Thank you, Jerry, for the very warm introduction.
It's great to see so many familiar faces, some new faces.
My name is Dan Waitman. I'm the executive director of
the Caribbean Youth Network, which is a small mission agency
based out of Pittsburgh, PA. We're local, but we've gone far.
And I just want to share before we get into the sermon, just a
just a little bit about the context of where I serve and
Kelly serves and Barrett and Kerry Hendrickson, whom you
know, many of you know also from this church who serve in the
Bahamas. So we're a we're A5O1C3
nonprofit Christian mission agency with a passion for
sharing Jesus with young people in the Caribbean and making
disciples for him through the work of the Holy Spirit and the
lives of others. And this is a map of the
Bahamas. If you're not familiar, it's
many islands stretches from the coast of Haiti and Cuba all the
way up to South Florida. And the little arrows you see
represent islands that over the last 2526 years now Kelly and I
have been serving in the Bahamas.
And if you add that the time that Jerry mentioned with the
camps, well over 30 years that we, and I say we, not Kelly and
I, but we as a church have been serving this nation for Christ's
sake. These little arrows represent
islands that we've impacted in the Deep South.
You'll see Long Island, which was where we got our start in a
foothold in ministry there and spent many years serving that
rural community. In the far north.
You'll see Grand Bahama and Abaco.
Abaco is where the Hendricksons live.
And then you'll see a Luthra, which is has a camp that we've
been able to help serve over the years and do ministry there.
And then the Little Arrow by the Big Island of Andros.
You can hardly see our island. It's the most populated Nassau,
Bahamas, which I know probably many of you have been to on
cruises or many of you on mission trips even, which is
exciting. That's where we live.
We we serve there. The next slide shares a little
bit about what we do and how we make ministry happen.
And this is this is the way it works.
This is the fruit of that. Yes, that Jerry spoke of all
these programs and the many students over there could be up
to 1000 kids who are impacted by the ministry annually, which is
just astounding what God has done, but we do high school
outreach ministry. We do what we call G2 high
school ministry. You can flip it back one more
I'll read through this. We do lunch clubs in high
schools, local high schools. We do student leadership, which
is a big thrust of our ministry is leadership development.
We do Bible studies through campus ministry at the
University of the Bahamas every week at the University of the
Bahamas, there's upwards of 60 students meeting on campus
having Bible study in various groups, being led by in many
cases, other college students who have been trained and
equipped to do campus ministry and lead Bible study.
We do young adult ministry as well.
We've spread our net a little deeper as as students adult a
little, little longer these days for whatever reason, but we're
we've gotten into young adult as well for students that are just
out of college or maybe went right into the workforce.
Camping has always been a big thrust of what we do.
If you know me, soccer is my game.
And so we do a soccer camp every summer and other retreats and
summer camps are always offered and then leadership training for
local leaders. One of the things we've learned,
and I've said this many times is the legacy of what we're doing
in the Bahamas is, is not going to be the, the really cool
program we did or the the snazzy camp or the clever way to
present Christ to kids. But it's, it's really going to
be the leaders that we train. It's the leaders that will be
able to be equipped to share the gospel with others and to love
others for Christ's sake and transform their community.
So we put a huge emphasis on leadership training, empowering
local leaders to take full ownership over ministry and to
be capable and equipped and empowered and encouraged to be
able to do that day in and day out.
So that's a little bit of what we do.
And I just a couple of pictures. I think it speaks a lot more
than a list of programs. These are some kids and some
leaders for me. What would be top left that
those are that's a leadership retreat.
Those are all leaders who are doing youth ministry, campus
ministry, young adult ministry. You'll see in the school that
would be a lunch club. That's a little bit about what
we do when we just get into the schools and we, we, we call it a
check in and we, we have a devotion with students and we
share with them a little bit and we play some games and just just
remind them of who they are in Christ during their school day.
And then the evening program is below, which we call G2 and that
you'll see the students are in their school uniforms, which
that would be a pretty typical government school garb for most
of them with the Plaid and the skirts and the red, red shirts.
And so that happens on a weekly basis.
So I hope that gives you just a little picture of what you're
helping to support what what you're doing in the Bahamas
through empowering us and through prayer and and financial
resources and support in so many ways.
So with that said, I'd like to get into the sermon a little bit
here, get into the word with you, if that's OK, Because I'm
sure when you woke up this morning, I hope when you woke up
this morning that that was on your mind is I hope that God
encourages me through his word when I go to church this
morning. So this morning's sermon is
entitled the visible Sign. And the question that we're
going to wrestle through is how can we as believers in Christ
Jesus be the visible sign of Jesus in the world around us?
