“Therefore, putting away lying, ‘Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor,’ for we are members of one another. ²⁶ ‘Be angry, and do not sin’: do not let the sun go down on your wrath, ²⁷ nor give place to the devil. ²⁸ Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need. ²⁹ Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. ³⁰ And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. ³¹ Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. ³² And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.”

Last week, we ended with a call to live righteously. The first three lessons taught us how to behave toward each other inside of the local church, and then the last two have spoken about how we are to be outside.

Paul encourages us to be ambassadors of the Kingdom of God. We are to take the beauty of the Kingdom of God beyond the borders of our local churches and promote the Kingdom of God. So, let me ask you, what kind of ambassador are you? Are you a good advertisement for the Kingdom of God, or do people who interact with you decide that it is better to avoid the Kingdom of God? This is a legitimate question. We have all met people who tell us the horror stories of their encounters with the ambassadors of God’s Kingdom. Maybe you have some horror stories of your own to tell. Sadly, like all countries, the Kingdom of God has good residents and bad residents; which are you?

Paul goes on to lay out some practical ways that we are to behave and act toward our fellow men/women that will allow us to be good ambassadors for the Kingdom of God. Notice in verse 25, we are told how to communicate with our ‘neighbors.’ These are those with whom we have a relationship either in the local church or maybe the icon in our family or home area.

One of the most important ways that we can be good ambassadors of the Kingdom of God is how we speak to the people around us. Paul tells us to ‘speak truth.’  This is important; we are not to be lying to each other, but neither are we to affirm lies. This is being pushed on us today, even in so-called churches – the idea that we are loving people by affirming them in their delusions and misguided thinking.

The next way is that we are to have control over our anger. Too many of God’s people use the idea of ‘righteous rage’ to justify ungodly behaviors; and in the event that there is a cause of anger, we are not to let it drag on and on. When we hold on to anger, when we stay mad at people, we are opening the door for the Devil himself to come in and work. Thus, we are no longer ambassadors for the Kingdom of God, but for the Devil himself.

Get a job! It is essential for God’s people to be productive members of society as far as jobs are concerned. Do not be a part of theft or even the appearance of theft. If you do steal, stop it and get a job. As a pastor, I think it is good for a man to be as bi-vocational as possible. It allows us to keep our ears and hands in people’s lives around us and not cocooned in the ministry. Most if not all of the apostles had other means of supplying their personal needs; it was not solely on the local church. The reason to have a job is not just to care for yourself but to also to be able to help those in need (see verse 28).

Paul turns again to our speech in verse 29. Wow! The way we talk must be very, very, very important. It looks like our mouths and the way we speak either make us good ambassadors or bad ones. How then is your speech? We are called to edify, to lift up, one another and to speak with grace to each other. Are we building up or tearing down each other? Sadly, too many Christians are good at demolition but not good at construction. We can destroy in our ‘righteous anger,’ but we cannot build up; we are not good ambassadors of the Kingdom of God. And frankly, I don’t care how much Bible you know, if you cannot speak to build up and with grace even when there is a need for correction, then you are not helping.

Paul then calls us to live in such a way as to not ‘grieve the Holy Spirit.’ He then goes on to tell how we need to behave so as not to grieve the Holy Spirit. Put away bitterness, wrath, and anger. A good ambassador of the Kingdom of God has a godly control over his or her emotions. Bitterness, as defined by Aristotle, is ‘a resentful spirit that refuses reconciliation.’ Wow! This sounds a lot like many Christians I know. They refuse to be reconciled because of an offense that was so egregious that it was more than what God’s grace could handle. Can you imagine an offense that big? There isn’t one. We make them up in our minds. Paul tells us to put this kind of untamed emotional behavior away from us. Mature people do not behave this way; this is for children or the unsaved but not for the ambassadors of the Kingdom of God.

Paul calls us to godly living: be kind, be tenderhearted, be forgiving; in other words, behave toward others how God behaves toward us. God is kind, God is tenderhearted, and God is forgiving beyond all measure. Good ambassadors of the Kingdom of God are this way toward those both inside and outside of the local church, and this is how we promote the Kingdom. You will not draw many with your ‘righteous anger.’ Rather, you will draw and keep many with kindness, tenderheartedness, and constant forgiveness.

