Colossians 4:2-6 Walk and Talk

You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. We hope you are preparing your hearts for that and reflecting and remembering.

We should be remembering the resurrection of Christ all throughout the year. But obviously there is a cycle and a church calendar and holidays to help us out in that.

In our text this morning we are going to wrap up the instructions that Paul gave to us in the letter of Colossians.

Next week we are going to actually wrap up the entire book with a reflection on what he has talked about regarding resurrection and those kinds of things.

But this is really wrapping up the instructions that he has given to us. He made sure that the church recognized that Jesus is supposed to be at the very center of our trust.

He is to be the center of our beliefs and the center of our behaviors. Of course he was so much more than a model for us.

There are churches that think of Jesus Christ primarily as a model. More than that, he is a good model, right?

We should live like him. But more than that, he was our Savior who came to really deal with our sins.

To die, to be buried and rose again. And that is what he is giving us. Not just as an example to us, but to genuinely save people from their sins.

A real savior. So Jesus should impact the way we act. Jesus should impact the things that we say.

The way that we work. What we saw last week. The way that we relate to members of our family.

The Christian life is to be completely impacted by the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And I think for Easter we are going to be wrapping up the book, finishing the last few verses. And then highlighting that amazing message of his death and resurrection.

And the new life that we have encountered so far throughout the book of Colossians. Kind of a summary message next week.

So for this week, Paul gives some final instructions. We should pay special attention to these final instructions of Paul.

Because here at the end of this book, he wants us to leave us with one final command. And he's picturing

Colossae with one, well not one final, but a final set of commands. A final set of things that are interrelated to one of us.

And he wants us to be persistent and thankful in watchful prayer. That's what I was going to say.

And he wants us to walk in wisdom toward the world around us. Walk in wisdom toward the world around us.

And he wants us to speak gracious, witty words to the world around us.

I've called this sermon, Walk in Clock. Because Paul brings this whole letter, this entire letter into focus to this one focal point.

And the spirit tip of his message is something that we need to take seriously. And that is simply that we are called, each and every one of us, to have an impact on the world outside of the four walls.

Each one of us is called to have an impact outside of here. Now should we have an impact in here? Absolutely. He's called us together to impact one another's lives.

That's one of the beauties of gathering together on a Sunday morning with his people. It's one of the beauties of being involved in a small group where people know you and you know others.

And you're holding each other accountable and you're working and doing life together as Christians. How many of you are excited and at times just looking forward to church on Sundays?

I hope that that's a lot of us. And there's a sense of connectedness and seeing people that think like us and feel like us and believe like us.

And there's benefit in that. But there is also an impact outside of the church. And that's fundamental to what it means to be a

Christian, to be a follower of Christ. And we're going to do that. And by the end of this sermon, I would guess if you're anything like me that some of you are going to feel guilty.

And that's just a possible byproduct of talking about evangelism, right? It's a possible byproduct of looking at a text where God is going to tell us that we have a responsibility to the laws that are out there in the world.

We know that we should be sharing the gospel, but I'm going to do that already. There's going to be a new message for you. You knew that that's a part of what we're supposed to be doing.

And I never preach a sermon. It is never my goal that by the end of the message you would feel guilty.

I never set that. That's not a goal. I don't set that out and go, man, I really hope that people feel really guilty at the end of this.

I hope rather that you feel motivated. I hope that you feel moved and not motivated by me, not motivated by my voice, but motivated by the

Word of God to do something that is different in your life as a result of coming in contact with God's Word.

My goal is to preach the Word, what Scripture says, and hopefully that God's Spirit will take that and tell you what you can do with it.

Maybe some of you will walk out encouraged. You're doing this. You're getting this. I mean, sometimes it's great.

I don't know if you've ever had that happen in Scripture where it's like, man, this is a message. This is encouraging to my soul.

Like, I've got something that the Spirit is doing in me that's going right. And so some of you maybe will walk away encouraged.

My prayer this week for this sermon is that we would catch a vague vision. Not very clear.

Muddy, murky to us. Known. Why? Because we have come to be known by our

Savior and we have seen Him in the pages of Scripture. And He has manifest Himself in our midst and in our knowledge and in our understanding by His Spirit through His Word.

Isn't that a glorious thing? That we have something here to offer to the world around us because He has illuminated it to our minds and to our hearts, giving us wisdom from God through His Word.

And so we can do our part by the way that we pray, by the way that we walk, and by the way that we talk.

So let's open our Bibles, if you're not already there, to Colossians chapter 4. We're going to be looking at verses 2 through 6,

Colossians 4, 2 through 6. And follow along. Navigate over to whatever

Bible you have and follow along. Matthew 4, 2 through 6.

This is God's Word to us recast this morning that He desires for us to read, to hear, and to take on. That I may make it clear which is how

I ought to speak. Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.

Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in worship this morning. Father, I thank

You for Your Word and the power that it possesses to transform and change us. For the power of conviction.

Father, I pray that as we talk this morning about evangelism, we talk about outreach, we talk about our interaction with the world around us.

Father, that You would not allow us to wallow in guilt or wallow in a sense of just not being sufficient.

