Sermon Archive
Ministers of Change

 Ministers of Change 

Reggie White, a fearsome defensive end for the Green Bay Packers and Philadelphia Eagles was one of the greatest defensive players in NFL. He was 2-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year, 13-time Pro Bowler, 12-time All-Pro selection and 2006 was inducted into the football hall of fame two years after his death at 43. During his professional career, he became famous not only for his outstanding play, but also for his involvement in Christian ministry. This led to his nickname, "the Minister of Defense." 
 
God’s desire for all of us is to be ministers of change. We all have opportunities every day to be used by God to help bring about change. God gives us opportunities to grow and change. The majority of those opportunities are not scheduled. They happen as we do life. They take place where we live. 

 

I can’t remember all the details but I remember going on a trip with Dori and one of my children. As we traveled in the car there was a lot of tension, arguing and eventually I had it. In my mind I was thinking about this ungrateful child and all the things I had done for this child. I would have expected this child to get up and tell the world what a wonderful father they had but instead this child was hammering away at me. I finally lost it. I pulled into a gas station, said some nasty things to this child and took a walk to nurse my damaged image of this wonderful Christian father.
 
At first I thought this was a moment of ministry and God was revealing the heart of this child. But I came to realize that God was not just revealing the heart of my child, he was revealing my heart. God was getting at my heart through my child’s heart.
 
We are very skilled at turning moments of ministry into moments of anger. So it is vitally important to see what it means to be a minister of change in God’s hands. In 2 Corinthians the Apostle Paul is talking about our ministry.
2 Cor. 5:17-21 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!  All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:  that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.  We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.  God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
God has called each one of us to be ministers of change. We are to approach every moment of our lives as opportunities for growth and change. The difficulty you have as a couple in communicating, the argument you have with your teen about what time your curfew is, the issues you are having at work or in school with others, the argument you have with your brother or sister on who gets the biggest piece of cake or who has to take the garbage out, etc. How are you and I to respond to all of these life moments? We are to respond as God’s ambassador in every situation we find ourselves in.
 
Now what does an ambassador do? Simply put, an ambassador’s main responsibility is to represent. God has placed you right where you are and you are to function as His ambassador.
 
The job description of an ambassador can be summed up in three words: Message, Method, and Sacrifice.
 
1st – An ambassador represents the MESSAGE of the King.
An ambassador takes the message of the king into the specific moments of every day. Your job is to represent God’s will at home, in your marriage, in your parenting, at work, at school, in the classroom, on the athletic court or field, in your car on the road, when you are on the computer or Texting, etc. Your job is to represent God’s will in each and every moment.
The issue is not what you want or what the other person wants. The issue is what God wants you to do. What does God want to accomplish through you in a specific point of time.
 
God’s goal for that day in the car was not just a joyful journey. God’s goal was to expose our hearts so that his grace could touch our hearts and reveal his grace.  
 
Where does God do his work of changing hearts by his grace? In the moments of our lives, whether at the supper table, the bed room, or the workplace. That day in the car all I could see was my child who was irritating me. At the moment of my display of anger, I quit being an ambassador. I was not representing the message of the king. I was representing the condition of my heart, not His. 
 
2nd – An Ambassador represents the METHODS of the King.
 
As God’s ambassador, I don’t just ask what he wants me to say, but HOW would he want me to say it. I don’t think He would want me to say, “You want to fight? You want to yell? I can do that!” I don’t think that was God’s method for resolving the issue.
 
We’ve been given a standard. We are representing somebody and so I look to Jesus as my model of methodology for ministry.
 
The Bible is not just full of theology – it’s full of methodology as well. If you want to know methodology, watch Jesus and learn.
 
See how he treated people – the Samaritan woman at the well, the tax collector, the Roman Centurion, the woman caught in adultery, the little children, the demon possessed, the poor and the wealthy, the healthy and the sick, the old and the young, the powerful and the powerless, the beautiful and the not so beautiful, the smart and the not so smart. Jesus cared for people, he loved people and he took time to help people.
 
3rd – An Ambassador represents the SACRIFICE of the king.
 
Hear this: If you want to be a minister of change in the people around you, it will take your death. It is only as you are willing to die to all that you want and all that you fight for and all that you think is your right – it is only in our death that we will be part of the wonderful life that God can produce in and through our lives.
Our death refers to dieing to our own way of doing life and submitting to Jesus way of doing life by serving others.
 
Jesus said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.” (Lk 9:23-24)   This truth was so important that Jesus repeated it again and again. See: Mk 8:34-35; Lk 14:27 & 17:33; Matt. 10:38-39; 16:24-25
 
What he's saying here is that you must take up your cross. You must willingly sacrifice yourself, die to yourself, put aside your own desires, dreams, goals, and ambitions, and put Christ first, not yourself. Self-denial is not a popular message. To die to self? We're Americans. We're all about self-achievement, self-betterment.
 
What does that mean to “die to self”? Let me give you a few practical examples of how this would work in day-to-day living. Take up the cross means:

-Forgiving, instead of harboring that grudge.
-Seeking to understand others and not just demanding they understand us.
-Admitting my attitude needs fixing – not just my spouses or kids or parents.
-Putting down the remote control and picking up your Bible.
-Praying when you would rather be sleeping.
-Doing what God wants you to do, instead of what you want to do.
-Giving to others rather than expecting they should give to you.

Too often we turn moments of ministry of change into moments of anger or selfishness because we love our lives too much. We want to retain our position, our status, our rights. We want to be King and have others recognize our kingdom. We don’t want to “die to self.”
 
Too many of us, too often live like mini-kings establishing and controlling own kingdoms. We are trying to fit God into our kingdoms rather than us fitting into His kingdom. But, you have to let go of being an ambassador in your own kingdom if you are going to be an ambassador in His kingdom.
 
Jesus says if you will “die to yourself” and chose the lifestyle of an ambassador for me, you will make an eternal impact in your family, in your marriage, in your church, in your schools, in your community. 
We are called to be His ambassadors, representing his message, his methods, and his sacrifice.  
 
A Roman Catholic Church in NYC had a 200-pound plaster statue of Jesus that was stolen. Thieves broke in and took it. The interesting part was, being a Roman Catholic Church, the Jesus was part of a crucifix. The thieves unbolted Jesus from the cross and took him.
 
I think that’s a picture of modern Christianity. We want Jesus but we don't want the cross. We want all the benefits of faith. We want the assurance and comfort and joy and heaven when we die, but we don't want the self-sacrifice of the cross. But that choice is not up to us. Jesus says you can’t really have one without the other.
Have you and are you dying to yourself so that you can live for Him?