WWUTT 087 Answering Outsiders (Colossians 4:5-6)

Jesus said, you are the salt of the earth. If salt loses its saltiness, what's it good for?

Nothing, except to be thrown out into the dirt and be trampled on by men. So our speech needs to be seasoned in such a way that we are answering each person graciously.

Not just believers, but especially unbelievers when we understand the text.

You're listening to When We Understand The Text, an online Bible ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty.

Find videos and more at our website, www .utt .com. Now here's our host,

Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. Yesterday in Colossians chapter 4, verse 2, we read, continue steadfastly in prayer.

As we remain steadfast in the faith, it is our prayers that help to keep us grounded or keep our minds and our hearts heavenward.

Maybe that's the better way to say it. As I was saying grounded, it suddenly occurred to me, well, in the context of what we've been reading in Colossians, our thoughts and our desires are supposed to be focused on heavenly things.

As we read in Colossians chapter 3, verse 1, if then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

So we are steadfast in the faith. We are sealed for the day of glory in the Holy Spirit, as it says in Ephesians chapter 1, verse 13.

So it is our prayers that help to keep our hearts and our minds focused on heavenly things.

Being watchful in it with thanksgiving, the verse goes on to say. Being watchful in it means not just looking forward to the day when our

Lord Christ will appear, although that is one way that can apply, but if we are watchful in prayer, it also helps to keep us from the trappings of this world, the things in this world that attempt to ensnare us and draw us away from the things of God.

Falling into temptation, falling into sin. If we are watchful in prayer, it will help to keep us disciplined against those worldly things.

With thanksgiving is the conclusion of that verse. So continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving, because as we talked about a few weeks ago during Thanksgiving week, we sin, we fall into sin, we give into temptation because we just weren't satisfied in what

God had given to us. We thought that we needed something else in order to find our satisfaction.

God, what you've given to me just isn't good enough. And I know better than you, I need this other thing in order to be satisfied.

And so then we fall into sin because sin flows from an ungrateful heart.

But if we are steadfast in prayer and watchful in it with thanksgiving, then we understand that we are completely satisfied in all that our

Savior Christ has given to us. He is preeminent and above him there is nothing else.

And that has been a theme as we have been going through this study of the book of Colossians, knowing Christ is preeminent and being completely satisfied in our

Savior. And I hope that as we've been going through this study, that you've felt your heart and your mind maturing in that direction.

And it has enhanced your worship, knowing Christ in this way and being satisfied in Christ.

We're getting to another section of Colossians chapter four today, looking at verses five and six. So before getting to that, let's come to the

Lord in prayer. Our gracious heavenly Father, our wonderful God, we thank you so much for this word that we have been studying as we draw to a close this week on everything that we've been studying over the course of the book of Colossians.

I pray that you are maturing us toward understanding Christ as preeminent and being completely satisfied in our

Savior. We have salvation because of what has been given to us in Christ Jesus. And so may everything else, all of our thanksgiving and all of our satisfaction flow from that, knowing first that we have been saved and sealed for the day of glory in Christ Jesus.

And so keep us steadfast in the faith, in prayer, being watchful in it and being filled with a thankful heart.

Help us to pray for one another, as Paul went on to talk about in verse three, that we might be bold to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and that we also would have a boldness to say the words in exactly the right way that we need to say them when an opportunity arises to be able to preach to someone else.

That's just kind of a little bit more of what we're going to be talking about here today. God, I know that I probably have some listeners today and maybe some listeners have been drawn to this program because they go to a church that they don't think is as gospel -centered as it should be.

They don't think the doctrine is as right as what the scriptures have been called of a minister to preach.

So may I pray for those listeners that they would pray for their pastors to be bold to preach the gospel the way that they ought to speak and make it clear, which is how we should be speaking the gospel, as Paul talks about there in Colossians 4, verse four.

May we not shrink back from our responsibility as saints to be praying for other saints and even to be praying for our pastors that they would preach the gospel in the right way.

Keep us steadfast in this even, that no matter how long it takes, no matter how much patience we must exercise, keep us long -suffering in this, that we might see our ministers wherever we live, whatever country we are in, we might see them with bolder hearts to preach the gospel in the way that it must be preached.

And we pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Colossians 4, verses five and six today, 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.

So in the previous three verses, verses two, three, and four, we were told about how to pray for one another, how we pray for ourselves, being watchful in prayer, being steadfast in it, how we pray for one another.

