 Well, tonight I'm going to speak to you a brand new message and never done anywhere in the world Where it's worth one of them, maybe Maybe worth of what the heck was that later on One of the things I miss and I miss very few things about pastoral people around the world said to me What do you miss about pastoring us after 30 odd years very little? One of the things I do miss about pastoring is this is doing new messages for the first time with my home church And what I think I miss isn't just that I miss the Experimentation Facility and opportunity of local church To have your own laboratory with your own human guinea pigs as it were Well, we get to try stuff together We get to push a boundary and see if we can break through we get to aim higher and Wonder whether or not people will follow us We get to do stuff with lower numbers comparatively and less resources comparatively and no national geographic leverage comparatively We get to do that on a non-level playing field and we get to pull off amazing things in and through our church And I loved the first stages of pioneering and trying stuff out and when people said you'll never pull that off We'd go say well, yeah, we did pull it off and we pulled it off for all the reasons you told us we couldn't so To be here with you in the word this morning Was such a thrill and then to be with you tonight trying out a new message because any message be their own people at least You should try that with your own people because they should be the kindest to you. I know What I have enjoyed though is also which I didn't get to do in the local church because you're doing a different message Every week is been able to perfect a message and doing the same message multiple times until you just feel I've got that thing so sharp in my heart I missed not being able to do that in the local church and love been able to do that now in Different places around the world typically the first version is not the one you finish up with so I don't know This is a Ferrari tonight a Ferrari or a Ford We'll see to Corinthians 5 and verse 16 to 20 NIV Bible Let's read one of the most beautiful Amazing passages written by Virginia's there was the Apostle Paul one of my and I guess your New Testament heroes that I think there'll be a cue to speak to him certainly in heaven He'll probably have a booking system by now So from now on Paul says regard we regard no one from a worldly point of view that Itself is massive. I wish the church would get that figured out Let's not regard anyone from a worldly Stereotyping boxing them in predicting based on appearance and Postcode and side of the tracks they come from I regard no one anymore from those points of view though We once regarded Christ even in that way. We do so no longer Therefore if anyone is in Christ He is a new creation the old has gone and 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 church the message of Reconciliation wonder what your message is our message is a message of reconciliation of second chance of everybody's welcome of whosoever may come a message of Reconciliation we are therefore in light of this. We are therefore Christ's Ambassadors everybody say ambassadors We are Christ's ambassadors as though God were making his appeal his Reconciling appeal through us and so we implore you the church. He's writing to on Christ's behalf to be reconciled with God this amazing leader this amazing Apostle this amazing guy brought to us this rich New Testament language that we now take for granted often don't appreciate the the beauty of his language when Paul teaches as Metaphors for the church like the church is a family or the church is an army or the church is a body Or the church is a bride or the church is a vine and we were grafted in the talks of Martin Romans and uses this gardening Horticultural agricultural analogy about us and Paul uses these metaphors Imagine how much these ideas these Pictures of church have enabled us to talk about the church to non-church people and to explain the church to ourselves through because we can't understand some of the mystical Theologically shrouded in mystery language of the theologians over the centuries, but we can get family We can get arm we can get body and vine and and as the as the Army of God we know that we fight and we put on the full armor and so on and as the bride of Christ We love and are loved and as God's family We belong and we include others who need to belong and as the vine we grow and are Fruitful we get all that but he uses a term here But I've never heard anyone speak about and I'm fascinated by Paul's use of this term this metaphor for us that we are Ambassadors That he saw his life he saw his ministry Summed up in this moment of his life as an ambassador for Christ and through his Ambassadorial calling and status and identity That Christ was making his reconciliatory appeal to the earth through Paul Not just as a leader or a preacher or a pastor or an Ephesians for ministry We know those terms, but as an ambassador and as ambassadors We live in one place. There's some screens gonna come up behind me to just help you understand Well, I think he's telling us that we need to understand because he didn't explain to us what he meant So it's for people like me to try and figure out what he meant