But Father, that You would help us to move past that to recognize that it is not us that is sufficient, but it is

Your sufficiency in us. It is Your message that You desire to communicate through Your people.

And so Father, I pray that You would open our eyes and open our hearts. Father, we the redeemed have an opportunity to worship You this morning.

We're gonna worship You here in just a moment in song. Hopefully, we're worshiping You on the way here.

Hopefully, we're worshiping You this past week. But even this next week, to put this into practice and contemplate and consider the glory of being called out to share this mystery with others.

Father, I pray that You would let that mystery that is now known to us just produce joy in us.

Produce a genuine heartfelt exuberance in our worship. Father, that we would not worship as just looking at the words on the screen and just thinking through those words only.

But that we would let them impact our hearts, the way we feel, the way that we express ourselves. Father, that our worship together would be exuberant, joyful, enthusiastic, and genuine worship of You as You are.

I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. We can go ahead and be seated.

And again, just thankful to Dave and the band for leading us in worship this morning. Hopefully, you were moved to some degree by that in your spirit, either by the words or by the music.

And most importantly, moved towards worship of God. That's the point. I encourage you to get comfortable and have your

Bibles open to Colossians 4, 2 through 6. As you see that that's going to be our text and that's what we're walking through.

If you need to get up and stretch out in the back or you need more coffee or juice. But all of it for the purpose of focusing our attention on God's word is kind of the main point here.

So, for many years of my life, I feel like I could summarize almost every sermon that I heard.

And I think many of us could agree with this. With just a couple of words, we could summarize a lot of sermons that we've heard.

And that is simply read your Bible, pray, and evangelize. Read your

Bible, pray, and evangelize. Read your Bible, pray, and evangelize. Anybody? You relate to that? That's a lot of the content of messages.

And this morning, our text is going to hit 2 for 3. Which, I don't know what that says about my sermon.

In baseball, that would be really great, right? Hitting 2 for 3. But in most other things, that's a solid

D. Maybe even a D+. So, you know, that's kind of, I don't know how you grade sermons.

But really, joking aside, Paul has established that his letter is written to those who already have a firm faith in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross for their salvation.

You can move away from that slide now. The D plus there is making me uncomfortable. Thank you.

But they already are believers. They already have embraced and trusted in Jesus for salvation.

And they believe that he has paid the punishment for their sins on the cross. And that the debt that they owed is no longer over their heads.

Anybody just kind of want to say amen to that? Anybody grateful that the debt that you owed is no longer over your heads?

And so that's where, that's the perspective of the people that he's writing to. That's where they're at. They've been raised to new life, he says, in Christ.

Picturing, again, just thinking about resurrection as we move into this Easter season. And so thinking about that.

And so he begins in verse 2 encouraging them to continue steadfast in prayer.

Now the word continue in the text makes it sound like they're already nailing it. And it's something that they just need to move on and just keep doing.

Just keep it up, if that's what he's saying. But instead, unfortunately, the word in Greek is really hard to bring over into English with this idea of what he wants to be done steadfastly.

What he wants to have done in our lives on a regular and routine basis. Something that he wants you to adopt and carry forward.

And so the notion here might have something more like carry on. Not merely continue like you're nailing it.

But carry forward in this manner might be a better way to state it. From this point forward, carry on in steadfast prayer.

Now some of them might not be nailing it, according to the way that the Greek looks. But he's telling them, go forward in this.

Walk forward in this thing called steadfast prayer. And the word steadfast and the word continue come together to show that what he's shooting for in the life of the

Colossians and what he's shooting for in our lives as well is a lifestyle of prayer.

A living, walking, breathing lifestyle of prayer that is something that categorizes us.

That characterizes our internal discussion that's going on throughout the week. A lifestyle of prayer.

Here Paul is not merely speaking of an isolated time at the start of your day, which is a good thing.

Jesus talks about that and he says when you pray, go into the closet and pray so that others don't see you.

And there's a time for that and there's a time for extended prayer. Jesus modeled that for us as well. And that he would go off early in the morning and the disciples would be looking for him and they couldn't find him and he had gone off on his own to pray.

And so he modeled that. But Paul's talking about something different here in the text. He certainly would have encouraged that, but further he would have said you should have a continual, daily, ongoing conversation with God.

He says in other texts, pray without ceasing. You know that's something that he desired.

We're having a constant conversation in our minds with God as the goal. That's something that we're shooting for.

There should be times throughout our week, certainly when we withdraw from the routine to spend a more extended time in prayer.

But then we should be talking with God in the midst of our day, on our way to meetings, on our commute to our workplace.

When you've got that tough meeting or that thing that's coming up and just talking and lifting that up to God.

Some people talk about that like shooting arrows. Like you talk about those arrow prayers that you shoot up to God when something is going on or whatever.

And those are good. You should be constantly having those kinds of conversations in the midst of your day.

And it's interesting that Paul suggests that this type of prayer is part of what it means to be watchful.

And I would even suggest to you that being prayerful, whether it's that time alone in the morning or whether it's this continual type of prayer, there's something about kind of setting up a watch that is interesting about that.

The idea that you're a watchman or standing on the wall observing and being watchful or being just careful to take in what's going on around you.

