Colossians 4:2-6 - At the center of our conversations

I love preaching.

I love listening to preaching/preachers

We do expository preaching.

Preaching is God’s gift to the church for encouragement, challenge, and discipleship.

Preaching equips the church for the work of ministry.

My job is to teach you to lead people to Jesus.

When you hear the Word, it should stir up in you an urgency to be changed and take it to the world!

The majority of our interactions with other people will be dialogue, not monologue.

Think of how many conversations your in on a day to day basis.

It will be over a meal or coffee, or an activity where you are engaging in a conversation.

How do we engage people with our conversations?

Big Idea: Jesus is at the center of our conversations

Context

Paul is starting the lett’er’s decent—bringing this letter to a close.

He has laid the foundation of who Jesus is.

He explained thoroughly the identity of Jesus.

He explained to them their union and identity in Christ.

Now he’s putting theology in motion.

Now he’s calling us to put it all together by pleading with God to move and use us for His Kingdom.

Stand to read

Colossians 4:2–6 ESV

2 Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. 3 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— 4 that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. 5 Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. 6 Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

Leader: This is God’s Word.

Everyone: Thanks be to God.

Living out a new identity in Christ, we get to experience the presence of God in our lives.

Prayer is when we get to communicate with the eternal God of the universe.

We get to approach Him through Christ and be with Him.

One of the most frequent confessions: “I don’t know how to pray.”

There are concerns with saying the right words, or sounding like an idiot.

Prayer is where we get to come to God for intimacy as our Father and make our hearts known before the Lord, give Him our cares, and simply be with Him.

Through prayer God aligns our wills and our minds to His.

Prayer is our declaration of dependency upon God.

It requires humility to come to the Lord and say that we don’t have it all together.

Devoting ourselves to prayer is a posture of the heart where we come to God for intimacy, knowing that He will care for our every need.

Paul commands them to devote themselves to prayer and to pray continuously (v. 2)

How is this possible?

Are we supposed to walk around carrying on a constant verbal dialogue?

No. This simply means that we live in an awareness of God’s presence and are continuously running to Him in prayer.

Pray is an ongoing communing with God.

We want to strive to pay attention and be sensitive to the Spirit’s presence and movement in our lives.

Pray is hard work.

Too many Christians don’t know how to pray because it’s hard work.

We always give time to what we think is important.

If you want to pay your bills, you’re going to give time to whatever brings you money.

If you want to get good at something, you have to give time to it in order to get good at it.

I really wanted to fill our freezer with meat this hunting season.

If you’ve never been hunting, it’s a very time consuming thing.

You sit for hours, as still and quiet as you can.

Sometimes you don’t see anything. Sometimes, you only see the noisiest squirrel on the face of the planet.

If you know me, I can’t sit still for long periods of time, so hunting is a real challenge for me.

If we want to be close with God, we must be willing to give focused time to do so.

Through reading His Word, through prayer, we draw near to the Father.

Paul gives them instruction into the prayer

Watchful (v. 2)

Devoting ourselves to prayer means that we are aware and alert to the dangers of our lives and the needs of those around us to the point that we can launch any moment into fervent prayer.

We pray that we don’t fall into temptation and sin.

We pray for healing.

You demonstrate genuine care for something if you’re willing to pray about it.

Being watchful can also mean that we’re watchful for the prayers that God is answering.

Which leads us to thankfulness.

Thankful

God hears our prayer.

The Lord cares about our needs and He draws us near to Him.

He’s not sitting idle as we are pleading with Him.

He loves to hear from us and He is concerned.

We must approach the Lord with thanksgiving for the things that He does in our lives.

We celebrate the wins that the Lord gives.

Missional (v. 3)

Paul is sitting in prison as he writes this letter.

He asks them to pray very missional prayers.

As Christians, we live on mission because Jesus’s parting words to His disciples were to go and make disciples.

Some might ask people to pray that he posts bail or gets out of jail.

Instead, it seems as though he isn’t concerned with who he is able to minister to.

He simply wants more people to come to know Jesus.

Paul sits in prison and a new guard comes into his cell every 8 hours.

That means Paul has a new 8 hours with a captive audience.

P: What’s your name?

Guard: Roman

P: Nice name. I’m Paul, but that doesn’t matter. Have you head the good news?

Pray that God may open a door for the Word.

Our church has partnerships all over the world.

Ukraine: Vasha

Scotland: Mez

Newfoundland: Stephen

South Asia: Emmanuel

Honduras: Lyndsee

Lets take a moment and pray for our missionaries

We ask God to open the hearts and minds of our family members

We ask for a right time and place for conversation.

Doctrinal

to declare the mystery of Christ clearly

The goal in sharing our faith is not to come across as smart or hyper-spiritual.

The goal in telling people about Jesus is to make it clear.

When I stand to preach, I never want you to talk away thinking, “Oh, our pastor is such a smart guy.”

My goal every Sunday is to send you out of this place saying, “I understand this passage of Scripture so much better now.”

This comes through sharing sound biblical doctrine.

Gospel presentation

This is the gospel clearly.

