Rooted in My Witness

NOTE:

This is a manuscript, and not a transcript of this message. The actual presentation of the message differed from the manuscript through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is possible, and even likely that there is material in this manuscript that was not included in the live presentation and that there was additional material in the live presentation that is not included in this manuscript.

Engagement

We all tend to talk about the things we are most passionate about. This week many of us who are die-hard University of Arizona Wildcat fans have been talking about both the men’s and women’s basketball teams. Others of you might be passionate about politics, or some hobby or a movie or television show. Some of you may be passionate about your home or your car or something else you possess. All of us are probably passionate about some of the people in our lives. And it’s only natural for us to talk about those people, activities and things.

Tension

But for some reason, even though I think most of us are genuinely passionate about Jesus, we find it hard to talk to unbelievers about Him. And in many cases, we led to feel guilty about that. I think most of us instinctively know that we don’t share our faith with outsiders like we should, but I don’t think making us feel guilty about that is probably the most effective way to help us overcome our fears and apprehension. But, unfortunately a lot of the preaching that I’ve experienced in the church regarding evangelism seems to be focused in that direction.

It’s not my job to make you feel guilty that you aren’t sharing the gospel like you should. If that is the case in your life, then God’s Word and His Holy Spirit are more than capable of bringing conviction if that is appropriate in your life. But it is my job to help equip you to be more effective in talking to other people about your faith in Jesus. So today, I’m going to use the Bible to do that the very best that I can.

Truth

This is our next to last message in our Rooted series. We’ve been studying Paul’s letter to the church in Colossae. The first half of his letter was devoted to doctrine and to showing why Jesus is sovereign over His creation and His church. Then in the second half of he has been writing about how that doctrine ought to impact our day-to-day lives. That section began by focusing on how we are to dress spiritually in a manner that is consistent with who Jesus has made us to be. We need to take off some things that characterized our old way of life and then put on some new attitudes and behaviors that are consistent with who Jesus has created us to be. Last week, we got even more specific as Paul gave us some very practical instructions about how our faith ought to influence our closest relationships. In the passage we’ll read to day, Paul is going to move beyond those relationships and discuss how we are to relate to those who are not yet disciples of Jesus.

We’re only going to look at 5 verses today, but this short section is packed with some really practical teaching that we can use to equip us to be more effective in sharing our faith with others.

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.

Here is the main idea we’re going to develop from this passage today:

To be rooted in Christ, I must speak to Jesus about men and speak to men about Jesus

Over the years, I’ve observed two extremes when it comes to telling other people about Jesus. On one extreme, the one that I think most Christians tend to gravitate toward, many say, “I’m not really comfortable talking with others about Jesus, so I’ll just live a Christian life and let that be my witness”. Those people will often cite the quote attributed to St. Francis of Assisi:

Preach the gospel at all times; if necessary, use words.”

There are two problems with that quote. First there is no evidence that St. Francis ever said or wrote those words. Second, as we’re going to see clearly this morning, the concept expressed by those words is just flat out not true.

Think about that approach for a minute. If that is going to be your approach, then you’re going to have to live a better life than either Jesus or Paul, because both of them found it necessary to use their words to speak to people about salvation. First of all you can’t live that good of life. And it is also true there are a lot of people in our culture that live good moral lives for the most part, but who are not disciples of Jesus. So how is another person to know if we live that way because of Jesus or for some other reason without our words?

At the other extreme are those who are what I call “muggers for Jesus”. They have no problem accosting total strangers and making their pre-packaged gospel presentation even if the other person shows no interest whatsoever. Or they get a megaphone and go out on a street corner and try to scare people into the kingdom of God by telling them they are going to hell of they don’t believe in Jesus. Sadly, many of the people who have been confronted by these “muggers” never want to hear about Jesus again.

But today’s passage shows us that there is indeed a middle ground which allows us to be genuinely concerned for the spiritual welfare of others and to witness to them with both our lives and our words in a way that will be effective in bringing others near to the kingdom of God.

Application

HOW TO BE AN EFFECTIVE WITNESS FOR JESUS

There are two commands in this section and the order in which they occur is important. The first command, in verse 2, reminds me to...

Speak to Jesus before I speak to others

Continue steadfastly in prayer...