By persisting in prayer throughout the day, I would suggest to you that in taking that word watchful in light of that steadfast prayer, it's kind of indicating that we become more ready.

We become more prepared, more alert to what life throws at us if we're having a constant conversation with God.

And we become, I would suggest to you according to the text, we become more susceptible to thankfulness in the routine events of daily life if we're having a prayerful day.

When I say susceptible to thankfulness, that sounds like a good thing to be susceptible to, doesn't it? You might actually find yourself expressing gratitude on accident in the middle of the day because you are being watchful in prayer.

You are steadfast in prayer. You're talking to God and it's opening your heart to gratitude. Let me put it this way.

Think about two different types of days. If I go through a day without a heart of steadfast prayer,

God forbid that that should happen to any of us, but then you're just kind of doing your own thing, right? Isn't that kind of the nature of it?

And I'm going to be busy with all kinds of meetings and emails and study and family and all the different things and whatever you do during the day.

It's that busyness of the things that occupy your time. And when hurdles come into your life, when there's things that get in your way, you're going to try to handle those in your own strength.

You're going to handle those in your own way, right? Because you're not mindful of God. You're not thinking about Him, but you're mindful of yourself and you're primarily thinking about yourself.

And so you're going to have things that come in your... How many of you would say you've had some obstacles that kind of cropped up this week?

You know, just a couple things that got in your way. And how do you handle those if you're not mindful and cognizant of God?

Well, do you survive a day like that? A day without prayer, do you survive that? Generally speaking, we will survive a day like that.

And I've had too many days like that. And I think many of us could confess that we've had too many days like that and we made it through just fine.

And so you kind of go, well, wait, where's the benefit in this? Is there any blessing in it? Absolutely. But in a day like that,

I would suggest to you that you're going to miss, and I would miss, some fabulous opportunities to lean on God.

I won't be moved to trust Him to handle the tough issues in my life, but instead

I'll be trying to handle those on my own. I'll not be looking for chances to shine out

His glory, right? Because I'm not thinking about Him. If He's far removed from my mind throughout the day, how can

I glorify Him? I can only glorify Him if I'm acknowledging Him, if I'm thinking about Him, if I'm talking to Him.

But now think about another kind of day where I start out my day in prayer. If I rise early to take in His Word, spend time giving over my schedule to Him, I take some time to give over my family to Him, give over my work to Him, my relationships to Him, and then

I launch out into the day with an ongoing dialogue with God. How's that day going to be different?

Well, I might have the same things happen to me, right? I might have the same experiences, the same hurdles come into my life.

Does that mean because I started out and had a quiet time, does that make the whole day go smooth? Makes everything go fine, right?

No, that's not the promise. But it's going to be a different kind of day, right? Can you see it already? You're already thinking, man,

I bet that's going to be a different kind of day. The conversation throughout the day is going to remind me, first,

I am not alone. I want you to know that right there, that's gold. I'm not alone.

No matter what I face, no matter what difficulty, though the whole board stands against me, though everybody that I come in contact with is angry at me,

I'm not standing alone. I'm talking with God and I'm having an interaction with Him. That's a reminder to me.

The second thing that the conversation reminds me of is that I am not my own. I'm not my own.

I don't belong to myself. My decisions are constrained to some degree by the ownership of God, and so that reminder is constantly there.

Not only am I not alone, but I'm not my own. Third, the conversation reminds me I have a mission to fulfill.

I have a calling on my life. There are things that God desires of me in this day, and that conversation brings that to light.

There's something going on here. Lastly, the conversation with God reminds me

I have a purpose. I have a purpose. I'm not here on accident.

I'm not breathing oxygen on accident. I have a reason to be here. God has given that.

Now, I would suggest to you I'm not nailing this. I'm not nailing this every day, and I'm not standing up here and saying just do what

I do, but let me tell you about a time when I was doing a lot worse than I am now when it comes to prayer.

Again, all of us can grow, and I've got a lot of room to grow in my life, but 12 years ago

I was working on campus at Western Michigan University with international students. The thought of being a pastor at that point was just crazy far from anything that I thought

I would ever do. I was very happy to work. I thought maybe missions.

We were going to go overseas. I don't know. We'd already been overseas. We had moved back. We were kind of open to whatever God led us to do.

We were still with our missions agency waiting to see what God might have for us, but during that period of time in our lives,

Luke had just been born, and I set my own schedule. I was a self -proclaimed, up to that point, all of my life

I would have said I'm a night owl. Night owls? Anybody there? I was a self -proclaimed night owl.

I couldn't even understand mourning people. It didn't make sense to me. As a matter of fact, they aggravated me to a large degree.

Some of you know what I'm talking about, and some of you mourning people, you don't even know you're aggravating people, but you just do.

That smile and that joy and that chipperness, I think there's even a proverb about that. I better not quote it, because there's some proverb that says a nice, cheery disposition in the morning causes anger or something.

I don't know. I'll look it up, and I'll get it for you later. It's not in my notes.

But I had a pretty hard time, and just being flat out honest with you, I had a really hard time, and even motivating myself to see the value in getting up early in the morning.