If someone asks you what you believe or if you want to share the gospel,

The good news actually begins with bad news.

You were dead in sins.

You had disobeyed God and became an enemy.

God’s justice must be executed on all wrongdoing.

Since we had sinned against the author of life, then we deserved to die and go to hell.

We deserve to spend eternity under His just wrath.

But even though we were enemies of God, He is merciful and patient.

Before the world was created, He chose for Himself a people that He would redeem.

God was going to save His enemies from their sins and make them His children.

How is this possible?

God cannot just overlook sin.

He sent His Son Jesus, God in flesh.

Jesus lived perfectly according to God’s plan.

He had never sinned, yet He went humbly to the cross to receive the punishment that you owed.

Jesus willfully shed His blood so that you may not have to face the wrath of God.

When Jesus died, He died instead of you.

He took the full weight of the wrath of God so that you could be forgiven.

God received Jesus’s payment and in power raised Him from the dead!

He gave us this promise: When we put our trust in Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross, we will be saved from our sins!

If you’re not a Christian, you can have a new story today!

You can be set free from your guilt and shame that you carry.

The burden of the past can be drowned in the blood of Jesus.

Will you repent of your sins and live in freedom?

Do you want to be truly free?

I’d love to have a conversation with you.

Faith in Jesus is the only way that we are accepted by God!

Not our good works, not another god.

Nothing but Jesus can make us right before God and lead us into real joy.

This is the greatest news on the planet.

We can be forgiven and brought into a right relationship with God again.

Paul’s desire is that God would provide opportunities for him to share the good news of Jesus Christ.

So he asks the church to pray with him.

Church,

We pray for opportunity

Each of us have people in our lives that are skeptical of Jesus

Some because they have had a bad encounter with church people.

Some because they think they already know what Jesus is all about.

We pray for opportunity to engage people we love and care for with the gospel.

Not so that we can stir up controversy and win arguments, but so they can come to know and love the true Jesus that came and died for our sins.

So that they can have eternal life in His name.

So that they can live by faith in the gospel right now.

But we need the Lord to provide these opportunities for us.

I’m praying every Sunday

God bring your people in/save them

God build this church/use us to change lives

Spirit fill this place/We need you!

We cannot do this on our own!

Transition

While we’re praying for these interactions, we want to be actively seeking them out.

Colossians 4:5–6 ESV

5 Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. 6 Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

Paul addresses their witness to people who don’t know Jesus.

Wherever they go, they are to live wisely among the people around them.

People judge Jesus by the conduct of believers.

Use your time with people wisely.

We don’t want to be gimmick Christians.

Speak graciously, “seasoned with salt”

Grace is to be their accent.

People are able to hear when the grace of God overflows out of our hearts.

There is a particular joy in the life of the believer that isn’t present.

Notice when he says “Let your speech be gracious,” he’s not referring to preaching—He’s referring to everyday interactions.

Paul longs for Christians to feel as comfortable talking about Jesus as they do their job, sports results, or politics.

Speak with grace and be approachable.

There’s some of you who’s faces invite me to be their friend.

Others whose say, “Beware of dog.”

Be “seasoned with salt”

On the meal train y’all graciously provided from us, some friends smoked a brisket for us.

Oh, my word. It was juicy, and tender, and seasoned perfectly.

The seasoning often makes the meal profoundly delicious.

We’ve all had a meal where it was perfectly seasoned and we asked “How did you do that? What seasonings did you use?”

When we are seasoned with salt, people are going to ask us why we’re different.

What makes you so different?

Why do you come to work with a sense of gladness?

Why don’t you panic when the paycheck isn’t as big as you expected?

Why do you handle conflict like that?

When you live seasoned with salt, when your life smells like you’ve been with Jesus, people are going to get curious.

If people aren’t asking you why you’re different, you’re probably not living the redeemed life.

When people ask, we want to point them with joy to what makes us the way we are.

The life-changing love of God that’s found in Jesus Christ.

Church,

We share the hope of Jesus

We pray that God would give us opportunity, but we’re also ready to act on the opportunity.

Give THE answer (v. 6)

Tell them of what Christ has done or is doing in your life.

Tell them what how He has changed you.

Tell them what the cross of Christ means to you.

Tell them the hope you have of eternal life with God.

There are so many people who live without the peace and presence of God in their lives.

So many who need this gospel.

We must live as everyday missionaries.

December 8, we will have a luncheon with Lyndsee Martinez who is our Missions Coordinator. Next year, we will be opening up mission trips for the campuses to go on.

I want to put this before you to begin praying about going on one of those trips.

Register for this event and plan to be there.

There will be opportunities for training prior to going on the trip so that you don’t feel overwhelmed by sharing the gospel.

Everyone has a next step to take.

Take the Next Step

Pray for an opportunity.

Conversation at work

Question regarding spirituality

Mission trip

Start the conversation.

I want to tell you about what I’m hearing at church.

I want to tell you about what I’m reading in the Word.

We keep Jesus at the center of our conversation as we pray for opportunity and share the hope of Jesus.