In the late
1500s, Queen Elizabeth of England and King Philip of Spain were involved in an
undeclared war. In these days before
telecommunication, they tried to communicate with each other through their
respective ambassadors. At one point
Philip sent Bernardino de Mendoza to England , but he was caught spying
on the side, and plotting to kill the queen.
Elizabeth then sent William Wade to Spain to explain why she had
expelled Mendoza, but King Philip wouldn't see Wade, and ran him out of Spain
claiming he was fortunate not to be killed.
This is the way things worked.
I tell you
this to help you understand our relationship with God, so stick with me. England and Spain had issues, mostly
religious and personal between their king and queen. But for the ambassadors, it wasn't personal
(or shouldn't have been). Phil wanted to
kill Liz, not her ambassador. Under
other circumstances, those two men may have been just Phil and Bill, two guys
having a beer together and hanging out.
But in this case no one cared to think of William Wade as Bill, and no
one cared what kind of marriage he had, or where he went to school or what NBA
team he loved. He wasn’t even himself –
he was just almost a robot under the control of the queen. Her servant, sent on a mission. It was the same with Mendoza. No one in England would have called him “Bernie”
and would care about his personal issues, his family or friends or favorite
food. He was 100% the representative of
King Phil.
Recently
the USA had an ambassador
killed in Libya ,
and again … it wasn't personal. They
didn’t really care about him, they killed him because they hate the USA. His family and friends will remember him as
Chris, but the world will remember that he was the main victim in a terrorist
plot to hurt the US.
We know one
another personally, and may like or dislike each other. But here’s the thing you should remember: in
this world, we are ambassadors. We
represent God and His son, Jesus. Satan
hurts us because we are God’s. The world
hates us because they belong to Satan, and are not in our kingdom (John 15.17-21). But don’t take it personally – we aren’t
disliked or ignored or mistreated for the reasons people will say. They don’t even know themselves that they are
in bondage to evil! They are blinded by
it, and misdirected.
Our passage
(Romans 12.14-21) from Sunday – and for this coming Sunday – has lots of
supporting scriptures that further explain and affirm Paul’s words. Please understand that we are supposed to
bless those who persecute us, not because we like it – or because we want to
suffer, or because God is unkind. We do
so because it’s just not about us. It’s
about the One who sent us – the one we represent.
Study this
passage, try to understand it, pray for understanding, try to apply it for real
… and be ready for Sunday to discuss:
2 Corinthians 5.16 –
6.10
Therefore from now on we
recognize no one according to the flesh….
Therefore if anyone is in
Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new
things have come.
Now all these things
are from God, who reconciled us
to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses
against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
Therefore, we’re ambassadors
for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on
behalf of Christ, be reconciled to
God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we
might become the righteousness of God in Him.
And
working together with
Him, we also urge you not to
receive the grace of God in vain— for He says,
“At the acceptable time I
listened to you, and on the day of salvation I helped you.”
Behold, now is “the
acceptable time,” behold, now is
“the day of salvation”—
giving no cause for offense in anything, so
that the ministry won’t be discredited,
but in everything commending ourselves as servants of God:
in much endurance, in afflictions, in hardships, in distresses, in
beatings, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in hunger,
in purity, in knowledge, in patience, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in
genuine love, in the word of truth, in the power of God;
by the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left, by glory
and dishonor, by evil report and good report;
regarded as deceivers
and yet true; as unknown yet well-known,
as dying yet behold, we live; as punished yet not put to death, as
sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich,
as having nothing yet possessing all things.
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