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