Because as Paul says in verse three, at the same time, pray also for us that God may open to us a door for the word to declare the mystery of Christ on account of which

I am in prison, that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. So we pray for ourselves to be steadfast.

We pray for others that they would preach the gospel and do so in a clear and right way when those opportunities arise.

And then as we get to verses five and six, now we're reading about how we are to conduct ourselves even among those who are not in the faith.

Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.

Walk in wisdom toward outsiders. Now, making the best use of the time. We read this recently when we were going through Ephesians chapter five last week.

So in verse 15 and 16 of Ephesians five, look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time because the days are evil.

I'm going to throw in verse 17 here. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the

Lord is. So first of all, look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise. This even goes back to what we just read in Colossians chapter four, verse two, continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.

Okay, that's walking in wisdom. Same sort of instruction that Paul gives here in Ephesians chapter five.

Look carefully how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise. How do we do that? Verse 16 tells us making the best use of the time because the days are evil.

And verse 17, therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the

Lord is. Now, when we talk here in verse 17 about the will of the Lord, we're not talking about something that is not known.

We're talking about knowing the word of God, the revealed will of God.

See, we've got two different wills of God. We have the revealed will and the hidden will. The hidden will, we don't know what that is.

Can't see it. What we do know of God's revealed will is what we read in the scriptures.

That's his revealed will. So when the scriptures tell us to know the will of God, like Romans 12, two, probably one of the most famous verses about God's will do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by renewing your mind.

And then you will see God's good, pleasing and perfect will. God's will is not the

Christian equivalent of wishing upon a star or a pep talk or hopes and dreams.

Okay. That's not what the will of God is. God's will has been revealed in his scriptures.

If we want to know the mind of God, we read the Bible. As I've heard Justin Peters say, do you want to hear

God speak to you? Read the Bible. Do you want to hear him speak to you out loud?

Read the Bible out loud. Everything that we can know about the will of God is given to us here in the pages of scripture.

So when Paul is giving this instruction in Ephesians five verses 15 through 17, therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the

Lord is. He is saying, read the Bible. All right. Now a different sort of context here in Ephesians because they did not necessarily have the completed canon of new

Testament, but they did have some of it because Peter says in second Peter chapter three, uh, that the apostle

Paul speaks in ways that are difficult for the simple minded to understand and they will twist and contort the scriptures to their own destruction.

So there in first Peter, or I'm sorry, second Peter three 16, Peter equates

Paul's letters to the rest of scripture. And so we have some indication that there was some kind of canon, even if it wasn't the 27 complete books of the new

Testament that we have now. In fact, Paul is going to say, when we get to the end of Colossians, he's going to recommend to the

Colossians that they read the letter that he wrote to the Laodiceans and that they also share with the

Laodiceans the letter that Paul wrote to them. And so there, there was a, uh, probably a collection of letters that Paul had written to several different places.

And, uh, there were ways that you could read what the apostle wrote. Same with what James wrote and what

Peter wrote. Uh, maybe there were other apostolic letters that we just don't have record of anymore.

There, that's a possibility, but, uh, but anyway, so there's at least some indication that we have in the new

Testament that there was some amount of canon based on what the apostles were writing to respective churches.

So as Paul is saying to understand what the will of the Lord is here to the Ephesians, basically

Paul is saying, understand what we've taught you about the gospel. Understand what the instructions are that have been given to the churches through Christ's apostles.

This is God's revealed will. And to this day, we're still reading what the apostles wrote every time that we open up the new

Testament. So don't be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is and understand that this command is coming right after verse 16, where it says, making the best use of the time because the days are evil.

In other words, make the best use of your time to read the Bible, understand what the

Bible says. I'm not exaggerating and I'm not placing too great a burden on you.

When I say you need to be in the Bible every day, you have got to read God's word.

Anytime I get an opportunity to speak to a middle school group or a high school group, teenagers, in other words, one of the number one things that I tell them, in fact,

I can't even remember a time that I spoke to a group of teenagers and did not share this with them.

If I could do high school over again, if I could do my teenage years over again, I'd have read the

Bible more. I just did not devote the amount of time that I should have been devoting to the scriptures.

And I will tell you, I probably was reading the Bible more or spending more time in it than most of my peers were in in high school.

I can think of a couple of others that were probably reading it more often than I was, but I was still above the curve, even among my

Christian friends. And yet I feel like I should have been devoting more. There's so much of my time I wasted on meaningless things won't go into what all of that was.