I can read my Bible in the evening, or I can do whatever, and so reading Bible, pray, it just wasn't working for me, and I wasn't quite getting there to the point where I was having a consistent time in God's word, and yet I just couldn't buy into this whole mourning principle, and people would talk about the mourning, and I'd just be like, what?

And so it wasn't a very good priority. I would say that I wanted to. I wanted to have a prayer life.

I wanted to do better in those things, but it just wasn't clicking for me, and I wasn't able to make some of the connections that maybe some of the patterns or behaviors, or some of the lies

I was telling myself about I just can't get up in the morning, and that's not the way God made me, or something, but there's something going on there, but in the fall,

I went to a men's retreat where I heard Tom Harmon speak. Some of you here in the room know who Tom Harmon is. He's a speaker here in Michigan, and he travels, and he speaks.

He's an itinerant preacher, but he spoke up at Camp Barrichel that weekend, and for whatever reason, something he said struck a chord in my heart that has changed me, and some of you have had that happen where somebody said something, and it's like, just for whatever reason,

God used that. There were other guys who probably were there at that retreat that it didn't strike them the same way, but it hit me, and it hit me hard, and it changed my life, and it's changed me consistently, so for whatever reason, he basically identified that by not praying for my family,

I am leaving them exposed. That was kind of the thrust of what he said that weekend, or what

I got out of what he said. I'm leaving my family exposed by not being watchful for them in prayer.

My role, my responsibility of protector, and if somebody broke in the house, I would be the first one to either get shot or take someone out trying to protect my family, but what about in the spiritual area?

What about being a man for my family and standing in the gap for them and lifting them up before the

Lord and praying for them? Because the thing is, as I had young kids at the time, really only two at that point, my daughter hadn't even been born, but I'm looking at them going,

I know what, I want them to look like when they're older, but I don't trust myself to get them there.

Anybody that's a parent in the room know what I'm talking about on that? And I'm not even confident I know how to get them there, but I know someone who does know how to get them there, and maybe

I should be talking to him about it. Maybe I should be bringing them before him and saying, this is,

I really long for this in my kids' lives, and protecting them in prayer, being watchful for them.

I was like a commander on the field of battle setting up camp for the night and not posting a watch in enemy territory.

That's not smart, right? You're gonna get ambushed and you're gonna get wiped out in your sleep.

You're just not gonna wake up that morning, right? We were unguarded and left defenseless.

Tom Harmon didn't tell me, by the way, in that weekend, he didn't say, you have to get up in the morning and pray for your family.

He just let me know that my prayerlessness was exposing my family and I was like a watchman asleep on the watchtower, totally shirking my responsibility, totally not doing the things that I knew

I should be doing, not filling that role and that responsibility as a man of God, not lifting up my ministry to the

Lord, not talking to him about the international students I was trying to win to the Lord. And I came back from that retreat and I can tell you this, not to my credit, just whatever

God did in my life, but my alarm has gone off at 5 .30 a .m., basically with few exceptions since that retreat 12 years ago.

And there's been a transformation in my life as a result of understanding and really taking that on and recognizing what

I was exposing those around me to by not praying.

I'm not always nailing it, but I'm not leaving my family, I'm not leaving my church, I'm not leaving my personal life now exposed without prayer.

I used to hate it when people suggested that the morning was sacred and it was primarily, I would say to you, because I was lazy.

That's my confession. That's not to say that everybody who says that they're a night owl is lazy, but I'm just telling you what I can identify now looking back at my heart.

Not getting up in the morning was about, to me, laziness. The morning has become a start of a daily conversation with God that I delight in.

I look forward to it now. I meet God there. I set about a watchful concern for the issues that my family is facing.

A concern for the issues that we as a church are facing. And lastly, what I've identified is over these 12 years, it's resulted in more and more thanksgiving.

More and more gratitude to Him. As I pray, I see the fruit of God's care and concern for those that I pray for.

Would good happen in my life if I didn't pray? I think it would.

I think they'd be good here. If I wasn't prayerful, I still think there'd be good things. Would I be prone to acknowledge

God's answer to prayer in those good things? Never. Of course not.

I'm not even praying. How could I say thank you for answering prayers that I never uttered? That's not reasonable.

If I don't pray, I leave no room for God to answer. Good things will happen. But I'm just not prone to give

God the credit for that. So my first application is to be a man or a woman of prayer. Set up a watchtower.

Set up a war room. Some of you, have you seen that movie? Set up a place, a routine, regular place that you are going to be prayerful.

A place to launch out into your day of conversation with God. Be attentive to the battle.

Be attentive to the battle that is raging around you. Among your coworkers, in your culture, those of you that have a family, among your family, there's a fight for your very lives.

There is a fight going on for your very souls. Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it.

Further regarding, Paul says, I want you guys to pray steadfastly. Oh, and by the way, if you're going to go ahead and do that, then could you pray for me too?

And I love the way that he does that because he's kind of like saying, I really need you guys to pray, so please pray.

And when you pray, could you lift me up too? And he requests specific prayers from the church in Colossae on his behalf.

He doesn't ask for wealth. He doesn't ask for his health. He doesn't ask for Aunt Mildred's hip replacement next month.