It’s instructive that Paul begins with this command to pray before he writes about the need to have the correct conduct and use the correct words. I think this is where we get off track so many times. As we’ll talk about a little more in a few moments, there are going to be some opportunities that God presents to us where we have little or no time to prepare. But even then, we can silently pray a quick prayer.

Prayer is essential for two reasons:

First, through prayer God prepares us to show and to share the gospel. We’ll talk more about that in a moment.

But second, and I think we sometimes forget this, through prayer, God prepares the other person to receive the gospel. Even the very greatest evangelists who have ever lived, from the Apostle Paul to Billy Graham, are not skilled enough to convince someone to give his or her life to Jesus, unless that person is first drawn to Jesus by God. Here’s what Jesus had to say about that:

John 6:44 ESV

44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.

So we ought to be praying for God to do that.

Here Paul gives us some very practical guidance on both how we are to pray and what we are to pray.

Let’s look first at the how:

First we are to pray steadfastly. This is very similar to the command that Paul gave in his letter to the church in Thessalonica where he instructed them to “pray without ceasing”.

Next we need to pray watchfully. The word Paul uses there means to be awake and alert. There is a lot wrapped up in that one word. Certainly that means that we are to be alert for opportunities to proclaim Jesus and to pray when those opportunities arise. But it also means that we need to be aware that Satan is going to try and do everything he can to keep us from being effective in sharing the gospel so we need to be aware of the roadblocks he’ll try to put in our way to either keep us from praying or to misdirect our prayers.

Third we need to pray thankfully. We need to remember what Jesus has done for us and let that motivate us to be part in helping others to have Jesus in their lives.

And what are we to pray?

First we need to pray for opportunities to share our faith. We need to ask God to open doors and then help us to recognize those open doors.

We also need to pray that we would communicate the gospel clearly, in a way that the other person can understand it. If Paul, who wrote a good portion of the New Testament needed to pray that, we probably need to do that, too.

Finally, although we don’t see it as much here as we do in his similar letter to the church in Ephesus, we need to pray for boldness. Again, if that is something that Paul needed to pray for, we likely need to pray that, too.

The next two principles flow out of the second command that is found at the beginning of verse 5:

Walk in wisdom...

So right away we see that I must...

Walk the walk before I talk the talk

Before Paul focuses on our words, he talks about our conduct. Paul frequently uses the verb “walk” in his letters to describe our lifestyle. Obviously none of us live a perfect life, so Paul is certainly not saying here that we have to have our act all together before we can share our faith. But he is making the point that we need to be careful that our overall lifestyle doesn’t become a barrier to our proclamation of the gospel.

Back in the 1990’s I owned a deli and sandwich shop. And I will always remember one certain young man that I hired as a delivery driver. Based on what I knew about him, he was certainly about as far from being a Christian as pretty much anyone I knew. But I will never forget the day he came to me and said, “This place is so much different than any other place I’ve worked. There isn’t a bunch of foul language around here. You always treat your employees with respect. I really like working here”.

That incident has served as a constant reminder to me that non-Christians are watching my life. And they are making judgments about Jesus based on whether my life matches us with the faith I proclaim. So I’ve done my very best to live in a way that my life doesn’t become a barrier to my ability to speak about Jesus.

While it is true that an effective witness requires both the right conduct and the right words, it is equally true that if I don’t get the conduct right, what I say probably isn’t going to matter.

The second principle that flows from that second command is that I must...

Take advantage of the opportunities Jesus gives me

A couple years ago when we were furnishing our vacation rental, Wal-Mart had a crazy special on 55” inch smart TV’s. If I remember right, they were $188 each. But the problem was that there were only a limited number available and you could only buy one per order. So I had to get online at the exact moment they went on sale in order snag one. And when I went back just a few minutes later to try and buy one more, they were already sold out.

That is the picture Paul is painting here when he uses the phrase “making the best use of time”. That phrase literally means “to buy up the opportunity”. And the idea is that often in life we only get one opportunity to share our faith with another person. Perhaps that is on an airplane flight where somebody notices that you’re reading a book by a Christian author and asks you about it. It might be in the doctor’s office where a doctor or nurse asks you how you can be so calm after they just told you that you have cancer. For me it has often been another official asking me how I can remain so calm while a coach or fan is yelling at me.

So opportunities arise, we need to be ready to take advantage of them. And if we have been praying and if we have been living our lives in a manner that is consistent with what we profess, then we should be confident that God can use us as part of the process of bringing that other person to faith in Jesus. And while it is still natural to be a bit nervous in those situations, we don’t have to let our fear control us and miss out on that blessing.

