Sermon Tone Analysis

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.

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:

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.