Someone once said, “If you copy from one person, it’s calledplagiarism. But if you copy from many people, it’s called research.” Tobe honest, I want to acknowledge CDPC friends whose questions,insights and encouragement have shaped my reflection and give duecredit to some people whose writings have provided helpful materialsfor this sermon. They are Michael Ramsden, Greg Koukl, JP Moreland,Conrad Gempf and Francis Schaeffer. I thank God for these people whohave helped me a lot.

Last Sunday, Mark gave us a quiz at the start of his sermon with pictures of Sir WinstonChurchill, Martin Luther King Jr and other famous people. Today I would like to startwith a little quiz as well. I have shown this to the youths at the Ripples camp earlier thisyear so let’s see whether you can recognize the faces in these pictures. Who is this?Answer: Phua Chu Kang. Mr Bean. Homer Simpson. Alfred E. Neumann. Now here’s a question for you: “Suppose that our church (CDPC) is invited to a meetingwith the King (Yang Dipertuan Agong) to discuss some very important matters. Let’s sayhe wants to find out why Christians use the word “Allah” in our Bahasa Bibles. Wouldyou send any of these guys to represent CDPC at that meeting? Why? Why not?”Because these f’lers are weird… They could be rude (PCK picks his nose in front of theking), annoying and inconsiderate (remember the time Mr Bean created havoc in achurch?), so blur (“Doh!”), offensive or proud (“Best in Singapore, JB and some say evenin Batam”?). We basically don’t want our representatives to be fumbling clowns. Becauseif they represent us, it would reflect badly on us and people think CDPC looks like that.But like it or not, we are already representatives of Christ in our family, in our classroomor office, among our friends… Whether we know it or not, we are ambassadors for Christ. We represent the King and His Kingdom in a fallen world to share good news anddo good works. People will hear what we say and look at our behavior and think, “Oh,he’s a follower of Jesus. So His Master must be like that also lah”. As Mark reminded uslast Sunday, we are to reflect God’s glory, imaging God in the marketplace. We willeither attract people to see God or distract people from seeing God. And that’s a highcalling… Who could live up to that?But the amazing thing is God in His mercy invites fumbling, blur and offensive sinnerslike us to join in His redemptive mission for the world. We don’t have to be perfect. ButGod doesn’t want us to stay that way either. He wants to transform us to continuegrowing to be ambassadors for Christ who are humble, honest, thoughtful and winsome.So with that in mind, let’s turn to the passage of Scripture for today in 1 Peter 3:13-16

“Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. "Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened." But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone

who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentlenessand respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.”

Tradition has it that the apostle Peter was writing from Rome to a church that is goingthrough persecution. So he told them, “Don’t repay evil with evil. When you are insulted,respond with blessing”. If you remember, that’s exactly what Jesus taught in the Sermonon the Mount: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”In a hostile environment, Christians are to seek to live in harmony with everyone else. SoPeter goes on to say, “If you are eager to do good to others, who is going to harm you?But… But even if you suffer for doing what is right, even if you are persecuted for nogood reason, you are still blessed.” Again, we hear echoes of the Sermon on the Mountwhere Jesus said: “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kindsof evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad”. But, why?How can persecution be a blessing? Jesus explains: “For great

your reward in heaven,for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” So persecution is notsomething strange. It is to be expected. It’s the cost of following Jesus. If even the prophets, apostles and Jesus himself suffered, who are we to escape from it completely?So don’t be afraid of opposition. Don’t be scared and keep quiet about the gospel. But inyour hearts, set apart Christ as Lord. Do not be frightened into silence because Jesus isKing. He is the Lord. Get ready to speak up when people ask. So the sovereignty of Godis not an excuse for laziness: “Well, since God is in control, I don’t need to do anything-lah”. Instead the truth that Jesus is the sovereign Lord of all gives us a deep, solid hopeeven in the face of intense opposition… It gives us hope to press on in doing good...Because ultimately Jesus is Lord and therefore, Caesar is not. Herod is not Lord. Osama bin Laden is not Lord. Barrack Obama is not Lord. We don’t owe them our ultimateallegiance. The cure against the fear of man is the confidence that Christ is on His throne.He is Lord of all or He is not Lord at all.Again, the mind-boggling thing is: You and I are called to be ambassadors of this Kingand His Kingdom. The only question is: What kind of ambassadors are we? So I wouldlike to draw out three key characteristics of what an effective ambassador looks like fromthis passage of Scripture.