And our Scripture this morning is taken from 2nd Corinthians
517 to 21. And if you have a Bible, if you
have a Bible on your phone, I invite you to turn there.
If you don't, that's OK because the Scripture is going to be
mostly on the screen as well. So we're going to go through it
together that way. But if you want to follow along,
that's always a good thing. 2nd Corinthians as you you we as we
get into the text. Just a little context for this
passage I think is important for it to be able to really hit us
in the way that I think the Lord would want us to hit us.
Is this is then second Corinthians.
The apostle Paul inspired by the Holy Spirit is speaking to the
persecuted church in a city called Corinth, which is in
present day Greece. And in this section, Paul
reminds the church that no matter how difficult life gets,
even if their mortal bodies in this world are destroyed by
living out their faith through persecution, there is more for
them in eternity. And because of this reality,
Paul implores them to have confidence because to be away
from our physical body, to be killed or to be passed, to pass
away naturally is to be at home with the Lord in heaven.
And with this encouragement, Paul goes on to challenge the
church not to live for themselves.
For he would say that would be selfish, but to live for Christ
who died and rose again. And it's this eternal
perspective to follow hard after Jesus for the sake of others,
even when it hurts, that leads us to this, the 5th chapter of
Second Corinthians. So before we read it, if you
would bow with me in a word of prayer as we go to God's word
together, I would be grateful. Heavenly Father, we thank you
for your word. We're about to read it.
We're about to talk about it. We're about to think on it.
And we pray, Lord, that it would change us.
It would transform us that it would feed us this morning that
Lord you would give us new insights, that you would give us
new motivation, that you would just regenerate us in new ways
as we look into Your word. Help us to be focused, help us
to be clear of mind as there's many distractions and help me to
speak clearly as well in Jesus name, Amen. 2nd Corinthians 5,
17 to 21 says this. Therefore, if anyone is in
Christ, the new creation has come, the old is gone, the new
is here. All this is from God, who
reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry
of reconciliation. The God was reconciling the
world to Himself, not counting people's sins against them, and
He has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
We are there for Christ's ambassadors as though God were
making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's
behalf, be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to
be sin for us, so that through him we might become the
righteousness of God. Amen.
Throughout the Scriptures, the church is given a whole bunch of
different job descriptions, and each of them has their own
nuance. And the church is referred to in
different places. We're called disciples, and
other places were called witnesses, were called the
people of the way. We're called an assembly.
We're called a temple. We're called a body, we're
called a priesthood. But here in the Scripture, the
people of God are charged with an incredibly awesome and
undeserved privilege of being the ambassadors of Christ in
this world. Verse 20, it says we are there
for Christ's ambassadors as though God was making his appeal
through us. Now we live in a very
politically, ideologically charged world and there's a lot
of talk about privilege. If you look it up, you can find
out you can be privileged in pretty much any kind of way.
You could have racial privilege, you could have gender privilege,
you could have cultural privilege.
You can even have athletic privilege, family privilege,
academic privilege, that the amount of privileges that people
have put forth upon others is. The list goes on and on.
Sadly, the problem we're talking about privileges that way is
that the people on the privileged side of the equation
are often looked upon to be shameful or embarrassed because
they've found themselves in a perceived privileged position.
However, in this passage we're reminded that as Christ
followers, the God of the universe has given us an
honorable and undeserved privilege that carries no shame.
It carries no embarrassment. It's not to be hidden.
We are privileged to be the ambassadors for Christ.
To be called an ambassador is a term.
It's a term of great dignity. It's a title possessed by
someone who represents the government of another in a
foreign land. Ambassadors.
They don't speak their own words or give their own thoughts or
make their own promises, but they speak the thoughts and the
promises and the ideas of the government or the monarch they
they represent. They don't have their own
priorities. They don't have their own will.
The dignity of an ambassador comes not from themselves, but
from the dignity of the one they represent.
And to scorn an ambassador is to scorn the one who sent them.
It's to reject them. And to mistreat an ambassador
would be to mistreat the government or the monarch they
represent. So here in this passage we are
told and we are given this privilege, a privilege of being
God's ambassador. I'm an ambassador for Christ in
the Bahamas, serving cross culturally for 26 years in the
Bahamas. And you as a follower of Christ
are ambassadors in the burg. That is your privilege.
That is your call. That is your your position in
the Kingdom of God. And as such, whether we reside
far away or we live locally, we also don't carry our own
message. We don't make our own promises.
We're charged to speak only that which King Jesus has empowered
and given us to speak. Today.
