Representing the Gospel

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As we’ve been working our way through the book of Colossians, I told you last week it started out very theological, and then it transitioned into the implications, what we do with the theology. And in the last week, in the section we looked at last week, it began to talk about how that applies to our relationships. How we are supposed to deal with others in light of who Jesus Christ is and what He’s done for us.

And the passage we’re going to look at tonight is similar in that it deals not necessarily with the closest relationships in our lives, although that could apply as well. We talked about some of the close relationships last week. Husband and wife, parent and child, this really applies to the way we treat others.

That can be people that are close to us. It can be complete strangers. The way we treat others matters.

It matters for practical reasons, just as people. You’ve probably noticed that the way you act has consequences. The way you treat people has consequences.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a position where you’ve had to deal with rude customers. Anybody else ever done that? I don’t remember offhand any, I’m sure there were, but none of them spring to mind any particularly rude customers that I had, say, working at the grocery store years ago.

But years ago, when I was a teenager, the church I grew up at, we hosted a craft show every fall as a fundraiser for the ladies’ missions group. And I would go every year, and I would just be up there hanging out all weekend, visiting with people, eating hamburgers from the concession. And I thought after a while, you know, I could try to sell something here and try to earn some hamburger money.

So if I’m going to be here all this time, I might as well pay for some of these hamburgers. So I started canning salsa and selling it and just Mexican food like that. Hard candy, seasoning mixes, things like that.

And again, my goal in doing that was not to make money. but if I’m going to be up there all weekend visiting and eating anyway, I might as well offset some of the costs. So I had a spreadsheet there with me on my computer, and I knew what my overhead was and could tell how much inventory I had left.

I had it all figured out so I could make sure I at least broke even. And people would come through from the church or people that I knew from the community, and most of these were people I got along with, people I liked, and we’d visit, and they’d maybe buy a jar of salsa, and I’d tell them, here, take one of this flavor, too, on the house. I’d load them down with all kinds of free stuff.

Because again, I was just trying to break even. I remember one lady in particular though, came back the second or third year I did this. She said, I bought some of your salsa last year.

I was like, oh, I hope you liked it. Well, you should make it chunky. I said, but I don’t like chunky salsa.

Well, some people might like chunky salsa. Okay, you know I’m not a company, right? I don’t have time to make all these multitudes of different kinds.

So I make what I like and I sell what I like and if people don’t like it, they don’t have to buy it. Well, you should make some chunky for people who like chunky. All right, I’ll consider that.

And it’s too hot. What kind did you buy? Well, I bought hot.

Well, I’m pretty sure I told you because I told everybody. The mild is hot, the medium is really hot, and the hot will make your mouth numb. Well, and it’s got cilantro.

I don’t like cilantro. You should make some without cilantro. I charged that woman full price.

I don’t know why she came back to buy salsa if it was so bad, but I charged that woman full price. And if I could have found a non-crooked way to charge her extra, I would have done it. Because she was just rude.

Everything she said was rude. On the other hand, you deal with somebody who’s nice, and you tend to want to be nice back to them. You know, I will typically go into a restaurant, and if it’s going to happen to anybody, it’ll happen to us.

They forget part of our order. And I remember a time a couple months ago, we went into Whataburger and, of course, ordered food for all of our hundreds of children. Naturally, they left out a hamburger.

And I remember taking the receipt back up to the counter and saying, I’m so sorry to bother you, but we were short one burger. We ordered this many and we only got this many. And one of my kids, I remember asking, why did you apologize to them when it was their fault?

I said, because you’ve got to know what you’re trying to accomplish in life. Do I want to win an argument or do I want my hamburger? Do I want my hamburger without spit, more importantly?

And so you’re nice and people tend to be nice back to you. It’s the same reason why I have very little sympathy for one of my children when one of the others is being mean to them and they’ve already been mean. One of them threw a car at Charlie’s head the other night and then was complaining Charlie threw a car at their head.

