A couple of weeks ago I was out in the Conejo Valley area speaking to a church there and had the opportunity to run into a dear friend from years and years ago. But of course when you run into somebody you haven't seen for awhile, it's kind of normal, especially if they were part of your group of friends, to ask about the rest of the folks. Have you heard from so and so? Whatever happened to so and so? Sadly, the questions were answered with disheartening information. One friend was a Christian apologist and now contributing to the other side as a shock jock on a radio station here in Southern California. Another, who was a counter cult leader, is now fallen away, no longer acknowledging Christianity. And his buddy, who also worked with him in the ministry, is now off in some universalistic church thing.

Then I asked about the pastor who was in charge of all of this. He was very thorough. He was very, very good. He was a teacher's teacher. I always liked to sit in on his teaching because of his thoroughness and the power of the great exegesis that he had demonstrated. In fact, I can remember details of teachings that I heard from him years and years ago. That's how powerful his impact was. Now he had fallen from the ministry, gotten into moral problems, and he's gone. It was a dismal accounting of this person's life, given the gifting that he had in the Holy Spirit.

My friend's simple response regarding this was just this: He was a great teacher, but he had no character. He was very gifted spiritually, but there was nothing substantial inside. And it is hard to imagine how such a thing could be, ladies and gentlemen. On the one hand he knew the Bible and was gifted by God. But on the other hand, totally lacking in character.

Our culture gets to people can undermine the gifts God has given us if we don't develop our characters. It is one of the reasons my wife and I don't watch TV. That rubs off on you. Those ideas, those points of view, that leaning, rubs off. "Bad company corrupts good morals," say the Scriptures. If we place ourselves in bad company and our culture is bad company, it can undermine our Christian world view that under girds good character. We ought not completely isolate ourselves from the culture, but there is a price to pay. It changes the way we do things. And unless we are not aggressively retooling our minds, our perspectives, our worldview, it is very easy to start thinking like our culture, and then pretty soon bad stuff doesn't seem so bad. Before you know it, strong, productive, fruitful, useful workers for the Kingdom are gone. They're just gone.

This is why, as we are sharpening the focus of Stand to Reason, we are characterizing it in a very specific way. We want to build ambassadors for Christ. Those are people who are followers of Jesus. We don't even want to make Christians in a certain sense. A Christian means all kinds of different things to different people. I'd rather make followers of Jesus. So many people claim to be Christians, but they don't follow Jesus Christ. We want to make followers of Jesus that are also His representatives as though God were entreating through us. That's the way Paul put it in 2 Corinthians 5. We are ambassadors for Christ…as if God were actually entreating through us. And so we want to build people who have it as their mindset that they're standing there in God's stead, in Christ's stead, as though He were entreating through them.

I've heard it said that sometimes you will be the only living Bible that anyone can read. Well, that's what it means to be an ambassador. You will speak for Christ. One way or another, for good or for ill, you will speak for Him if you are a follower of Jesus Christ. So we want to strengthen good representatives, and we know that takes emphasis in three areas.

One are to strengthen as an ambassador is knowledge. In other words, you've got to know a few things that your sovereign wants you to represent to the rest of the world. So you've got to have this knowledge base.

Secondly, you've got to communicate that knowledge in a way that is sensitive to the people that you're sent to. You need to understand their way of thinking. You need to understand their language after a fashion. You must be diplomatic, tactical after a fashion. So there is a certain wisdom, the right use of knowledge, that's necessary for you to be an effective ambassador.

A good ambassador, any ambassador, packages that knowledge and strategy in the manner of delivery in himself or herself. It's all wrapped up in an individual, and if that individual is offensive, if that individual is a bad representative, it doesn't matter that the knowledge and tactics are sound. If the individual is wrong then the message loses its force. This is why we emphasize not just knowledge, not just wisdom, but also character. You must package the entire message in you personally so that you can be an effective, accurate, and virtuous representative or ambassador for Jesus Christ.

This is what is missing in so many people. Yes, they've got knowledge. Many of them who are workers in the Kingdom are heavy on knowledge. In fact, knowledge is the area where most of the detail is. It is important to have the knowledge, but we need to be sensitive to the communication of that knowledge as well, that tactical or wisdom element. But lately it seems so many people are faltering and falling because of the character issue. And that is why we can't neglect this area. We've got to have all three in balance.

I commit myself to you so far as Stand to Reason is part of your life to help provide teaching, radio, a web site, tapes, booklets, books, literature, seminars, that address all three areas so that you can grow as you ought. I don't want to just teach you knowledge, but also how to use that knowledge effectively, and also how to packet it in a virtuous human being whose character is reminiscent of Christ so that it can be the case as though God were entreating through you.

Just as a final postscript, about two years ago I had breakfast with a friend who was one of my teachers when I was a brand new Christian back in 1974-75. This man had a tremendous influence on my life for good. He was a wonderful worker for Christ. I ran into him more than 20 years later and had a chance to sit down. And of course, if you were in my shoes, what would you want to do? Would you want to talk about Stand to Reason and the kinds of things that you may have accomplished? Of course, that is what I wanted to talk about, not just to ring my own bell, but in a sense I wanted him to see the impact that he had on me early on bore fruit and he can participate in some sense. I wanted him to be proud of what he had accomplished in my life.

But his focus for me that morning was not my past. He was glad to hear that. But he said to me, "Greg, finish well." Finish well. There was a sense in that it wasn't enough for him to see the good events of the past, and the productivity, and the usefulness, and the accomplishments of the past. All well and good, but it's all in the past. Rather, keep my eyes on the horizon, on the finish line, on the prize and press forward to that.

If I can have an influence in your life, not just to have knowledge, not just to have tactfulness, if I can have an impact in your life, by the grace of God, to help you finish the course, then that will be deeply satisfying for me. The greatest accomplishment is in the end you can say with Paul, "I have kept the faith, I have finished the course." And that your goal would be at the end of your life to hear the words, "well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of the Lord."

Ladies and gentlemen, don't forget: Finish well.