If I were to ask you all what you think our church values based on what you have observed about our lives and ministry, I wonder what responses I would receive. Some values are aspirational. These are things that we aspire to become. For instance, we aspire to be an evangelistic church. We would love to see our baptism full of people who were saved because people from our church shared the gospel with them and led them to become fully devoted followers of Christ. Right now, that is aspirational, because most of the people in our church were saved at some other time in some other place than Redeemer. 

We were challenged last week to see the example of Christ in John 4 to cross the room and engage with people who do not yet know Christ. It is possible that we could look at Christ and deeply admire the way that he engages people and draws them to himself, but not see any possible way that we could follow his example. And yet, this is part of the purpose that God has saved each of us to live out. As believers we are called God’s ambassadors commissioned with a message for all the world. What is that message? That message is the good news that God wants all men to be reconciled to himself through Jesus. Paul in his 2^nd letter to the Corinthians wrote, “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” (2 Corinthians 5:17-18).

Do you see yourself as an ambassador of the Kingdom of Christ? Ambassadors have a unique responsibility to deliver the message that they are given. They are the mouthpiece of the one who sent them. Their authority is not based on their own power or wisdom, but on the One they are sent to represent.  Paul goes on, “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. ²¹ God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:20-21).

While the church value of evangelism may be aspirational, it is not optional for us. This isn’t a value that we are free to take or leave. The church (you and me) is God’s plan for reaching the world. Will you be faithful to deliver this message to those around you? Will you cross the room, cross the street, cross the living room to share God’s love with those who need to hear it? Who has God put in your proximity that needs to hear this message? 

What other values do you think we have or ought to have as a church?