His prayer request is amazing. He just asks that God would open doors for the Word. Please pray that God would open doors for the

Word to be spread. He wants the Gospel to move forward so much that it's his number one prayer request to the church.

You could ask him to pray for anything. He says, pray that the Gospel goes forward. He wants opportunities to declare what he says is the mystery of Christ, which is the good news.

Earlier in the book, he talked about the mystery of Christ being Christ in us, the hope of glory.

And the message Paul wants to bring to more and more people is the glorious hope that we in Christ and Christ in us will result in eternal glory for all who are his.

Remember, Paul, he even says in the text, he was in prison on account of the Gospel. So he both acknowledges the cost of declaring the good news,

I'm in prison because I was sharing the Gospel, and at the same time says, I want more opportunities to share it.

Pray for more opportunities to share that for which I am currently doing time. Do you hear that tension in Paul's life where he's like, imprisoned, pray that I get more of it.

Pray that I get, if you could lift up, right now, I feel a little constrained because I'm a little confined to this cell.

I'm a little bit confined to just sharing with the prison guards that come in or that are chained to me from time to time, and boy, to be a prison guard chained to Paul, did you have any hope of remaining an unbeliever?

I'm sure that he was using those opportunities, but he says, give me, pray that more doors are open.

Well, he's in prison, so I wonder if there's one particular door he wanted open, but I mean, he's not talking literally.

He actually is using a figure of speech that was very common in Greek and very common in art. We talk about open doors all the time, and there's even ministries called open doors and all about getting the doors open to the

Gospel. He wants more chances, and what if we were to adopt that view of the good news?

What if we were to really take on what Paul is saying and to adopt that perspective? What if everybody in that church said, just,

I've got one prayer request. You're sitting here in connection time, and somebody says, and you just say, pray that I have more opportunities to share the

Gospel in my workplace. I got some neighbors that I know aren't believers, and I mean, they see me leaving for church every

Sunday morning, and just pray that I have some open doors in my neighborhood. What if we prayed for one another that way?

We should be. We should be. He knew, by the way, Paul knew his calling in life.

He knew what he was called to do, and he was called to make the Gospel clear, he says in the text. He knew he was called to speak it, and even felt some form of constraint, some type of obligation.

He says, this is the way I ought to speak, clearly revealing the mystery to others around me.

Well, you might say, okay, Paul asked the church to pray for him. Paul, the apostle.

Paul, the one who wrote a lot of the New Testament. Paul, the professional evangelist.

It's great for Paul. Of course Paul wants more opportunities to share the Gospel. That's his calling. God called him to that.

He's the professional. And aren't we all grateful for the professionals? The professional ministers, the professional evangelists, the ones that are called to do the work for us.

Let's hear it for the professional evangelists. Let's hear that. Yeah, alright. So, whoo, so grateful for those who are called to do that, which makes us all eminently uncomfortable.

So glad, I mean, we could even pay them to do it, right? Give them some money.

But let me, I'm obviously being a little facetious, because we're going to get there here. We're going to finish this text out, but it would be kind of more comfortable to just wrap it up right here.

Let's just leave it to the professionals. But before we move on to talk about, no, we can't do that, let's think about the professionals for a minute.

Let's really take that on for a minute, and we should be praying steadfastly, being watchful with thanksgiving, and praying for open doors for the gospel.

We should pray for our missionaries. We should be praying for the Lloyds, as we're going to be sending them out, and they're going to be actually leaving this country next month to go, and certainly they're going to go take some language study, but it's not too early for us to be praying for open doors in Indonesia for them.

That God would be opening doors to present the gospel among those in Indonesia.

They're going to get some language study help, there's going to be people there, they're going to get some tutors, there's going to be people that they can interact with right off the bat, that they're going to do life together with pretty quick.

They're going to have some chances. Allison Downing, at U of M, pray for open doors on that campus for her to continue to have opportunities to study the

Bible with students and see them come to faith in Christ. Open doors. For Bill Smith, with Youth for Christ, pray that he might have open doors as he presents there at the juvenile home and at Lakeside, what's it called, is it

Lakeside? Yeah, at Lakeside, and he gets an opportunity to preach to these kids who have come to, many of them who have come to the end of themselves, many of them who recognize their own brokenness and their fallenness and are paying penalty as a result of it and he gets the opportunity to go in there and share the gospel with them.

Pray for open doors and open hearts for them. Boldly declare the gospel. Pray the same for me.

Pray that I'll have opportunities. I get these great conversations at the coffee shop.

Pray for open doors in those conversations that I might be able to share the gospel there. But the text doesn't end there.

Because in Christ, the mission doesn't rest with the professionals. The mission rests with all of us.

Praise God that he calls each and every one of us to this glorious and beautiful calling of revealing the mysteries.

That the world doesn't quite grasp that we have now an insider perspective on that we can share with them the truth and the glory of Christ.

God in flesh, come live the sinless life. Died. Buried. Rose again three days later.

Victorious over sin and death. Any who would put their faith and trust in him might not perish, but would have everlasting life.

That's the gospel. That's the gospel. And if you've been saved by it, you can share it. If you've been saved by it, then you can share it.

Us. All of us. From the oldest to the youngest.

From the newest believer to the one who was born in the church. All of us.