to bring this term alive to us tonight as Ambassadors we live in one place But we are from another place Paul knew this deeply to his core He's got to have known this stuff with some of the stuff he went through in life as Ambassadors we live in a host nation, but we are from a home nation as Ambassadors we live in a host nation, but we are resourced from our home nation Steve Mentioned it this morning in the offering and again tonight when he talked to us about we need to Look beyond the pain of the circumstances We are in and beyond the troubles of the world and reach into God that is our father and our healer and our provider and This morning talked to us in the offering about how Isaac soared in famine and Reaped a hundredfold harvest in conditions when no one's planting because why would you the experts weren't planting? You don't plant in famine and he planted in the most adverse hostile conditions and Look out didn't just reap slightly which would have been awesome, but reaped a massive bumper crop because like Isaac and All these other amazing individuals through history we could look at one by one tonight. They had an understanding wherever they called it I don't know Paul used this term So we can apply across the board now that Isaac was living in the host famine of the host nation as it were but was resourced and sustained from Somewhere else and because he was not defined and confined and controlled and limited by The conditions of the host nation He was able to live from his home nation in a way that no one else could understand where he got that resource from Greece May be broke But the British ambassador to Greece is not broke and maybe there's no electricity or No fuel or no food or no medicine in the host nations of the world where our Ambassadors from this country are but our ambassadors from our home England are In no lack Though their host nations are in lack Our ambassadors from our home nation their home nation are not subject to and Defected by and governed by that lack so in the midst of famine and the midst of lack and the midst of difficulty in the 2008 economic meltdown in our world 911 post 911 cops being shot race riots in America in the midst of the worst of times It's worth reminding us tonight that this is not our home nation that We do not draw our Identity or our values or our callings or our relationships or our direction from what happens in The host nation that we are in but we are sustained from and we are Resourced from and we are connected to somewhere else something else someone else that allows us like Isaac to behave in a time of lack with weird crazy Unusual makes no sense generosity that we are able to be gracious and loving and merciful and forgiving in a time when there is a famine and a lack in our host nations of all that stuff for we are Ambassadors of Christ and we are in one place, but we are from another place There are two kinds of ambassadors I didn't know this and because I like to study things that I talk about a lot more than I probably tell people I Found it fascinating that there are two kinds of ambassadors and one is called Extraordinary ambassadors, which sounds like what we want to be till you hear the next one the next one is Plenty potentially. I want that just for the word Extraordinary ambassadors which sounds of grand title. We would all enjoy actually temporary ambassadors And they have fewer powers and less authority Than this second kind of ambassador, which is plenty potentially plenty potentially means permanent and These permanent plenty potentially ambassadors have full power and full authority of their sending home nation Invested in them, and I want to say to you the reason I wanted to see these two terms is because I believe that We have behaved like extraordinary ambassadors in terms of temporary We've behaved as if we are temporary in the wrong way and We are not Extraordinary ambassadors. We are plenty potentially Ambassadors all of our lives till the day we die We are here in an ambassadorial calling An ambassadorial Identity on behalf of our home nation all of our lives because I tell you our temporary Theologies and our temporary Mentalities have not served our host nation. Well even the Jews in captivity as you know in Babylon modern-day Iraq It says that they hung their harps up they in the willow tree they put away their Live church songs they put away their Hillsong's and their Bethel music songs and said we can't sing this stuff anymore in this hostile territory We can't be who we are in this land of captivity. We are human traffic Into a place where we should not be we are in enforced Capture enforced Held we are refugees. This is not our home and it's not gonna end any time soon And so God's people in Babylon in captivity have this bailout off-ramp Uncoupling from responsibility Mentality and God said to Jeremiah in 29 5 7 tell my people in captivity to build houses to settle down to plant gardens To marry and have kids and marry off their kids and tell their kids to have kids I want my people there to increase in number not decrease Seek the peace and prosperity tell them of Babylon pray for your host nation Because if it prospers you will prosper and it can't prosper without God's people being who we are Bringing our home into our host home