Okay, you just have to deal with that because I’m not getting in the middle of it. Sounds like you got what you got. The way people act has consequences and it determines how we treat them and how open we are to what they want and how open we are to what they need.

And that’s certainly true for us as Christians. the way we treat people has consequences for how they react to us. And it talks about this in Colossians chapter 4, as God’s word calls us to be mindful of the way we treat others, calls us to be mindful of the way that we act around others, because not only is it right, but it also has ramifications for their openness to the gospel.

See, and more importantly than whether or not we get our hamburger, or more importantly than if we get dad to get onto our sibling, more importantly than if we get a free jar of salsa, the way we treat others will impact their openness to hearing the gospel. Now, I don’t mean from that that if we’re nice to people, that that’s going to convince them to accept Jesus Christ. That’s the work of the Holy Spirit. That’s something that’s only up to Him.

But we certainly have a role to play, a role to play, in how open they are to hearing the message. We can help that cause or we can hurt that cause, depending on how we treat people. And so if you would, turn with me to Colossians chapter 4, if you haven’t already done so.

And when you’re there, we’re going to start reading in verse 2, if you’ll stand with me as we read together from God’s Word. Colossians chapter 4, starting in verse 2, and we’re going to go through verse 6 tonight. It says, Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving.

Meanwhile, praying also for us that God would open to us a door for the Word to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in chains, that I may make it manifest as I ought to speak. Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time. Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.

And you may be seated. And if you’re thinking to yourself, what does that have to do with how we treat others? Paul comes to the end of this letter and he’s teaching them how they are supposed to deal with those who are outside.

That’s what he says in verse 5. When he’s talking about how they are supposed to approach those who are outside, he’s talking about how they are supposed to deal specifically with non-believers. Or, I’ve heard some people say, not yet believers.

Because some of these are future believers who just haven’t believed yet and God’s sending us to them. So for Paul, as he’s teaching them, there’s a right way and a wrong way to deal with those who are outside. And for Paul, the gospel is always paramount.

Like I told my kids, you’ve got to know what you’re trying to accomplish. Am I trying to win an argument? Am I trying to be right?

Am I trying to get my own way? Or is my number one priority in dealing with other people that I point them toward Jesus Christ rather than away from Him? For Paul, the gospel is paramount, like it always is.

For Paul, the greatest concern in his dealings with other people is whether or not the gospel is advanced. whether or not more people rather than fewer are willing to listen to the good news of Jesus Christ and His death, burial, and resurrection. That’s what Paul’s concerned with.

Because he says in verse 3, he wants God to open to us a door for the Word to speak the mystery of Christ. Paul’s going out there with a message. The message that Jesus Christ suffered, bled, and died for our sins, that He rose again, and that He now offers forgiveness to those who will believe. He’s going out with that message and he is praying that God would present an open door for that word to be presented.

His main concern in verse 4 is that he might make it manifest as I ought to speak. That God would give him opportunities to take that message and get it out there. That he might find an open, receptive audience that God has prepared.

And he wants the Colossians to know, as he says in verse 6, to know how you ought to answer each one. He says there’s a right way and a wrong way to deal with these people. There’s a, just people in general, there’s a right way and a wrong way to deal with them.

And it’s unfortunate that so many people, I can’t say what percentage, I can’t, you know, we’ve probably all acted in ways that we wish we hadn’t, especially when people found out we were Christians. There have been times too, I’ve said, I would like to say this, we’ve been at a restaurant or a store, I’ve told my wife, I’d like to say this, but Lawton’s still a fairly small town compared to some towns. And some of these people might walk into my church one day and they might remember me.

And so I keep my mouth shut. Because I’ve been in enough situations where I’ve run my mouth off or I’ve reacted to something badly only later on for those people to realize I was a Christian. And I’ve kind of blown my witness at that point.

We know how possible it is. We know how easy it is to do those things. And so as we are out in the world, we have to ask ourselves, what am I trying to accomplish?

