Book of Colossians, Ch. 4 - Vs. 1-6 (03-28-1999)

Prayer, God’s Sovereignty, and the Mystery of Christ

All right, if you'll open your Bibles to the book of Colossians. Dennis, can you hear me all right? Fine. To the fourth chapter in the book of Colossians. Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal, equal pay for equal work, knowing that ye also have a master in heaven.

Everybody will answer to God. Continue in prayer and watch in the same with thanksgiving. So continue means to persevere, to not faint, don't stop, to exhibit one's self-courage, to be in constant readiness, waiting without exception, watching, give strict attention to, be cautious, active, to take heed lest through remission and indolence some destructive calamity suddenly overtake you.

If you're praying about a certain matter, then get busy at it. Don't pray and then go sit down. If you're concerned about it, first of all, you must know this. A genuine prayer originates with God. Remember, he accepts nothing that does not originate with him.

Debbie, why is that? Well, either way, he's sovereign, and I am assuming you mean because he's sovereign, he takes dictation or direction from no one. He is over everything. It's all decreed by him. The only thing that man can originate in us is sin.

No matter how good we are, no matter how much money we give to church or other organizations, no matter how much we love each other, in and of ourself we can only originate sin. When there is something that's wrong, there's always something.

God does nothing in secret. When there is an event about to take place that will involve you to some extent, he impresses upon your mind to pray concerning that event. Now, you may not know the event.

You may just have an impression to pray concerning someone or something or some situation, whatever it might be. Well, do so. The reason for that is that when it occurs, then you will recognize it, and you can give him praise to the praise of his glory.

If you were never concerned about it, and even if he has impressed your mind and you fail to recognize it because of your own selfishness, then when it occurs, you'll never know it, and you have missed the blessing of being able to give him blessing for that which has occurred.

Everything that has ever happened, he impresses upon his people that which is about to happen. Where we get confused is we think it happened because we prayed. That's the furthest thing from the truth.

If it did, then it originated with us, and that just will not happen. In verse 3, with all praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance. Paul is concerned about what he says, to whom he speaks, how he speaks, and he was always looking for a way in which to discuss the Scripture.

Are you that way? Do you look for opportunities to talk about the Word of God? There's nothing quite like it. Paul is wanting them to join him in praying concerning the people around him. He was in prison.

Richard, he was in prison to a great extent. His first imprisonment, he was allowed freedom in that he could rent a house, but he had to stay on the property, and there were guards there to be sure that he did.

His second imprisonment, he was put in chains. He was chained to Roman soldiers, two at a time, one on each side with a chain connected to him. Paul saw this as a great opportunity because with each changing of guard, he had another one to whom he could speak concerning the Word.

Sometimes it was the same guards on rotation. Some it was new. He never failed, though, to talk to each one. So he thought that was great. He had a captive audience. They thought they had him captive, but really he had them captive, and he knew that it was not the Roman government that put him in prison.

The Lord did. We think we do things, but we don't. Everything is done by our Heavenly Father through Christ to us. He says in verse 3 to open a door of utterance, speaking, that the Word of God would be a benefit to those and that he might speak the mystery of Christ.

What is this mystery of Christ that we keep hearing about or reading about? First of all, what is a mystery? A mystery in the Scripture is something you do not know the answer, but it will be revealed.

In the Old Testament, the mystery of the church or the church and the gospel was a mystery to those writers of the Old Testament. They knew there was something, and they kept inquiring about it, and they kept writing about it, but they didn't understand what they were writing.

So here Paul wants to speak the mystery of Christ to these Roman soldiers and anybody else that he could get to listen, and it was salvation. It was the church age, the gospel. Speak the mystery of Christ for which I also am in bonds.

So he knew that it was Christ that had him there. That I may make it manifest as I ought to speak. Brian, what does manifest mean? What was the last thing? You said something else. I said to make it happen.

Didn't you? I thought you used the word look. No. Well, you should have. I was going to. You were just about to say something. A manifest is to be made visible. Now, you can do that by actually having the object or you can do it with a sheet of paper with a form.