The world's full of ambassadors. Most ambassadors today are given
their position because of party loyalty.
A lot of ambassadors are given their position because of
celebrity status. The ambassador to the Bahamas is
Herschel Walker. He's a celebrity.
He and he was loyal to the party and he was given a pretty nice
placement, I think. But as ambassadors we have done
nothing to gain our privilege status.
We are given it by grace. We are giving it undeservedly,
but we are trusted by the Lord to carry out our role.
We live as foreigners and strangers in this world, but
we're empowered by the Holy Spirit and our task is to take
the message of our King, King Jesus to the ends of the earth,
imploring men and women everywhere, as the passage said,
to be reconciled to God. The message of reconciliation in
the text that we just read, That's the primary theme of of
the text is the primary role of the ambassador in the Greek, the
word reconciliation is referenced in some form or
another in this passage at least five different times.
The late Pastor John MacArthur says this.
He says this text defines for us the mandate that every Christian
has from God to engage in the ministry of reconciliation, to
proclaim the message of reconciliation, thereby
functioning as ambassadors through Christ through whom God
is conveying his message. Now this call, it's this call to
ambassadorship is really just an expansion of the Great
Commission to go to all the nations and make disciples,
baptizing in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy
Spirit. Or where it says that we shall
be witnesses in this world, in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, into
the ends of the earth and today's world.
As we think about the role of being a minister of
reconciliation as an ambassador for God, I think we're familiar
with the term and what it means to reconcile.
We're probably all too familiar with reconciliation.
There's counselors abounding helping others to reconcile
estranged families and spouses. There's courts that exist to
arbitrate between divided parties.
There's organizations that exist to reconcile one group of people
to another, their friendships that need reconciled, their
sibling rivalries that need reconciled.
There's families that need reconciled.
I think that we all too maybe sharply and wrongly understand
what it means to be reconciled to another and how how fragile
that is and how important that is in relationships and how it's
often a work of grace and it's a work of forgiveness that we
think about God being reconciled the sinners.
For me, that's a little bit of a harder concept.
It's a little more difficult for me to get my arms around about
how that happens. Sinners being reconciled to
other sinners is reasonable because both parties are guilty
of sin. But with God and us, all of the
sin is ours, all of the air is ours, all of the fault is with
us. He is perfectly flawless, and He
is the one who's been violated the brokenness in our
relationship with our Creator. It's our fault, it's our guilt,
it's our responsibility. And yet God has determined a way
that we can be reconciled to Him.
So how does this happen? What could God do to reconcile
us to Himself without denying or violating His own divine
attributes that demand justice in punishment for sin?
How does God do that? When the passage we just read,
we get the answer? It's one of my favorite verses
in Scripture. In verse 21, we'll put up on the
screen, it says this. It says the way that this
reconciliation has happened is that God made him who had no
sin. That'd be Jesus to be sin for
us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.
In that one sentence we see clearly how reconciliation with
God needed to happen. Perhaps a visual might be
helpful. I'm a youth pastor.
I use images, I use illustrations, I use pictures.
This is a, an image that we often use with our leadership as
it's hard to communicate the message, the ministry of
reconciliation with others. So how do we do that clearly and
effectively? How do we get our heads around
that in a way that is simple and understandable?
And, and the gospel is that it's simple and understandable, but I
really like this. It's, it's 5 lines that
communicate how God reconciled us to himself.
What did that look like in history and in real time?
The first there is a down arrow that God came down in the person
of Jesus Christ to live a perfect life on our behalf.
The second line is the cross. Jesus died as a substitute for
us on a cross, thereby satisfying the justice of God
That could not be denied, That needed to be dealt with.
The third line is the the ark. It represents the tomb that
Jesus was buried in. Then we get to the fourth line
that goes up. Jesus rose in bodily form from
death, thereby conquering death so that anyone who believes.
This is our message that anyone who believes may become new
creations, forgiven and reconciled to God, filled with
the Holy Spirit as a deposit guaranteeing their inheritance.
In the Kingdom of heaven and then the last era, the story's
not over. The redemptive plan is not yet
complete. We live in the already, but the
not yet. And it's the down arrow that
says that Jesus will come back, and he'll come back and he'll
redeem all things in his creation and make them new.
So whether in the Bahamas or in Pittsburgh, this is our message.
This is a picture of reconciliation.
God made him who had no sin to become sin for us so that we
might become the righteousness of God.
In the final verse of this section, Paul concludes with a
plea to Christians in Corinth. At the end of the section he
says this and I didn't read this earlier, so this is new and
chapter 6 verses one and two, it's sort of the end of the
passage, the conclusion of the matter.
