Colossians 4:2-6; Philemon 4-7, "Gospel Pathways"

In the late 1940’s and early 50’s, the Iron Curtain descended across Europe, separating the free countries of the West from those controlled by the communists in the East. The Iron Curtain wasn’t necessarily a physical wall with doors in every place. But it was a barrier of laws and ideology and government control that kept out any threat to communism and the communist party. One of the chief threats was Christianity. You can’t control people who are living in the kingdom of God and seeking His will above that of the party.

So, the Iron Curtain was the communist attempt to keep the kingdom of God out. Keep out Christian missionaries with their gospel of hope in Jesus and their Bibles. Christians in the West began to pray for an open door. One of them was Andrew (van der Bijl), a Dutch man who began single-handedly to smuggle thousands of Bibles from Western Europe behind the Iron Curtain into Communist bloc countries in his VW Beetle.

His first trip was in 1955. He attended a communist youth congress in Poland That young man became known as Brother Andrew. He secretly found small churches of Christians meeting in secret and delivered them illegal Bibles and encouraged them.

“At the end of his visit, as he watched thousands of delegates to the Youth Congress marching in a parade, Brother Andrew asked God what He wanted him to do. He opened his Bible and found the passage which he came to see as a mission: “Wake Up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die.” Revelation 3:2

“In subsequent years he was to travel many times behind the Iron Curtain, putting his life on the line to smuggle Bibles at the height of the Cold War. His work went on to span many decades and many nations.”

His ministry grew over those decades as others joined him. It became formally organized as Open Doors International.

Brother Andrew said, “Our very mission is called ‘Open Doors’ because we literally believe that any door is open, anytime and anywhere. Every door is open to go in and proclaim Christ – as long as you are willing to go and are not worried about coming back.”

“Brother Andrew’s story may be extraordinary. But he himself is always at pains to stress that it was simply because he followed God. “The real calling,” he has said, “is not to a certain place or career but to everyday obedience. And that call is extended to every Christian, not just a select few.”

He told people, “The Bible is full of ordinary people who went to impossible places and did wondrous things simply because they decided to follow Jesus.” Taken from www.opendoors.org

Where is the door God has opened for the gospel for you, for me, for our church? Are we praying for God to open it? Are we awake enough to see it? Are we ready to walk through that open door, or do we need to be revived?

Last week we read the opening to the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Colossian church. His prayer for them in Chapter 1 is a rich rewording of the part of the Lord’s prayer, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Paul was praying that this would happen in their lives as they bear the fruit of the gospel.

Paul is closing his letter today with a command to the Colossians to walk the pathway of prayer with God so that God will open a door for them to walk the pathway to people outside the church with the gospel of grace.

Walk the Pathway of Prayer with Energy

Paul first tells the Colossians to give their energy to prayer.

Colossians 4:2 (ESV)

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.

“Continue steadfastly” is translated in some Bibles as, “Devote yourselves” or “be devoted.” Very literally it is, “Put your power toward”, give your energy to, prayer. In other letters he says to “pray continually”. Prayer is not something we tack onto the beginning or end of our day. It is a pathway we walk with God and it will take all the energy we will give it.

He says to be watchful and be thankful. When you think of being watchful, you might think of staying up on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, or staying awake for your loved one to come home. You want to greet them, hear about their time away, and share some time with them. They might have a gift to give you or something important to tell you.

Maybe one reason the prayers and the prayer lives of the American Church have become so powerless is that we’ve fallen asleep. Things are comfortable, it’s been a long time since we’ve seen God work powerfully, and we’ve dozed off waiting. We’re not watching in prayer any more. Our energy is gone.

Paul links being watchful with being thankful. Being watchful is present tense. Being thankful looks to the past. We take stock of what God has done and call it to mind in our prayer to thank Him as we should. When we combine present tense watching for God and thanking God for what He has done in the past, it puts our minds and hearts in the right place to seek what God might do next, in the immediate future.

For Paul, he is seeking what is next.

Colossians 4:3–4 (ESV)

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.

Paul, like Brother Andrew, knows that the world, human nature, and the devil, will all try to close doors to God’s kingdom coming into the world. But God can open any door. Jesus said that His church, if we believe that He is the Messiah who brings God’s kingdom, would knock down the very gates of Hell. God opens doors for the gospel. Are we ready to walk through them?

Think about Paul’s context as he writes this and think about our context as we read this. Paul is writing this from prison. The word he uses in verse 3 to say on account of the gospel he is in prison is literally, “bound”. Paul is bound, locked behind a door, maybe with shackles on his hands and feet because preaching the gospel had become unpopular with powerful people. The gospel is a message that there is a new king, Jesus, and the kingdoms of this world don’t like that message very much.