I know the railroad cars that would ship wheat in always had a manifest that went along with it. All right. He wants to make this mystery manifest, but he wants to do it only as he should do it. Debbie, we say so many things and our tongue gets us in trouble, and we ought to ask the same thing, that we would speak only as we should and depend upon the Holy Spirit to guide our tongue.

It's the smallest, most powerful member in the world is our tongue. Let me repeat. Until you say it, you control it. But after you once say it, it controls you or you're not a person of your word, one or the other.

Wisdom Toward Outsiders and Redeeming the Time

In verse 5, walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time. Walk in wisdom toward them that are without. Dennis, what do you think it means, those that are without, those outside the pale of the church, those that are not Christian, those that are unbelievers?

Do we know if they are a potential Christian, Dennis? All right. So we don't know who it is. We cannot look at their actions and say, well, they're not a Christian. I don't see how they could ever be doing that.

Paul was one of the most notorious of all. What was he doing just prior to his salvation? Okay, persecuting is a rather refined word. What was he really doing? Taking them where? Where? What was some of the, it was an awful, awful thing from man's viewpoint.

Now, sin is sin from God's viewpoint. So Paul was in the business of doing exactly what he thought was pleasing the Father. He knew he was. Was he looking for salvation? Just the opposite, wasn't he? Was he ever saved?

When? June, where was he when he was told? On the road to Kearns. On the road to Damascus. He was going after more Christians. He was not looking for salvation. No one comes to church to get saved. You don't have to be in a certain place to be saved.

When it pleases the Heavenly Father to reveal his Son in you, he does. No matter where you are. All right? Redeeming the time. There's a good term. Redeeming. Brian, what's the word redeem mean?

Cashing in on his job. You know, when I look at this, redeeming the time, taking advantage of the time that you have with these unbelievers by walking and living through Christian faith in front of unbelievers, taking advantage of all the time that you have, cashing in on what you've got, on what time that you have.

All right.

All right. All right.

To redeem something simply means what? Buy it back. Meaning you once owned it. He redeemed us, meaning he once had us. Because of Adam, we become servants of sin. Never seed of Satan, servants of Satan.

So he redeemed us. The very term means that we have always belonged to him. To make wise and sacred use of every opportunity for doing well. To redeem or to make your work, your zeal, your desire is the money paid to redeem the time.

How much time do we have? I don't know. You don't know? Are you sure you don't know how much time you have? You sure? Well, let me ask you to do this. I want you to describe or draw a line or sharpen an edge of a knife so sharp, so thin, that it represents the absolute present time.

Can you do that? Lots of silence. This useless present time, it really does not exist. We say it, but by the time we think it, it's past. Yet, Brian, it is upon this invisible, present, precious, useless time that we live.

It is not even as long as a breath, but that's where we live. You're not alive two minutes ago. You're not alive 50 seconds from now. It's right now. Right now is the only time that we have opportunity to do anything.

It's right now. That's why we should always make the very best of whatever we have, wherever we are, right now. Because right now is all there is. All of that to the glory of God. When we get to heaven, it'll all be present time, and it'll be forever.

So to redeem the time, the most precious, precious thing, let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man. Now, you're all around people every day, some more than others.

Are you bound by any law to give an answer to everybody on anything? Yes. Yes? Who said yes? I did. True. All right. I put a job in once in Waxahachie. I don't know what college it is, Assembly of God or some college there.

And we recruited some help among the young men to assist us. And we had one young preacher, or hoped to be a preacher. Strange situation. He liked to talk. Maybe that's why he wanted to be a preacher.

But he loved to talk to people. He liked to talk to people so much that if he was walking by my side down the sidewalk and he heard two people over here talking, he'd go over and join in with them. And he always had the answer to everything.

No matter what the subject was, he would stop and go straighten them out. That's not the kind of talking we're talking about. We should always be ready to give an answer when someone is looking for the truth.

Now, if they want to argue with you, don't argue. Don't even spend your time with them. And you can determine very quickly. The Holy Spirit will let you know pretty quick if they're actually wanting to know the truth.

Now, in order to be ready to give the right answer at the right time to the right people, what does it require? Study. What does study require? Time. That useless present time. It requires time. Dedication.

