In today’s text Paul makes a declaration of identity about himself that also points to all of us. He writes “we are ambassadors for Christ”. This passage that we have been studying for the last couple of months is coming to a crescendo, it is reaching its highest point. Paul has told us who he is because of what Jesus has done so that we can understand fully what Jesus has done and become who we were created to be. In this passage Paul has written about the love of Christ, the death of Christ, our regard for each other, the reality of belonging to Jesus, becoming a new creation and being reconciled to God through Christ. The truth that all of this is building to is what we find today: because we belong to Jesus we have been given the work of Jesus through the message of Jesus. In John 14:12 Jesus began preparing His disciples for this when He said “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in Me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these he will do, because I am going to the Father.” In Acts 1, just before He ascended to the right hand of the Father, He went even farther by promising “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me . . .” Here in II Corinthians Paul tells us in present tense what Jesus had promised in future tense; the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise is this: “We are ambassadors for Christ”.  In an effort to truly understand what this means we will consider a few questions today: What is an ambassador? Who is our example? And what is our message? My prayer for today is that we will begin to put this entire passage together and that we will see that we are not here to blaze new trails, we are merely pilgrims and strangers following a leader in a narrow path that often feels foreign to us but is actually perfectly marked out by His love is walked for His glory and leads to men’s redemption.