When those opportunities arise, then I need to use my words to share my faith, But I need to make sure that I do that in the manner Paul prescribes here:

Be gracious

Paul tells us that our speech is always to be gracious. I think that has two aspects to it. First, we are to focus on God’s grace as we share the gospel. While we do need to talk about sin and its penalty, the primary focus needs to be on the grace that God has extended to us through His Son, Jesus.

But it also has to do with the manner in which we speak. We are to treat others with respect and dignity. We are not to be judgmental or demeaning. Peter gives us some really good advice here:

1 Peter 3:15 (ESV)

15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,

As sinners saved by God’s grace ourselves, we need to be gentle and humble and respectful in the way we speak to others about Jesus. As we’ve often said before, we can’t expect non-Christians to act like Christians. We need to treat them with the same grace that God treated us while we were still His enemies.

Be interesting

This is what Paul is talking about when he writes that our speech is to be “seasoned with salt”. He is obviously not saying here that we should use “salty speech”, like a sailor. In Paul’s day, salt had two main purposes. It was used as a preservative and it was used, much like it is today, to give flavor to food. It is that second purpose that Paul has in mind here.

When food it not salted it is bland. It’s unappetizing. When we talk about Jesus our conversation shouldn’t be like that. So how do you learn to speak about Jesus in a way that makes it appetizing to others? I think the answer to that question is something that we talk about frequently. I need to “re-gospel” myself every day. I need to constantly remind myself of what Jesus has done for me and why my life is so much better since He took control of it. Like we talked about earlier, when we are passionate about someone or something, we’ll talk about it in a way that will be interesting to others.

Be insightful

I’ve shared with you before that back when we lived in Albuquerque our church used an evangelism program known as Evangelism Explosion. While I did learn some things in that training that I still find useful today, for me the big drawback of that approach was that the main goal was to be able to to make what I would call a “canned” presentation of the gospel. And while there were options to modify the presentation to some degree, it just seemed to me that the presentation took precedence over the person.

Notice here that Paul writes “know how you ought to answer each person”. The idea is that each person is unique and so how we present the gospel to each person also needs to be unique and tailored to the unique needs of that person.

This principle does not excuse our need to be prepared, as Peter instructed us to be in the passage we read a few minutes ago. All of us should, at a minimum, know some basic Scriptures that we can use to share the gospel with others. It would be best to have those verses memorized, but we should at least know where to find them in our Bibles.

When sharing our faith we need to make sure we don’t forget our main purpose. We need to keep in mind that every person’s primary need is to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. That means when somebody brings up questions that might send us on a ”rabbit trail” we keep the focus on Jesus. I’ve found it helpful to say something like this: “You know that’s a really good question and I’d love to have that conversation with you at some point. But because I love you and want what’s best for you I’d really like to finish our conversation about the difference Jesus can make in your life”.

We’ve seen today that...

To be rooted in Christ, I must speak to Jesus about men and speak to men about Jesus

Action

So as we close I’m going to ask you to do a couple things to really make this message practical in your life:

First, there may be some of you joining us today who have never put your faith in Jesus. You’re one of the “outsiders” that Paul is writing about here. You’re still trusting in what you can do to make your life right with God, but the problem with that is that you’re just not capable of doing that. That is why Jesus came to this earth and gave His life as payment for your sins and to make it possible for you to live for eternity in His presence. That is a gift He offers to you and what He asks in return is that you accept that gift by putting your trust in Him alone and yielding the control of your life to Him.

Fore the rest of you who have already made that life-changing decision, I want you to write down the name of one person you know who is not yet a disciple of Jesus. I’ve left some space on your sermon outline where you can do that.

Then I want to ask you to commit to pray for that person every day for the next week. Pray for God to draw that person to Him and pray for the opportunity to share your faith with him or her. And pray that when God gives you the opportunity, He will help you to present the gospel clearly and effectively.

Ryan and I would also like to pray with you. So if you’ll share the name of the person you’re praying for, we’ll pray with you and for you this week.

Inspiration

If you are a disciple of Jesus today, it is almost certainly due, at least in part, to one or more people who loved you enough to overcome whatever apprehension or fears they might have had in order to talk to you about Jesus. Out of gratefulness for their part in your salvation, will you be that person in someone else’s life?