Ambassador in Chains

You have probably rehearsed a conversation in your head this month.

You know the one. You lay in bed and run through it. You rehearse it on the drive. You rehearse it in the shower — what you’ll say, what they’ll say back, how you’ll answer that. The coworker in the next bay. The adult kid who’s done with church. The brother-in-law who thinks faith is weakness.

And then the moment finally comes, and you talk about the weather. Or the Lions.

I don’t say that to shame anybody. I’ve done it. And the man who wrote a good share of what we read on Sunday mornings apparently wrestled with the same thing.

The one thing he asked for

We spent twenty-six weeks in Ephesians. Paul spends the first three chapters telling this church who they are in Christ, and the next three telling them how to walk it out — unity, honesty, marriage, work, the armor of God, prayer at all times in the Spirit.

And then, at the very end, he asks them for something for himself. Exactly once in the whole letter.

Here’s what he doesn’t ask for. He doesn’t ask them to pray for his release. He doesn’t ask for health, or safety, or a favorable ruling. He’s writing this chained to a Roman soldier — he mentions those chains three separate times — and he never once asks anybody to pray the chains off.

He asks them to pray that God would give him the right words, and that he’d have the boldness to say them (Ephesians 6:19–20).

I’ll be honest: that’s not how I pray. When I sit down beside a hospital bed, my first prayer isn’t “Lord, give them courage to finish well.” It’s “Lord, heal them.” When I watch a marriage come apart, I’m not praying for God’s kingdom to grow through it. I’m praying for it to stop hurting.

I don’t think that instinct is wrong. I just think Paul had learned something I’m still learning — that you don’t have to wait for your circumstances to change before God can use you.

Rome gave the chains. God gave the commission.

In verse 20 Paul calls himself an ambassador in chains, and that phrase is doing more work than we usually notice.

Think about it this way. If you were the United States ambassador to China, and the Chinese government showed up at the embassy and arrested you — that is not a legal proceeding. That’s an act of war. Ambassadors carry the authority of the one who sent them, and you do not put one in chains without declaring war on his king.

So when Paul picks that phrase, he knows exactly what he’s saying. Rome put these on me. Rome didn’t hand out my commission, and Rome can’t take back what it never gave.

I’d add one more thing. I don’t think Paul looked at the soldier next to him and saw his enemy. He’d just spent a whole chapter telling that church we don’t wrestle against flesh and blood. He saw the real enemy somewhere else entirely.

Two kinds of people

Here’s what I can’t get past. The apostle who wrote thirteen books of the Bible. Who planted church after church. Who got in Peter’s face and rebuked him when Peter caved to public opinion. If anybody on earth was qualified to just go ahead and speak up for Jesus without help, it was Paul.

And he asked a congregation of ordinary people to pray for his mouth.

If he needed that, so do we — and there are two very different kinds of us.

Most of us are timid. We go quiet. We rehearse it all week and say nothing. If that’s you, don’t forget to ask God for the words, and for the boldness to actually say them.

Some of us have the opposite problem. Being direct has never been the hard part. If that’s you — and it’s me, if I’m honest — you especially need to pray for the right words, and for the boldness to say his words instead of your own.

God told Moses the same thing, and Moses was eighty years old and about to walk into the most powerful court in the world. I’m not very good with words, Moses said. I get tongue-tied. God’s answer wasn’t a pep talk. It was a question and a promise: Who makes a person’s mouth?… Now go! I will be with you as you speak, and I will instruct you in what to say (Exodus 4:11–12).

One caution before we go further. This is not a name-it-and-claim-it thing, and it isn’t a blank check on whatever comes out of our mouths. Some of us love a good debate, and it’s easy to get so confident in our answers that we quit slowing down to be led. Asking God for words means being willing to listen for them.

Your past is not a disqualification

One of the places the enemy gets the most leverage is your history.

Because of the divorce. Because of the years you’d take back. Because of what you did, or what was done to you. The lie is always some version of God could never use you.

Paul hunted Christians. He went town to town throwing believers in jail, and he stood there holding the coats while they stoned Stephen. If anybody ever had a résumé arguing he should keep his mouth shut, it was him.

That’s worse than your drinking. That’s worse than your divorce. Your worst chapter is not bigger than his.

God answered — and the chains stayed on

Luke tells us how it turned out. Paul spent two more years in Rome welcoming everyone who came through his door, preaching boldly, and nobody stopped him (Acts 28:30–31).

The prayer was answered. And as far as we can tell he was still in chains the whole time.

That’s the honest version, and we shouldn’t soften it. The words came; the circumstances stayed. But that’s not a letdown — it’s the shape of the whole letter. Being unlike Christ isn’t a grit problem. It’s a grace problem. We don’t try harder; we get more open to what God is already doing.

Grace, not grit.

So what now

One of the threads running all the way through Ephesians is the gift of the Holy Spirit — given to every believer, and one of the things he does is speak to us. He leads us to truth. He convicts us. He strengthens and encourages us.

I’ll add my own caveat there: I have never heard God speak to me audibly. But I have heard his Spirit inside me, and I’d guess you have too.

So name the conversation you keep rehearsing and keep avoiding. Then pray what Paul asked a whole church to pray for him: Lord, give me the words to say, and the boldness to say them.

You are an ambassador. You’re also a missionary — to your workplace, your neighborhood, and your own family. There are no spectators in God’s kingdom.

Open your mouth. God has never once needed you to be eloquent.