So, how is your tenure as an ambassador for the Kingdom going? The Lord is coming soon!

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Bethany Baptist Church
70 Victoria Street, Elora, Ontario

“This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, ¹⁸ having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; ¹⁹ who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. ²⁰ But you have not so learned Christ, ²¹ if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: ²² that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, ²³ and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, ²⁴ and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.”

Paul hits us with another ‘therefore’ in verse 17. He wants us to come to the logical conclusion of where he is going with him. Based on what I have recently discussed with you, this is the reasonable direction of where we are going. Paul is going to address our lifestyle here; he calls it ‘our walk.’ In the previous verses, he primarily dealt with things inside the church body, how we regard ourselves, how we help each other, and how we forgive each other. He dealt with the doctrinal stands about the Lord, our faith, the Hope, and so on, and He called us to live a life that is not two-faced, nor that we should be tossed about by all the doctrines out there.

But now that we have learned how to behave and act inside the house of God, inside the family of God, we have to now learn how to ‘walk,’ how to live outside where we work, where we are neighbors, and where we interact with the world around us. Are we good advertisers for the kingdom, or do we detract from the kingdom? These are the questions. In 2 Corinthians 5:20, the Bible calls us ambassadors.

“Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.”

What kind of ambassadors are we? Paul tells us that now that we have been birthed into the family of God, we should live in certain ways, and by putting away certain behaviors, we can then live ‘righteously’ and be good ambassadors for the kingdom. The first thing that Paul points out is that we have a new mind. The lost man, you and I, before we were saved, had futile thinking (Vs 17), and we had darkened minds (vs 18). We had a hard time understanding, if at all, the concept and the precepts of God. Jesus, The Light, as we see in John 1:5, said this about the unsaved:

“And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”

We could not understand the ways of God because our minds were darkened, the way we thought was darkened, and as such, we could not see. The famous song “Amazing Grace” has the line, “I once was blind, but now I see.” It was not a physical blindness but a spiritual one. Now we can clearly see because the Holy Spirit is in us, and we can begin to understand the truth of God. As well, we are no longer ‘aliens’ to God; we have come into His family in and through Jesus. His shed blood and His sacrifice that pays for our sins births us into the family of God. Now, we are alienated from the world system. We don’t think like them, nor do we fit in like we used to in certain situations. The apostle Peter puts it this way: we are ‘sojourners’ here (1 Peter 2:11).

“Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul.”

We are no longer ignorant, no longer behaving lewdly, and we begin to stop things like greediness and cheating people out of their stuff. Verse 22 says that we ‘put off’ the former conduct. We set aside the former ways of life, and since we cannot live in a vacuum, we must then put on something. We will return to old habits unless we put on new ones. In verse 23, Paul tells us to ‘put on’ the new man. It is active; one must make choices and decisions over and over again. It is a daily and maybe even a moment-by-moment choice as we grow and mature in Jesus. Sometimes, it will feel awkward making ‘new’ choices, but much like a baby learning to walk, soon the steps are less and less awkward, and then they can run. The Christian life is much the same.

In Romans 12:1-2, we are called to a transformation in Jesus, a renewing of the mind, and the goal is that we are to live for the Lord. Paul here tells us that we are to live in ‘righteousness and holiness.’ Right living and right choices based on the word of God and the Holy Spirit in us, and these right ways lead us to holiness. Holiness is being ‘set apart’; this is what God calls us all to. In 2 Corinthians 6:17, Paul tells us this:

“Therefore ‘Come out from among them And be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, And I will receive you.’”

This is ‘holiness’ set apart from the world system for the Lord. We walk away from the old culture of the world and begin to live in the new culture of the Kingdom of Heaven. Our antics, our ways, our speech, and the way we carry ourselves are counter to the culture of the world. Our churches become embassies, and our members become ambassadors for the Kingdom of Heaven.

Are you and I good ambassadors for the Kingdom, or do we misrepresent the Kingdom? Jesus is coming, and so is the judgment.

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Bethany Baptist Church
70 Victoria Street, Elora, Ontario