Sermon Tone Analysis

What the “watching” believers are to do in these texts is not watch for Christ’s return, but watch their own life in light of the return of Christ.

Believers need constantly to be “awake” to the nature of the times they live in—the “last days” of eschatological “fulfillment without consummation”—and to orient their lives accordingly.9

A study revealed that an average seventy-year-old man has spent twenty-four years sleeping, fourteen years working, eight years in amusements, six years at the dinner table, five years in transportation, four years in conversation, three years in education, and two years in studying and reading.

His other four years were spent in miscellaneous pursuits.

Of those four years, he spent forty-five minutes in church on Sundays, and five minutes were devoted to prayer each day.

This adds up to a not at all impressive total of five months that he gave to God over the seventy years of his life.

Even if this man had been a faithful churchgoer who attended Sunday school and three one-hour services per week, he would have spent only one year and nine months in church!i

False teachers were impacting… WHO JESUS IS.

WHat he has accomplished and who we are in Christ.

This relationship… impacts the very core of who we are… fact is it changes the core of who we are… raised with Christ.

Seeking the things above.

Our minds set on things above… putting off the old man- Putting on the new…

THIS relationship causes man to do everything in the name of the LORD.

Everything starts at home.

New wives, new husbands - the new man makes a new home.

Slaves and Masters… new boss.

New employees…

What starts at Home - Goes to work.

Even though we took the passage of slaves and masters and applied it to our work last week!

Everything so far really has pointed to relationships within the body of Christ.

Battle raging for the hearts and minds of young people.

Tempting to keep our kids away!

To stay away as a church.

TO shut our doors and give a test as to who we would let in and what we would allow to influence us.

Paul is not gonna let em think that…

Everything starts and home, goes to work, and TELLS THE WORLD .

PRAYER is the PRIORITY

Means Be steadfast in your prayer life; continue in prayer.

Dont QUIT.

boldly… power to provide the answer and the perspective and perogative to do what is best.

With thanksgiving… are you not glad that we are not calling the shots.

The phrase “Watch and pray!” is used often in the Bible.

It had its beginning in Bible history when Nehemiah was rebuilding the walls and gates of Jerusalem: “Nevertheless we made our prayer unto our God, and set a watch against them [the enemy] day and night” (Neh.

4:9).

There is no power in dull, listless praying.

If there is no fire on the altar, the incense will not rise to God (Ps.

141:2).

Real praying demands spiritual energy and alertness, and this can come only from the Holy Spirit of God.

Routine prayers are unanswered prayers.

Pray -

Consitently

Watchful

Thankful

Than

A true appreciation of the believer’s status, “dead” to the world and its powers, “alive” to God in Christ with all one’s sins forgiven, and destined for glory, will inevitably produce thanksgiving.

And such an attitude of thanks will serve as a powerful deterrent to the inroads of the false teachers as well as a stimulus to pray.

Specific

Name the people for whom you’re praying.

Ask for open doors.

Pray for their specific situations, challenges, and opportunities.

Ask that God would help them make the most of their limited resources and overcome setbacks.

We need to pray continually, pray passionately, and pray specifically.

Desire to declare the Gospel

Swindoll, Charles R.. Insights on Philippians, Colossians, Philemon (Swindoll's Living Insights New Testament Commentary Book 9) .

Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Desire to declare the Gospel

Passion to proclaim

Paul asked them to pray -

Paul asked them to pray -

OPEN DOORS FOR THE WORD.

COULD HAVE BEEN THAT THE PRISON DOOR WOULD OPEN.

Ready access to an opportunity

NOT a door for himself…

We have an open door in the schools… GOVT has allowed that… We need an open door for the Message.

The word has the power to transform.

The door that allows the word of God into the hearts, minds, and lives of individuals and communities.

The verb literally means ‘buying up’ or ‘buying out’: it does not necessarily have the sense (as appears to do) that the time is somehow evil and must be redeemed, but simply that every opportunity is to be snapped up (see O’Brien) like a bargain.

The word ‘opportunity’ may have simply the sense of ‘time’: the clause is probably an instruction to regard time as opportunity for witness, and to use it eagerly as such.

N. T. Wright, Colossians and Philemon: An Introduction and Commentary, vol.

12, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1986), 157.

Grabbing the opportunity like a GOING OUT OF BUSINESS SALE.

This is the first time in the letter that Paul has mentioned his status as prisoner.

We lean toward the view that this verse refers to Paul’s imprisonment in Rome described at the end of the book of Acts.

That account makes clear that Paul was held in loose custody, living in his own rented rooms while probably chained to his guard.25

It is because of “the mystery,” Paul says, that he is in chains (“mystery” must be the antecedent of the relative pronoun “which” because its Greek equivalent, ho, is neuter).

Paul, of course, was not officially arrested because he was proclaiming the mystery.

But he ended up in Roman custody because he was seeking to advance the cause of the gospel, offering a sacrifice in the Temple to signal his continuing loyalty to the Jewish people ().

Note especially how Tertullus, the spokesperson for the Jewish elders, puts the matter: “We have found this man to be a troublemaker, stirring up riots among the Jews all over the world.

He is a ringleader of the Nazarene sect and even tried to desecrate the temple; so we seized him” ().

It was Paul’s bold proclamation of Christ that stimulated such strong reactions, leading even to “riots,” among the Jews.

But what is of greater relevance for this text is why Paul chose to bring up the matter of his imprisonment at this point in the letter.

25 See esp.

Brian Rapske, The Book of Acts and Paul in Roman Custody, vol. 3 of The Book of Acts in Its First Century Setting (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 177–81.

Douglas J. Moo, The Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Pub.

Co., 2008), 324.

Paul was praying for an open door to proclaim the Gospel… the very thing that got him in prison..

Douglas J. Moo, The Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Pub.

Co., 2008), 321.

the way I ought to speak.

Paul proclaims… the way he ought to speak.

Clarity in speech.

Not just a team from bonfire called to proclaim the Gospel.

Team of Believers called to proclaim.

Conduct yurselves with wisdom---

It also means we must be alert to use the opportunities God gives us for personal witnessing.

“Redeeming the time” means buying up the opportunity ().

This is a commercial term and pictures the Christian as a faithful steward who knows an opportunity when he sees one.

Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996), 148.

STORY OF A GOOD DEAL AND GETTING IT.

While resisting the wrong kind of outside influence, the Colossian Christians nevertheless need to stay engaged with their fellow citizens and seek to win them to Christ.

IN THE WORLD NOT PART OF THE WORLD … WINNING THE WORLD TO CHRIST!

Paul views the time in which believers find themselves as caught in the tension of the “already … not yet.”