1) An ambassador has a firm conviction in the Lordship of Jesus

In those days, the Roman Empire was actually quite a tolerant place to live in. There were plenty of religions around so the government doesn’t really care what or who youworship. But to make sure everybody understands that Caesar is the king and everybodymust remain loyal to him, you are required to go the Roman Imperial Temple maybe oncea year to burn incense at his altar and swear your allegiance to him, saying “Caesar isLord! Caesar is Lord! (

kyrios

)”. And Caesar was given divine titles like ‘Lord’, ‘Savior’or ‘Son of god’. That’s all you need to do once in a while. Then you can go on practicing2

whatever religion you like. You can worship anyone you like as long as you worshipCaesar as Lord. Sounds simple, right?But to the early Christians, offering worship to anyone but God alone is idolatry. It isgiving to a creature what truly belongs to the Creator. Only Jesus deserves our ultimateloyalty and our highest worship. In their hearts they set apart Christ as Lord.

Kyrios Iesous Christos.

Jesus Christ is Lord. For this reason, they were persecuted and somewere killed.In Malaysia, we also live in a multicultural, multi-religious, pluralistic society. It’s notthat different today. There is a secular side of Malaysian society that lives side by sidewith an Islamic side – sometimes they don’t mix very well.For the more pluralistic Malaysians, you can believe anything you want as long as youdon’t believe that it’s true. “It’s okay if you say this religion is true for you, but it’s nottrue for me. We are very tolerant and inclusive people but we won’t tolerate and includeyour belief that Jesus is the way and the truth and the life and nobody comes to God but by Him. Because that’s so intolerant and exclusive. You can believe in Jesus but only if you don’t set Him apart as the one and only Lord.”This very common and popular belief is nicely captured in a story about six blind menand the elephant. Have you heard of this ancient story from India? Once upon a time, six blind men encountered an elephant for the first time. One guy put out his hand andtouched the side of the elephant. "How smooth! An elephant is like a wall." The secondguy touched the trunk of the elephant. "How round! An elephant is like a snake." Thethird guy touched the tusk of the elephant. "How sharp! An elephant is like a spear." Thefourth guy touched the leg of the elephant. "How tall! An elephant is like a tree." Thefifth blind man reached out and touched the ear of the elephant. "How wide! An elephantis like a fan." And the last guy touched the tail of the elephant. "How thin! An elephantis like a rope."So the blind men began to argue amongst themselves. Each one thought that his ownunderstanding of the elephant was correct. It was so loud that the Rajah or the king heardthe commotion and came to them. "Stop fighting. The elephant is a big animal," hesaid. "Each of you touched only one small part. Let me tell you the whole truth. Actually,you are all experiencing only part of the same elephant."I like this story a lot. At first it sounds very humble and open minded because it says allreligions are partly correct, they are all in touch with God. But what’s the problem withthis story? If we look closer, our friend who tells this story is basically saying allreligions are like the blind men touching different parts of God. The Buddhist is blind.The Muslim is blind. The Hindu is blind. The Christian is also blind. All of them are blind men. All of them didn’t get the whole truth. You see, our friend is actually makinga very exclusive statement that no one else got it all correct except himself. If everyoneelse is blind, then who is he in the story? He is not one of the blind men. He’s not theelephant. He is actually claiming to be the all-knowing Rajah who sees the whole truth3