But then he says, even though I am bound, the gospel isn’t bound. He tells the church to pray for him that even in his prison, he would make the gospel clear to others. He says, “which is how I ought to speak.” But the word here also is “bound”. “I am bound to the gospel, to speak it clearly, no matter where I am. You can bind me behind closed doors in prison, but God can still open a door for the good news of Jesus Christ. Prison doors cannot bind the Christian who shares the gospel. I am only bound by my calling to proclaim the gospel as clearly as I can, with God’s help.” And Paul did just that. He shared the good news with his prison guards, with his visitors, to the extent that even some people in Caesar’s household became believers in King Jesus.

Paul trusted that God’s kingdom could come and His will could be done even in prison. He would preach the gospel of the kingdom of Jesus, the beloved Son of God. He only asked God to give him opportunities and the right words. He was bound in prison, but the Colossians could walk the pathway of prayer with God on his behalf.

That was Paul’s context. What about ours? We can easily get discouraged with all of the closed doors we see around us to the gospel right now. Our culture is relativistic, licentious, and increasingly antagonistic to the church. Sounds a lot like ancient Rome to me. Do we believe with Paul that God can still open doors for His word to us? Do we give our energy to pray for that?

“Our prayers can go where we cannot...there are no borders, no prison walls, no doors that are closed to us when we pray.” - Brother Andrew

What if God did that? What if He opened doors of opportunity to you and me this week to share the gospel with someone, would we be ready with a clear gospel message?

I heard a statistic once, that somewhere near 98% of young Mormons who go on mission become lifelong members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Maybe there is something about knocking on closed doors, having to answer questions about your faith every day for two years, and even having many of those doors closed in your face that solidifies and clarifies your message in your own mind and heart. If that can happen with a false gospel, what about the word of truth that we have in the gospel of Jesus?

I don’t think knocking on the doors of random strangers is the best way to share the gospel. But we can be praying for God to open the doors of the hearts of people we already know to be ready to receive it.

Speaking of which, this brings us to the next pathway Paul tells us to walk.

Walk the Pathway toward Outsiders with Grace

Paul anticipated that as the church walked with God in prayer for open doors for the gospel, that He would open doors of opportunity not just for Paul, but for the church praying that prayer too. He tells them to be ready.

Colossians 4:5–6 (ESV)

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.

There’s a lot we could say here. What does it mean to walk in wisdom toward outsiders and what is the connection to prayer? If we keep these verses in context, Paul’s concern is the spread of the gospel. He wants more people to hear it clearly, so we pray for God to open a door for the word. Paul is telling the Colossians to be ready to be the answer to their own prayer. They can become gospel preachers. As we pray for God to open a door for the word, who is ready to walk the pathway that opens to us toward those outside the church with that word?

If we translated these two verses literally, they form one sentence. It would be something like this, “In wisdom, walk toward outsiders, redeeming the appointed time, your word always in grace, seasoned with salt, to know how you are bound to respond to everyone.”

Their energetic prayer for Paul to preach the word would lead to their own opportunities to preach the word of grace. The word he uses for “time” is the Greek word for an appointed time, an important moment, an event. They weren’t just passing the time until Jesus returned. They were living at the time appointed for the gospel to be preached to the whole world. Were they making the best use of it? Are we? Were their words and responses to everyone always grace? Are ours? We are still living in the time appointed for the gospel.

Paul literally says, “redeeming the time”. We can moan and complain about how bad times are. But we are Christians. We are in the redemption business. For those that love God and are called according to His purpose, He will use everything for good. He redeems even the worst of times to make us more like Jesus, our Redeemer. He makes us examples of His grace for just such times as these.

Think about how timely grace is right now. Who is speaking words of grace and redemption and responding to others with words that cleanse and preserve like salt? Most people are speaking words that hurt and destroy. People are speaking words of hopelessness and confusion. Are we redeeming the time by walking toward those outside the church with the word of grace in the gospel? The gospel of God’s grace in Jesus is the wise response to everyone.

Are we walking the pathway of prayer with God, asking Him to open doors for the gospel? Are we walking through those doors on pathways into the lives of those outside the church with the gospel?

I can’t get these words out of my head:

“Every door is open to go in and proclaim Christ – as long as you are willing to go and are not worried about coming back.”

“The real calling,” he has said, “is not to a certain place or career but to everyday obedience. And that call is extended to every Christian, not just a select few...“The Bible is full of ordinary people who went to impossible places and did wondrous things simply because they decided to follow Jesus.”