Note: Devotion based on last Sunday's sermon on Ephesians 6:18-24.
For which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak
boldly, as I ought to speak (Ephesians 6:20).
As Paul draws his epistle to the Ephesians to a close, he exhorts
them to pray “always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit” (Ephesians
6:18). He asks them to make supplication “for all saints,” including himself: “and
for me” (vv. 18-19), just as he beseeched the Thessalonians, “Brethren, pray
for us” (1 Thessalonians 5:25).
Paul refers to himself in Ephesians 6:20 as “an ambassador in
bonds.” This is a title he also used in his second epistle to the Corinthians:
2 Corinthians 5: 20 Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech
you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.
21 For he hath made him to be sin for
us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
The title of ambassador is one taken from secular diplomacy. The
ambassador would represent his sovereign king. He did not make announcements or
call for actions based on his own personal authority but merely conveyed the
commands and instructions that were given him by his king.
Paul is saying that this was his calling as an apostle and a
minister of the Lord Jesus Christ. We might say that call continues today among
all his servants.
In a
classic book on preaching, the famed Welsh pastor D. M. Lloyd-Jones wrote about
the preacher as "ambassador.” He said,
An ambassador is not a man who voices his own
thoughts or his own opinions or views, or his own desires… In other words, the
content of the sermon is what is called in the New Testament 'The Word.'
I do not bring my own thoughts and ideas, I do
not just tell people what I think or surmise: I deliver to them what has been
given to me. I have been given it, and I give it to them. I am a vehicle, I am
a channel, I am an instrument, I am a representative (Preaching & Preachers,
61).
That
is true for every preacher and for every believer who bears witness to his
faith in Christ. Christ is our King, and we must faithfully represent him.
Notice that in v. 20b Paul repeats the request made in v. 19:
“that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.” This conveys the fact
that Paul, though he makes this request from prison, saw himself not as doing
something particularly extra-ordinary or praise-worthy. He was simply doing his
duty as a minister of Christ, and he asked the church’s prayers to help him
maintain this task.
Let us learn from the apostle to be bold, whatever our outward
circumstances, to serve as faithful ambassadors for Christ.
Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle
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