our host nation is physical and external But our home nation is spiritual and internal I'm taking you somewhere here with this Contrast of the home Nation and the host nation our host nation is temporal and Our home nation is eternal. We will spend forever and ever in our home nation and The time we'll spend here on some days can feel like forever and ever But it is but a blink and a breath Compared to our Eternity in our eternal home our host nation is the world and our home nation is the kingdom of God The church is Heaven's embassy on the earth It is God's sovereign territory in the earth it is our peace of Our home nation in our host nation We are God's Embassy all around the world millions of us millions of churches all around the world don't understand this because they don't behave like it they do not offer refuge and resource and influence and bless and help and invest in a Jeremiah told them in their host nation. They have this bunker mentality this temporary bailout mentality Which is not served our community as well and certainly our church was not doing that in the late 90s Which was part of the reason we desperately needed to Refigure out who we were and why we were here. We were not here for us to have a great time in the embassy to have nice suarez and And Parties for overfed under exercise Christians in the embassy where we had a great time every week But didn't reach anyone and didn't seem to matter that we didn't reach anyone because we reached them in our theology In our preaching and our singing but God help you if you came in this building with a mohawk and a body piercing Now that's on the platform Back then it was no way to be seen in our church That's how insular that's how inside the embassy we all were This term ambassador gives us massive insight Into how I believe Paul Bless him survived I mean when you read Paul's list, which must be only a brief part of what he went through of his sufferings of his beatings and his Stonings and the death threats and the jail time he did and his shipwreck and His assassination attempts on his life and the betrayals and the desertions and the rejections and the lack and The nakedness and the sleeplessness He mentions this list and then by the way puts and besides all of that I had this burden of my concern for the churches That was outside of his burdens that the churches brought to him which were many this was what the host nation was doing to him and Paul I believe discovered something which is why I think he uses the term Ambassador in the first place. I believe Paul Discovered something in his ambassadorial status beyond what I've said so far about his dual Placement in a host but coming from a home nation. I think beyond his knowing he is here to be a carrier of this home nation message to the host nation in his generation of Reconciliation not of this From the embassy sending out memos to let them know what we don't agree with but this Huge heart of love he had to the point where he said I became all things to all people Got me in a lot of trouble like it did Jesus, but he understood This was his calling. This was his life to be an ambassador of Reconciliation but there's something else he figured out and it's what all ambassadors around the world have and it's called diplomatic immunity diplomatic immunity is an amazing Legal agreement between nations around the world This was introduced Hundreds of years ago by the way so that so that each other's government's representatives could continue to function Immune from what was ever happening in that country that could shut down diplomatic efforts to fix what was happening in that country so when your own Statesmen and state swimming around the world were themselves put in jail as a Reaction of that country against your country Then the ability to have a voice in that country to reconcile and to repair was locked up and Governments realized that without the freedom of our Ambassadorial voices to each other we are going to never get through conflicts or all so we need to develop something and it became called diplomatic immunity It is immunity from the host country's laws You are immune as an ambassador around the world to prosecution or punishment for crimes they say you committed and Only the home nation can revoke diplomatic immunity, but the host nation cannot take that from us No matter what The host nation of the world did to Paul He seemed immune to its attempts to stop him in his Ambassadorial mandate to be a voice of reconciliation to the world Here is one of his or perhaps his most famous ambassadorial insight Romans 834 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble this list was not theory to him Shall trouble or hardship or danger or sword? No, no, no in all these things we are More than conquerors through him who loved us for I am convinced. Whoa. I am convinced Some of us have gone through with nothing and we ain't convinced I Am convinced look at his life. It was a nightmare. I am convinced that neither death Which he'd faced many times No life, which was more crummy for him than good Now that angels no demons nor the past nor the present Know what's coming tomorrow? Not any powers nor height Nor depth nor anything else in all creation in all the host nation Nor anything else will be able to separate