Look at verse five. Are to walk in wisdom toward outsiders.

The first command for a church toward those outside of the fellowship in this entire letter is a call to walk in a certain way.

You can cue the song Walk This Way by Aerosmith and Run DMC here for just a second in your mind. Walk this way.

Now, I totally just dated myself probably for some of you. And some of you younger are just kind of like,

I don't know what he's talking about. What is this Aerosmith thing? And then some of you that were alive during that era are going, why is he talking about Aerosmith?

Like, right? Like, what in the world? But, yeah. That's enough. But walking is a metaphor for the way that we live.

Right? And that's all the way carried from the Old Testament language into the New Testament. And even now we talk about our walk, right?

The way that we walk. The way that we live. And we should walk with wisdom toward outsiders. I mean, even insiders, right?

We should walk with wisdom toward one another, right? So it's not just like, as opposed to walking with wisdom inside the church.

We should walk only, it's both. But the call is specifically given to outsiders because I believe it will prove more difficult, more challenging to walk with wisdom outside of the four walls of the church.

To walk wisely out there is tough. Those of you that work, you know, work outside of the church, unlike me,

I work in the church, but those of you who work outside, you would be able to testify to the challenges that you face in walking with wisdom toward those who are outside.

And it is a challenge. In our current cultural climate, I've had to pick and choose my conversations carefully at the coffee shop.

I've literally had a conversation, this is a real conversation that I had, with a gay guy, a self -proclaimed bisexual, talking about gay marriage while I'm trying to get the gospel into the conversation.

So those are the kinds of things that happen in real life, right? And how many of you know that that kind of requires a level of wisdom and carefully chosen words in that type of conversation?

Let me suggest that we all need to consider where true wisdom comes from. We live in a culture where everybody, everybody's opinion is a dime a dozen, right?

Everybody is eager and willing to share their opinions, but man, wisdom is not your or my opinion.

We must start with the fear of the Lord and that is the place that wisdom begins.

How does a person obtain the fear of the Lord? Man, read the Bible. Read the

Word to get a vision of who this God is that we serve. And if you're reading the same

Bible that I'm reading and you finish it, I believe you're gonna walk out with some nice, if you believe that He is, if you believe that this

God that is from Genesis to Revelation revealed, I think you're gonna walk away a little bit like with your jaw on the ground.

You're gonna walk away going, I am not worthy. I mean, like maybe even face down on the carpet going,

I am not worthy of this God. If you really take it on and really, really study it.

So, where does it begin? How do you get the fear of the Lord? Well, you get the fear of the Lord by meeting Him. You meet

Him. You meet the God that I know and you're gonna go, man, this guy, this God deserves my utmost reverence and awe.

That's where it begins. That's where wisdom begins is knowing who God is and knowing who you are in light of God and that's where wise walking begins.

Knowing who you are, knowing who He is. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

Respect for God is where wise living comes. And I'm sure that you know what I'm talking about.

You have some sense of the difficulty and the challenge. In your workplace, I'm sure that you've encountered conversations and situations that required wisdom.

Raise your hand if you feel like you've had some of those conversations where it required really careful thought to get there.

And maybe you've got an ongoing conversation with certain coworkers and you kind of pick up where you left off and it's like, man, it's tough sometimes.

Sometimes the logic out there doesn't seem very logical. You ever encounter that? That can be part of the challenge is if you're trying to talk logic and we don't have the same ground rules in the conversation, sometimes it's just like your head is spinning.

Anybody ever get angry in one of those conversations? Just being honest, I've been a little bit red faced at times. And we're going to get there here in a second about how are we to respond when that happens.

The text is going to kind of address the way and the method that we communicate with them. But in our neighborhoods, we require wisdom as well, right?

The way that we walk, the way that we live, and I don't want to only talk about the things that we say or the conversations that we have, but there's the actual wise living that's being challenged.

We live in neighborhoods now where, I don't know, just the last couple of years I've heard of these things starting to crop up. In my neighborhood, there was one.

Another neighborhood over, there was one. Have any of you ever heard of this new phenomenon, the porch crawl, the neighborhood porch crawl?

It's like the pub crawl. You get a keg, set it up on your front porch, and then people go from house to house to house, which sounds, well, it sounded like a good idea at one point, but now it sounds like that's the end.

How many of you think that that might turn ugly in your neighborhood? Potentially, three of us. The rest are kind of going, yeah, writing it down like that.

That's an idea. The next association, we're going to talk this through. Think that through for a minute.

Enjoying a refreshing beer on a summer afternoon with your neighbor sounds good, sounds refreshing, but a neighborhood -wide bender does not sound like walking wisely in our world.

Anybody with me on that? Does not sound like wisdom. But walk wisely,

Paul says, so that we can make the best use of our time. And all of a sudden, when he talks about time, it's very clear what he's thinking of, and that is just the very limit, the number one limitation on our lives in a fallen world.

He holds up the 10 -minute sign just as I'm talking about time, right? The limitations in a fallen world. It's there, and it's all around us, and how many of you feel that pressure of time?

I'm telling you what, I'm 43 years old right now, and I was 23 two years ago. Okay? Anybody with me on that?