Paul says as God's coworkers, we urge you not to receive God's
grace in vain for he says in the time of my favor, I heard you in
the day of salvation, I helped you.
I tell you now is the time of God's favor for now is the day
of salvation. Other translations you might
have heard this verse before say today is the day of salvation.
Now I don't know about you and and your Christian journey.
If you've heard this verse before, often it's used as a a
call to salvation. It's an evangelistic verse.
Today is the day of salvation. Don't wait, it's there.
You might not have tomorrow. Today is the day to be
reconciled to God. So act upon this.
And often that's how this verse is used.
But it's interesting to me that is, we look at this passage in
its context. I've come to appreciate that the
offering of salvation is not the primary focus of this verse.
If we look closely at the wording, the timing, the
audience that Paul is writing to, it becomes clear that this
passage is a call to the church. It's written to the church.
It's not a call or a plea for the church to be reconciled to
God because by definition the church is reconciled to God.
In its context, though, this verse is a call for believers,
for us, the community of God, the people of God, to be active,
to be proactive in our proclamation of the message of
reconciliation. To make this message known to
the world that reconciliations through God, by the forgiveness
of sins, through faith alone in Jesus Christ is available to all
who receive it. Today is the day of salvation.
So let us, the church, let us be bold and intentional ambassadors
of that message. Let us get out there.
Let us not be docile or idle, but let us get into the
community. Let us get into the
relationships that God's put before us in the circles that we
dwell in and be intentional about sharing this message of
reconciliation. It's notable in that same
passage, if you look at it, comes with a warning, it says
that to do so and to not do so individually or as a faith
community, it's more than just an unfortunate oversight for
Paul. He says that to not be actively
engaging in your role as an ambassador for Christ is to
receive God's grace in vain. It's to reject the privilege of
ambassadorship that we have been entrusted with.
It's it's to be in vain. It means it's the sense that
it's not having its proper effect upon you if you don't
share it, if you don't talk about it, if you don't live it
in a way that others can see it. And here's here's the
encouragement, those, when you think about it, the only reason
believers are left on this earth, the only reason why we're
still here, if you think about it, is because of this ministry
of reconciliation, this opportunity to be an ambassador.
If you think about it, everything in heaven it, it'll
be better. Many of us, we struggle here,
don't we? We struggle day in and day out.
We struggle to have healthy bodies.
We struggle to have healthy minds.
We struggle to have healthy relationships.
We struggle with sin. We're easily distracted.
Many of us limp along for years in this life, wondering why God
doesn't just get us out of here. We long, like Paul, to escape
our body and to live in the glories of heaven with Jesus.
We long to be perfect. We long to be away from the body
and to be with the Lord, which Paul says in the same chapter is
far better. But when we read this verse, we
realize and we're reminded of why we're here.
Why is God giving you 2026? Why didn't He just end it for
you 2025? We're left here for the ministry
of reconciliation because when we get to heaven, there's one
thing that we won't get to do. There's one thing we'll have no
chance to do there, and that's to tell a Sinner the good news
that by believing in Christ they can be reconciled to God.
We'll never have that chance again.
There's no evangelism in heaven. We're left here as a force with
a ministry of reconciliation to declare the message how sinners
can be reconciled to God. This is what we do.
This is what we live for, and this is what we press on for,
not as citizens of this world, but citizens of heaven, as
ambassadors of Christ, working diligently under the instruction
and privileged appointment from our sovereign King so that none
would be lost. Therefore, when the world looks
at us, what are they to see? They're to see a visible sign
screaming out in love to a broken world, a message of
reconciliation to God. I want to close with just an
illustration from our ministry to maybe hopefully drive this
point home a little bit further. One of the ministries that we've
started over the last last four to six months is a, a upper
elementary junior high ministry. So not only we've been
stretching our programs later into young people's lives, we've
also gone a little bit earlier and we started a program
recently called Friday Night Lights.
And this is been a just a, a great fun.
There's been a lot of work put into, it's a partnership with a
local church that Kelly and I attend in, in the Bahamas Youth
Network Ministry, which is our primary ministry partner in the
Bahamas. And, and we're reaching out to,
to these, these junior high and upper elementary kids.
And, and they just love it. They think this is the best
thing that, that it's ever happened to.
And we weren't sure how I was going to go.
Started off as a small group and then they start inviting friends
and parents started inviting friends as they're like, my kid
loves this and your kids should get involved.
And so it's been just another exciting work of the Lord
through the ministry in the Bahamas.