us from the love of God That is in Christ Jesus in other words. I have diplomatic immunity That's what he's saying You can't keep a good mind down He's saying they have thrown Everything at me they're even Dreaming up new things to throw at me as they did with Jesus How in the world can we shut this guy up because none of the conventional means of Shutting these people down or working way before now most of us would have quit and compromise and dulled down and muted down our voice None of this worked with this guy And so what Paul's saying to us in that scripture and through his life What he's saying to us through his ambassadorial identity is I have learned to live from my homeland in another land I Have learned to live life. Watch this carefully. I have learned to live life from the inside Where your homeland is? Your host nation as we just read is physical and external it's called Bradford for us or where you do life or England or Europe but your eternal home your Home that you came from that you are Ambassador really sent from is Internal and for Paul to survive all of that stuff and and be impossible to stop He learned to live his life in his host nation from his home nation Where's your home nation in here? So if you don't learn to live from home to host Instead of host to home You'll be shut down with the slightest form of resistance and Disagreement and difficult days and adversity and punishment and people misunderstanding you and persecuting you because Paul had a list that would outstrip any of our sufferings and all of us put together perhaps and Paul had figured something out and he figured out as an ambassador. I also have Diplomatic immunity or it's not immunity from what the host nation can do to me because we know what they did to him In fact, the only other time he mentions the word ambassador is in rights to the Ephesians from jail in Rome And he says to them I am an ambassador in chains But I'm still an ambassador Well, how can he still be an ambassador if you're in chains? You're not you're not functioning anymore You're an ambassador all your freedom is taken from you. You have no more immunity. You're in jail How can he say I'm ambassador in chains? Because he knew that his home nation Was in here and from his internal Eternal sending home nation though the host nation has physically chained him His immunity in his spirit because he's resourced from somewhere else Because his values are from somewhere else because his identity and calling and destiny and Sustainance and resource and strength and belief system is from somewhere else He's able to say all things Work together for my good What hang on a minute? Let's read the list again Paul which part of all that stuff is good None of it. That's his point Despite all of that stuff. That's not good. That's not good for you tonight He said God is working all things my my home nation Leader my home nation's sender whose ways are not my home nation's ways Whose thoughts are not the host nation's thoughts. He Sustained me and he is able to take whatever they throw at me and if I can discover How to live life from the inside out? live from home Outwards to host rather than host Inwards to home Some of you are in the wrong business You are engaged far too much in import and You have no border control You are letting all kinds of stuff Overrun your home border And you let in the host nation send all kinds of rogue stuff into your home world and It contaminates and dilutes and causes upheaval and then you try and figure out how to live in mixture Because you have had no control for years over the voices and the influences that you allow in To your home nation and you lose your diplomatic immunity not because God rescinded it Not because the sending nation or the only one that can revoke it revoked it No, no, it's still intact, but you have realized it as ambassadors We are called and we are wired and equipped in the midst of the worst adversary adversity to live from our Internal life our internal world to live from the inside out is the greatest discovery I think Paul could ever have Imparted to a shared with us living from homeland living from your homeland enables you to prosper in prison To reap a hundred fold in famine to triumph in Tragedy to flourish in famine to be stable in unstable times To be in peace and asleep in a boat in a storm go figure that and they couldn't To be able to give when all around is saying withhold hang on to what you've got Living from your homeland out to your host nation Enables you to live upside down inside out to society around us This is what makes God's embassy unique and different to any other gathering of people on the earth Though we have understood like the British ambassadors around the world do no matter what kicks off In that host nation. I am protected. I am sustained by I am looked after from my Sending nation I will fear not I can be bailed out here in an instant if push comes to shove It is that reliance upon that back up that protection that resource from the sending nations equipment and Abilities and ability to rescue them and finance them and feed and clothe them It is that that enables them to be peaceful and generous and giving and helpful in the midst of the host nation's worst nightmare What this means is that someone