A want to. Do you want to study? I'm not going to ask for a show of hands. I know you do or you wouldn't be here. Because you don't get any good points just for being here. We want to know more about His Holy Word.

That demands our time. We must study. Now, how do you study? Three things you must always know. And I've told you before. What are they? What's the first one? Who wrote it? Second one. What? All right.

And what is it about? So you must know those three things. Who wrote it? To whom are they writing? And the subject matter. That will get you a long ways towards study. Then another thing you must do is slow down.

To read the Bible is not study. I was in a church once, and perhaps you were too at one time, in a church that wanted everybody to read the Bible through this year. If you've been a Baptist very long, that's common practice.

Read the Bible through this year. How much good does that do you? Very, very little. You can brag about reading the Bible through. But reading is not study. So if we're going to give the right answer at the right time to the right people, it requires some time on our own to study and be prepared.

You do not take a test without being prepared if you expect to pass it. Let your speech be always with grace. That's be polite, courteous. Be Christian-like. Seasoned with salt. Seasoned with salt. Now, Dennis, that's got me kind of, how do you season words with salt?

All right. Salt is a lot of things. I plan next week to have a copy of a lot of them for you because before very long we're going to have a demonstration with salt. Salt is a strange animal. But this human race could not exist without it.

Seasoned with salt. Seasoned is something you do and on everything else. Go in the direction that they're comfortable going. And you give them the truth. But the first part says do it with grace. So we need to do it in love.

But it needs to be done with the truth. All right.

The Teacher’s Responsibility and the Power of Speech

I think it is the responsibility of a teacher or preacher, and I think every preacher ought to be a teacher. I think it is the responsibility of a teacher in any field to teach the subject in such a way that it is interesting, provocative, that it develops the character of the people, that it engages the people in the teaching.

I think a teacher, part of his responsibility is to help the individual student overcome their shyness and bashfulness. I know in the past I've had, I can think of right now, one young lady that joined class and she'd hide behind somebody so I couldn't see her.

So I'd forget that she was there so I wouldn't ask her a question. To a great extent that's true. I like to see everybody's eye. But she was not there six months before she was able to stand in front of the class and give a devotion.

There was nothing I did. It was the Holy Spirit working. But that's part of the responsibility of a teacher is to keep it interesting. And if you laugh once in a while, that's fine. If it's the right time and the right place.

It's not just a dry lecture type teaching. I've been there and I don't like that. You can read the word in such a way that nobody wants to listen. You shouldn't do that. So, seasoned with salt, very tasty, that you may know how you ought to answer every man.

All of my state shall Tyicus declare to you who is a beloved brother and a faithful minister and a fellow servant in the Lord. Before we get to that, let me go back to this speech again. Behind the words that we speak lies our character.

You follow? Your character determines a lot of how you talk. Well, there's something behind our character and its conduct. You remember this process? Behind conduct are habits. Behind habits is an action.

Behind an action is a thought. Our thinking consists of thoughts. Now, our thoughts are controlled by our senses. What we see, hear, touch, taste, and Satan can have an input into our thoughts, and so can the Holy Spirit.

Your speech really tells who you are. Remember that and try your best to improve it. I'd like for you to go to the book of Matthew, if you will, please, to the 15th chapter and the 18th verse. Debbie, read that for me.

What's that mean? All right. Now go to Mark 7 .20. Mark, Luke, John, Mark 7 .20. Brian, read that. All right. Now go to Proverbs 23rd chapter and the 7th verse, 23 -7. Dennis, read that to me. As he thinketh in his heart, so is he.

If you don't like what you are, change what you're thinking. This morning I want to do something a little bit different. David's supposed to be in here, and he isn't, because we're going to do it to him.

You really want to do it to him, don't you? Well, you come up here then. Stand right here beside me. Hold this in your left hand. It's not going to bite you. Now, you're in the grocery line, and someone is crowded in in front of you.

What do you think? You're driving on the highway, and somebody nearly runs you off the road. What do you think? You're at the drive-in bank, and the one in front of you, which is sitting in the pole position, seems to have died.

He's making out his deposit, and you finally decide he's trying to balance his checkbook at the same time. What do you think? Now, what came out of the cup exactly? And it must be dismissed. Record your dismissals, please.