You know what I'm talking about? Those that are younger, you know, you're listening in, and you're like, it's coming, it's coming.

It happens just like that, and your kids are teens, and they're taking their driving tests.

It's like, no, that's changing your diapers. It's just, what? Time is fast, and redeeming the time, taking advantage of the time.

He's talking about make the best use of the time is a good translation, and I don't mean to constantly bash the translations or say that they get it wrong.

It's a good way to bring that into modern English, but it actually has a commerce use. It's used more in commercial and marketing terms in Greek than anything, and it's not strictly make the best use of, but it's redeeming, buying back.

It has purchasing in it, as if there is a pool of time, and you're buying it for good use.

You're making good use of it, and so that's the nature of that and the idea that you have a limited amount of time.

Have you ever considered, from the perspective of this text or even thought about in these terms, we think,

I mean, man, I've got a limited amount of time. I better go hit the links. I better get, man, I've never been to, I've never seen the

Pacific. I've never been to Maine. I've never been to France, and you get these things in your mind, and we call it a bucket list, right?

How about a bucket list of people to share the gospel with? You got one of those?

I never thought about that before. That's what Paul's talking about.

A bucket list for people to see one for the kingdom. Not improving your golf score, not traveling the world and seeing all the sights before you head out of here.

What do you know? You've got a limited amount of time to reach the people around you who are waiting for Christ, right? Did you know that?

And I think a lot of us are sitting back and waiting. I don't know what we're waiting for. Waiting for it to get easier?

Waiting for the conversation to just kind of get around to it? Well, I'm not perfect on this, making the best use of time.

Lynn and I lived in a neighborhood in Portage for six years. Most of that time,

I was a pastor. I had a pretty rigorous evening schedule with tons of evening programs, much more than I do now, meetings and weekends packed with activities.

So that would be my excuse. But when we moved out after living there for six years in the

Amberley neighborhood, we realized we had never eaten a meal with our next door neighbor.

Not once. Not once. We didn't have them over for a barbecue. We didn't have them over after church on Sunday.

We didn't have them over on a Friday. Not once. Now, we talked over the fence from time to time.

Our kids played together, especially once they got a trampoline. I even explained the gospel to them in a brief conversation about church planting when they found out we were moving out to Matawan and we had a good conversation about that.

They knew I was a pastor all along. I cannot say that we use the best time in those six years when it pertains to outsiders.

And I think before I go on, I need to clarify that the motivation for us, because I'm standing up here as your pastor telling you, it might not be super motivating to do this because Paul told the

Colossians to do it so now you should do it too. Maybe better would it be motivated because God, who's the author of the

Bible, is telling us to do it. Maybe that ought to factor in there somewhere. That's good. But where the rubber meets the road for me is this one simple truth.

And I hope it motivates us all to a large degree, simple, devastating truth.

Hell is real. Hell is real. A real place.

It's a real destination. And it's a place where real people that you and I know will spend eternity.

And the converse is true. There's a kingdom coming where we will delight in the riches and the glory of God forever and ever and ever and ever and ever.

So not just hell, but the glory that we have to invite people to.

This beautiful kingdom where they can experience real love and real joy.

The joy that they were created for. And that is the message that we have to bring. That is the mystery that is to be revealed.

The glory of Christ and His kingdom forever and ever and ever and ever.

Are we motivated? Are we moved?

Are we going to leave here feeling guilty? I just don't do it and I just haven't done it. I'm just terrible.

I'm a terrible Christian. I'm too scared. A prayer for all of us is that we be moved, we be motivated.

Not just guilted. That's not my goal. There's truth here that I hope impacts us, that I hope we reflect on.

There really is a coming day of the wrath of God. We're going to launch into Revelation here in April.

We're going to go through the book of Revelation moving forward. I tell you what, there's some crazy stuff in that book.

The wrath of God that is coming on the world. And He's going to rain down in final judgment and only those who cling to Christ will be sheltered under the umbrella of His protection.

All others will be cast out into eternal punishment. And so our calling goes beyond the way we live and extends even to the words we say to outsiders here at the end of our text in verse 6.

Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

Our speech is to be gracious to those outside the kingdom of God. Always gracious.

We are not to give room for graceless, harmful, tearing down kind of speech to the unbelievers around us.

Gracious speech is the kind that builds others up. Gracious speech points towards having a changed heart.

Gracious speech guides others deeper into the mysteries of Christ. It even wets their appetite and leaves them hungry to know more.

It's using all of our faculties, all of our capacity to provide answers to the person as a person.

Look at how it ends. So that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

Not so that you might know how to provide answers to generic people. Each person.

It implies that you know people. It implies that you're engaging their hearts, that you're connected, that you even have some friends out there and are interacting with them.

How many of you know it's possible to win an argument but lose the war in the process? If you're married, you know what

I'm talking about. But you think about this in terms of the gospel. You know, people who debate, they argue.

I've been to formal debates, many of them. I've watched them online. I've been there in person.

I've been to Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park, London where people gather and they bring their own step ladder so they can stand up and they gather crowds to themselves and there's hecklers and there's just a hot bed type of environment where faces turn red and voices are raised and the hecklers clash and defending theology, defending philosophy and in all of that experience,

I've yet to meet the person who says, you know what? Somebody shouted loud enough that I came to faith in Christ.

