An ambassador is not going to be getting drunk, he's on an important mission, and people are
looking at him, and if they see him getting drunk, it's going to reflect poorly on that
nation, right?
Let's say there was a country that you'd barely heard of, right?
What's a country that almost nobody's heard of?
Throw it out there for me.
Latvia.
Latvia, okay.
Brother Dave brought up Latvia, it's this tiny little country like, probably most people
couldn't really tell us, you know, what's the capital of Latvia, or tell us anything
about Latvia.
You know, what is Latvian food like?
I mean, I'm sure Brother Dave could tell us, but probably nobody else could.
Okay, what is the capital of Latvia?
Riga, okay, there we go, that was on the tip of my tongue.
But anyway, you know, we don't know anything about Latvia, right?
So what if you, what if you were at the airport, right?
And people were, there was kind of a buzz saying, hey, you know, the ambassador from
Latvia is on this plane.
And what if you just see him just getting drunk?
Wouldn't that just kind of be your first impression of Latvia?
Oh man, Latvia, that's where everybody's a drunk.
You know, just, and really you're judging it based on one guy.
Even though there's millions of people living in Latvia, you see that ambassador from Latvia
getting drunk in first class, you're just going to think to yourself, yeah, Latvia drunkenness.
Okay, so this is what it is.
When we're an ambassador for Christ, we should want to be a good reflection of who Christ
is.
We should want people to look at us and see the way that we live our lives and see that
we're not drunks, we're not lazy, we're not unrighteous, we're not adulterers, we're
not pornographers, we're not thieves, we're not fools.
You know, they should look at us and see somebody who's living a godly and clean and righteous
life so that it would be a good reflection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
You know, because if we saw that ambassador from Latvia and he was dressed sharp and he
was friendly, he was humble, he was polite, he was handling himself very well, he was
well-spoken, you know, that would be a good representation of Latvia and we might even
think I might visit Latvia sometime because that guy was so cool.
Whereas if we see him being a complete idiot and making a fool of himself, we're going
to think to ourselves, "Man, what is up with Latvia?
What a joke.
No wonder I've never heard of it."
That's what we're going to be thinking to ourselves, okay?
So what I'm saying is important people, they have to be very careful about the way that
they act and the way they live their lives and they realize, "Hey, people are looking
at me and so I better be careful."
It's the same thing with us.
When we realize our importance and our value and we realize that we're kings, that we're
priests, that we're ambassadors, you know, we're going to think to ourselves, man, I'd
better live up to that calling.
You know, if I'm a king, I better start living like a king.
I better start acting like a king.
And that means I'm not just living my life, fooling around, thinking, well, it doesn't
really matter what I do, right?
No, it does matter what you do when you're the king, when you're a priest, when you're
an ambassador, everything you do matters.
And when we realize the importance and the value of that position that we hold, it's
going to cause us to want to hopefully live up to the trust that's been placed in us.
I mean, look, God said to walk worthy of the calling wherewith you're called.
And if God has bestowed so much love upon us that we should be called the sons of God.
I mean, the Bible says, "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that
we should be called the sons of God."
And God has given us that honor and that privilege and that distinction.
Shouldn't we try to live up to being a child of God?
And if He's made us an ambassador, shouldn't we try to live up to that and be a good ambassador?
And if He's made us kings and priests, He didn't have to do that.
He could have just saved us and made us His slave or His servant, right?
And said, "Sweep the floor, clean the toilet in heaven."
And we would have just been thrilled to do that because we're just at least escaping
the fires of hell.
But He doesn't just save us and make us His serfs or His slave.
He says, "You're more than a servant.
You're my friend.
You're my friends," He said, "You're ambassadors, you're priests, you're kings."
And when we realize that God loves us and has given us so much, we should want to live
up to that.
And it's going to affect the way we live when we realize, "Well, you know what?
It's not for kings to drink wine, nor for princes strong drink."
Well, the other people are drinking, other people are getting drunk.
You know what though?
We're too important.
We're on too important of a mission.
We are too important to the work of God to be fooling around with stuff like that, to
be taking chances with alcohol or anything else.
We need to live a life that is worthy of the calling wherewith we're called.