As far as moral conduct was concerned, I was a pretty good kid. I didn't get into a lot of trouble, but still feel like I should have been devoting more of my time to the scriptures.

So spend your time in the Bible, be devoted to the scriptures every single day.

Thank you for listening to this program because this is what we're committed to doing is reading the Bible. And I hope that even if you're driving in the car and listening to me go through these scriptures that you're still taking the time to go through them yourself.

Make the best use of the time because the days are evil. Look carefully how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise.

Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Notice all of these instructions here pointing toward being regular in the scriptures.

And so as Paul has been directing us here in this in this letter to the Colossians, and suddenly

I don't have it marked anymore because I turned away from it. Colossians chapter four, again in verse five, walk in wisdom toward outsiders making the best use of the time.

So we see the instruction as it comes up in Ephesians five. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

Let's go to Matthew chapter five. And this is where Jesus gives his famous passage on being salt and light in the

Sermon on the Mount. He says, you are the salt of the earth. Matthew five, verse 13, you are the salt of the earth.

But if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?

It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.

Now, there's a wonderful analogy that the Lord is giving here about being the salt of the earth.

Salt was beneficial in a number of ways in the first century. It was basically their refrigerator.

They didn't have refrigeration units, but they could keep meat packed in salt and it preserved the meat.

So it was a preservative. It was a seasoning, which is the way we use it now. Table salt. OK. And so in this way, as a preservative and a seasoning, so the disciples of Christ are supposed to be as they influence the world for good.

So as Paul is saying to the Colossians to let your speech be gracious and always seasoned with salt, he's actually coming back to the instruction that Christ gave to his disciples in Matthew five in the

Sermon on the Mount on being the salt of the earth. Paul is coming right back to that instruction.

He's not coming up with something off the top of his head or trying to be profound on his own. The Lord Christ, the gospel that we have delivered for you to you has said to be the salt of the earth.

So let your speech be gracious and seasoned with salt.

And this concept of being seasoned with salt also means this. Let your speech be unique. Don't give canned answers to the people who ask you for an answer for the hope that lies within you.

Don't just have your rehearsed answers. Let your speech be seasoned with salt, answering each person as you want to so that you may know how to answer each person, as Paul goes on there in Colossians four, six to say.

So don't overlook the instruction there to be gracious. On top of that, as Paul said to Timothy, we need to patiently endure evil.

That's in second Timothy chapter two, verse 24. In fact, go with me there if you would. Second Timothy chapter two, because there's a great section here where Paul also gives some good instructions on how we answer unbelievers.

Second Timothy chapter two, starting in verse 22, Paul says, so flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace along with those who call on the

Lord from a pure heart. So there is an instruction on the importance on being with others, other

Christians and pursuing together righteousness, faith, love, and peace along with those who call on the

Lord from a pure heart. Verse 23 have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies.

You know that they breed quarrels and the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.

God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will.

I just recently had lunch with a friend who said to me that, you know, he's not going to yell and scream at a person that he disagrees with.

There's no reason to raise your voice. There's no reason to get in an argument. If you don't understand what I'm saying to you in a calm manner, are you really going to understand what

I'm saying to you? If I get mad and angry and shout, it's a very profound thought,

I thought. So apply that we patiently endure evil and we answer our opponents with gentleness.

It is God that will grant them repentance. As Second Timothy two twenty five says, not your loud speaking voice, not your shouting.

That's why that's not what's going to grant a person repentance. It's the Lord's will that will grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will.

So let us understand these instructions on how we are to conduct ourselves among unbelievers.

Colossians four, five and six 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.

God, help us to apply these instructions, being ready to give an answer for the hope that lies within us.

As we have read in First Peter three fifteen, help us to walk in wisdom, using discernment, knowing how it is that we are supposed to answer each person.

Help us to make the best use of our time, applying ourselves to the scriptures, storing up in our hearts this wonderful treasure of God to understand the mind of God according to your revealed will.

Help our speech to be gracious, help it to be seasoned and unique with each person that we visit with.

And so we know how we ought to share the gospel with them so that you may grant them repentance and lead them to the saving knowledge of Christ.

We ask these things in Jesus name, amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand the

Text. Pastor Gabe is the author of the book, 40 of the Most Popular Bible Verses and What They Really Mean, available in paperback or for your

Kindle. He's also authored a Bible study through the book of First Corinthians. Both books can be found at our website at www .utt

.com. Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in the study of God's word when we understand the text.