Somebody yelled enough and got angry enough that I finally said, okay, yeah, you're right, obviously, and I gave my life to Jesus.

I haven't met that person yet. And the phrase here in the text, seasoned with salt, is different than the way that Jesus uses it because it's addressing speech particularly, which this was a really, really common phrase in Greek.

The idea of salty speech. Not the way that we use salty speech in English. It's a different meaning in the

Greek culture. So where Jesus says, you are to be salt and light, you know that Jesus said that, and he's talking about either preserving or flavoring, but here with salty speech, it was really common for them to use this for witty or winsome kind of speech.

That's the way the Greeks use this phrase. We're not to be called, we're not called to memorize a formal presentation of the gospel.

We're not called to academically answer every question with precision, citing sources with chapter and verse.

We are literally being called to be a pretty neat person who speaks grace -filled words in a winsome and witty way.

That's what the text is asking of us. So let the conviction flow from the recognition that we should be having these conversations.

That's where I want the conviction to rest on us. I don't want the conviction to rest in, oh man, I gotta get people saved.

That's the wrong place. You will never talk to somebody if you think it's all up to you. Man, that's terrifying. What if I get it wrong?

What if I say something wrong? What if I do something wrong? I want you to chill about the process. I just want you to get into the process.

You get it? So I'm actually calling you to take something seriously that at the end of the day

I'm asking you to take a chill pill about. Do you understand how those two come together?

Get about it, but in the midst of it, don't stress. Because if you're faithful to present your testimony, how many of you think you could right now just share,

I'm not gonna ask you to get up, but how many of you think you could just share what Christ has done for you in a minute or two?

That's it. That's it. Talk about what he's done for you. How he saved you from yourself and from your sins.

Seasoned with salt. We are unique people who speak grace -filled words.

Pray for one another for open doors. Pray for clarity. Walk in wisdom.

Speak grace -filled, calm words. And treat each person as a person.

In evangelism for decades now, we've guessed what people are asking and then memorized answers to those questions.

We've had all kinds of memorized evangelism classes that create robotic speech that seeks to indoctrinate outsiders with the gospel.

And I love what Paul is calling us all to here. He wants us to chill with Jesus, talking with him throughout the day and being watchful all day long.

He wants us to be purposeful and intentional in the way we live in the midst of outsiders. And he wants his people to speak in a way that leads outsiders closer to the kingdom.

Here at the end of Colossians, it isn't by accident that Paul addresses the way the church should be responding to outsiders.

See, here at Recast, our mission is very simple. Recast exists to find more worshipers for his name.

That's why we exist. That's why this church was started. We believe that God has more in this community, more in your neighborhoods, more in your workplaces, that he wants to bring in to his kingdom.

He has more who will embrace Christ as king and join us in gloriously calling them to eternal life.

We are called to go out and find them. That's our call. The S in Recast stands for simplicity.

Replicating community, authenticity, simplicity, and truth. And part of that comes out of the story

I told you earlier about Lynn and I's experience in Portage being at a very busy church where there was activity every night of the week and so much to do.

We have that personal experience of being so busy at church that it was hard work to walk with wisdom, with outsiders, to speak gracious words when we just didn't have the time.

We were so busy. So here at Recast, we've experimented. We've tried something different. We ask everyone to grow in faith by attending

Sunday morning, to grow in community through small group or through some, whatever means you can to get connected in accountability with others.

We ask everyone to grow in service using your gifts and talents to serve

God. Our hope is that this pared down program gives you the freedom to invest in your neighbors, gives you the freedom to invest in your coworkers or your unsaved friends.

Have them over for a game night. Go out to eat. Never grill alone. That should be a motto.

Never grill alone. Bring an unsaved friend. Invite them into your life. Walk with wisdom.

Speak gracious words. Guide them deeper into understanding and revealing the mysteries of Christ.

This morning, we come to communion and as we come to communion, let's not forget that the mystery of Christ is a simple message that was hidden for generations but has now been revealed to us in our time.

It's simply that God stepped out of heaven, was born, and grew into a man named Jesus.

He lived a sinless life and he willingly died on the cross to cover our sins.

He was buried but three days later, he rose from the dead just as he said he would. And now he sits exalted at the right hand of his

Father. If your trust is in this message, then please feel free to come to one of the tables to remember his body that was broken for you.

Come to the table and remember his blood that was shed for you. But if you've not put your trust in Jesus for salvation,

I'd encourage you to skip communion and come to me afterwards and talk with me. I'm actually going to stay up here and if you'd like to start a new life with Christ, today would be a great day for that change.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for your convicting word.

Father, I pray that you would motivate us and move us not by means of guilt but by means of recognition of what you have done in our lives and a desire and a hunger to see more come into your kingdom.

Father, you promise us, you promise eternal life for anybody who's in with Jesus. Father, as we come to the table to remember what it costs to bring us in,

I pray that we would be humble. We would also be motivated and moved to share this great message of hope to others.

Father, would you mobilize us. Move us out from this place. Open doors for this congregation to see more brought into your kingdom.