fly. In fact, he preached against it. There are all sorts of attempts to build higher, heavier than air airplanes at that time. And so people were trying and trying trying to build something that would would fly but nothing worked. And so this man Milton even here preach that this was an offense to God that have gotten meant for mankind to fly who wouldn't give him wings, those kinds of crazy statements like that. And yet, he preached that he wrote about it in articles, he published a newsletter that, again, attacked those people who were trying to figure out how to fly while he had two sons. And his two sons names were Wilbur, and Orville Wright, who didn't believe his father because they hadn't. father hadn't been there. And so they created the first heavier than air aircraft that flew under engine power. Now my point to you is simply go with God, learn what you can about him, share out of your experiences with him with people.
And the Holy Spirit is going to use that preaching is a supernatural, wonderful thing to be able to be called to. You get to see God work in ways that other people don't. And you get to see God work first in you. It's a holy enterprise. And I want to encourage you in it, I hope what I've taught you in these sessions will be helpful, and how God uses you, as an ambassador of Jesus Christ, to make a difference in this world as the kingdom is built through you. God bless you