But at Friday Night Lights, we, we play games, we eat food and
then we have a, a, a Bible time with them.
And many of the students that come to this ministry have very
little church background, very little Christian education at
all. A lot of them are from the expat
community or, or foreigners who are, have moved in to work and
their kids are there and they're, they're living there
and, and are from all kinds of backgrounds, but, but very much
unchurched. It's been fun.
Our son's been involved in this and he's gotten to invite his
friends who he goes to school with and who, who don't know
Jesus. And so he's, he's a little
missionary, which is really fun to see.
But we, we had a message recently around around the
Thanksgiving time or the Halloween time I guess, where we
had a pumpkin and we brought the pumpkin out and I put the
pumpkin down and we talked about how the pumpkin was special to
me. We named the pumpkin, we called
him Mr. P and he, he was carved out to a little face.
But I left the guts of the pumpkin inside.
And we talked about how God, you know, just like the pumpkin
special to, to me, like we're special to God and even a more
meaningful way. And, and then, then we, we point
out how the, the nasty, the seeds and the slop was still
inside. And we talked about how that's
kind of like us. We, we can look OK on the
outside, but on the inside we have a problem.
That problem's sin. And it, it, it rots us from the
inside out and it needs to be removed or there's problems.
And so we started taking out the guts and the kids like, yeah,
yeah, it's yucky. And then, and then we, we talked
about how that happens when we believe in Christ.
And then, then we took a little light, we turned the lights off,
we put a light inside and we talked about how we believe in
Christ. The Holy Spirit comes into our
life and and he, he begins to to transform us and we begin to to
reflect Jesus into the world in ways that we never thought we
could. And the, the kids were, were
really into this. And so after the, the, the
message, we have a little small group time and we break them up
into groups with leaders and just check for understanding and
let them ask some questions. And they, they like this time,
they really enjoy talking after the message.
And I had a couple of boys in my group who who had like probably
0 Bible knowledge And the, the one kids like this is really
interesting about Jesus. You know, I'd really like to, to
see Jesus tomb. I'd like to go to where he's
buried. And I was like, that's
interesting. I was like, and I kind of
smiling like, you know, I've been to the place where Jesus
was buried. It's in Israel and there is a
tomb there and they don't know if it's Jesus tomb, but they're
it's they think it could be. It's in the right location.
It's very similar. And I said, guess what?
I went to that tomb and the kids eyes are just big as saucer.
She's like, no way. This is like in reality, like
this is just a story. And I was like, I went in, I
guess what I saw, guess what was in there.
And he was like Jesus. And I'm like, no, it was empty.
He was gone. He rose from the dead.
And if you believe in him, you can have a relationship with
him. You can have friendship with
him. And the kids just looking at me
and and the other kids in the group are just kind of like
stunned and they're like, you can just see in their eyes like
this is awesome. This is amazing that God did
that and that that can be a part of my life.
Friends, today is the day of salvation.
So let us individually and as a community embrace the privilege
God has given us. Let us in 2026, in the New year,
consider how we might be more actively engaged in pursuing our
purpose as ambassadors of reconciliation.
I want to close just with a couple questions for reflection,
something to think about throughout the week or maybe the
rest of today. The first question is when was
your day of salvation? Maybe you know the exact time or
the place. Maybe you waded into Jesus and
you just found yourself there. Or maybe today is the day of
salvation or there's something holding you back and you need to
reconcile that. You need to deal with that.
I hope that you do. If that's you, when, when was
your day of salvation? The second question is this, is
it clear to those around you that you are an ambassador for
Christ? Why or why not?
If, why, what is it about you? What are you doing right now
that's working, That's helping people to see that?
If you think the answer is no, you know, I don't think people
see me as an ambassador for Christ.
Where is the disconnect? What needs to be adjusted?
And the third question is this. If you are a part of this
community, what is your role in being a visible sign of God's
reconciliation in the world around you?
I know many in this church are very active in the ministries of
this church. You're very active in the
community here, working so that others can hear this good news.
But where is it? You need to plug in it.
Maybe you found yourself a little disconnected from that
role. If you don't know, I'm sure
Jerry or Henry could tell you some opportunities that exist.
And I encourage you to reach out to them.
I'm going to leave that there. And, and I invite you to pray
with me as Henry comes up and we have the Lord's Supper together.
Let's pray one more time. Heavenly Father, we thank you
for for your word, for this message of great hope and
encouragement, but also a great challenge.
Lord, help us to to dwell on these thoughts, to dwell in this
passage. And Lord, we pray that you would
work in it in appropriate ways, ways that give you glory and
give you honour in Jesus name, Amen.