asked me I Was in a conversation and I was talking to two or three people and one of them Was going through a terrible situation in his church and his health and so on and another pastor Came over and I remember going through times of my own life with crossing over this church And so on and I used to hate this question. Don't you hate this question? How's he going? How's what going? Where do you begin to answer that because they don't say how's your health or how's your finances or? How's your career on your work? How's how's it? What's it? Where do you answer from you you would wish they'd be more specific because how it's going is terrible And you don't really want to talk about how it's going because it is not going well Imagine saying to Paul when he's just been flogged for the umpteenth time and thrown in jail Hey, Paul, you know we're from BBC. How's it going? Well you can see it's not Not going great or all whoa Tell us about it. No How's it going? awful How are you? Awesome, well you're kidding yourself trying to be something you know, no, no, I'm in it You can be in awful and be awesome in the midst of awful Because you figured something out You figured out that it may be awful in the host nation and what it's doing to me and what I'm going through is awful So if you ask me how's it going? I'm not gonna lie. It's going awful But we have seen because it's going awful. You must be awful. Oh, I didn't know so bad. I'll pray for you. You pray for me I'm doing fantastic I'm growing more than I've ever grown I'm seeing things that I've never seen when things were going awesome I'm finding out who my real friends are I'm discovering something about dependence on God I thought I'd figured out but I'm discovering to a whole new level that I Wasn't as dependent on God as I should have been I was too dependent on people When those people said they never leave me or forsake me left me I thought I'd die but actually I had something in here that they didn't take with them Which was this eternal abiding friendship and presence of God With me I knew it as a song I knew it as a verse But I now I know it in my heart of hearts that God is with me I am going through things that are terrible, but I am doing amazing That's the only way You can sing and worship in jail at midnight after not before after you've been flogged and After not before God told you to go there But they're in they're in an Ephesian jail because Paul had a vision Telling him to go. Thanks a bunch And now he's there based on a word from God and he's been flogged and he's in jail And even Silas are in jail and at midnight. They're not just praying I get that these guys are singing at the top of their voice in jail at midnight They are behaving from their home life their home world Outwards onto the host nation and saying we have Diplomatic immunity in here. You can't kill us. You can't silences You can't steal our song steal our faith steal our strength. We have diplomatic flippin immunity and so do you every one of you You're gonna go through stuff this week look in the mirror every morning and say I am an ambassador of Christ I have diplomatic immunity Which does not mean I will not suffer or people will not resist me It means that that's highly likely, but that does not define me and control me and and take all to my thermostat And change it this week. I have Diplomatic immunity I am convinced that neither death nor life Nor the boss or the neighbor or the economy or whatever your list may be Will shut me down. I can thrive in adversity you have diplomatic immunity What what? What a massive Gift of empowerment that we have in the earth, but we live so under We live so Subject to that no one knows we have that because we are so conditioned by our host Conditions that we have not had dominion and we have not prospered and we have not been stable in Difficulty we've been as up and down as those that don't know Christ It's all stand here. Come on times. Well, this is a massive People-empowering idea. I suppose Tonight for all of us And I don't know How it's going, but I do know No matter how it's going You Can be doing awesome. Don't apologize for that Don't try and convince people that's possible. Just be awesome in the midst of your awful Because you have figured out I have an immunity In my roots into Christ, I figured out What life throws at me? I'm still showing up. I still get up. I still love I still give I still serve I'm still generous. I still put in I don't know how in the world people said me how in the world Are you still going? I don't know I'm telling you how you doing it You have diplomatic immunity when you're living from your home when every eye closed God, we thank you for being our Sending King, but heaven is our home we're ambassadors of a place and a system and a value and a kingdom and a power and an authority that This world will never ever Understand and so we don't ask it to pray tonight for a rediscovery in all of us of our ambassadorial calling to this planet and to our towns and cities all across this country I Pray you will take us by the hand and teachers of fresh how to live From the inside out help us to teach our kids how to do that, too help us to live with a radical sense an audacious sense of immunity From what they forecast would Shut us down