Am I trying to be right? Am I trying to get my own way? Or am I trying to get the gospel across?

Because if we can remember that, that’ll help us tremendously in dealing with people the right way. For us to be able to say, it’s not about winning this argument. It’s about winning the person.

And I’m the first to admit this is not always the easiest thing in the world. But he describes some things that are going to be helpful on our part. I want to preface this, and I’ll come back to this again at the end.

I want to preface that all of this depends on the work of God. We will not, just like we will not argue somebody into heaven, those of you who were there in evangelism training, I hopefully made it clear to you week after week that there’s no magic formula, there’s no silver bullet that we can take, that we can learn, we can memorize, and we can regurgitate to the world out there that is going to guarantee that people accept Jesus Christ as their Savior. They’re just not.

How many people were there and saw Jesus Christ in person and still rejected Him. There’s something that takes place in the heart as people deal with the working of the Holy Spirit that we have no control over. And yet it’s still up to us to do the best we can to encourage people in the right direction.

Same thing with this. It does not ultimately depend on us whether or not people are receptive to the gospel. There’s the work of God that takes place in their hearts.

And yet God’s called us to work in the same direction as Him. Not against what He’s trying to do. And so if we want to see open doors, one thing that he tells us to do is to be prayerful.

Be prayerful in our dealings with other people. Now that doesn’t mean as you’re dealing with a non-believer, as you’re talking to somebody at the store, that you start praying for them by name out loud and making it awkward for them. He says here, continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving.

Meanwhile, praying also for us that God would open to us a door. Paul is saying, pray for us that God would give us open doors. As you’re praying for you that he would give you open doors.

They needed to pray for opportunities to get this message out there. Pray for opportunities to share the gospel. This is the preparation that goes in before we ever step foot out of the house in the mornings.

Or some of us may live with non-believers. This is the preparation that takes place before your feet hit the floor in the morning. This is the constant attitude of prayer that we are praying for God to give us opportunities to share the gospel.

That we are praying for God to give us the kind of focus that we need to deal with people in the right way and keep the gospel the priority in our dealings with others. They needed to pray for the opportunities, both for themselves and for Paul. They needed to be consistent in doing so.

He says to be vigilant. Keep going. Keep at it.

I don’t know if you’ve ever gotten discouraged in prayer. I have. There have been things that I’ve prayed for for years and they haven’t happened, and then I’ve gotten kind of lazy about praying for them.

Because I wasn’t seeing any progress, and so it kind of goes on the back burner. You get a little discouraged. Anybody else been there?

And I’m kind of put to shame when I hear some stories. I’ve met some older ladies in particular that have said, I prayed for my husband for 50 years and he came to Christ. I prayed for my son for 30 years. I’ve been praying for my grandson for 25 years and he hadn’t come to Christ yet, but I haven’t let up.

And they’ve been praying for decades and sometimes they see something that we never thought would happen, happen as these people after decades come to trust Christ as their Savior. That’s not something they did that they orchestrated. It’s not something we caused to happen.

It’s something that God did. But God honored their prayerfulness and their vigilance, their continuity in prayer. And then I’m put to shame that I get discouraged after a couple weeks of praying for something.

He says be vigilant. Keep going. Keep it up.

And they needed to be thankful. He says continue earnestly in prayer. This idea of being consistent is continuing earnestly, being vigilant.

But he says to do it with thanksgiving. They needed to be thankful for what God was doing in response to their prayers. And sometimes it’s kind of funny and sad at the same time, the way we will pray for something, and then we act surprised when God does it.

You ever been there too? God, I can’t believe this happened. Wait a minute.

I asked you to do this. Why am I surprised? Why are we surprised when we ask God to do something that only He can do, and then He does it?

He said, be vigilant in it with thanksgiving. Don’t get discouraged. Be thankful for what God is doing.

And if we start making a list of all the prayers that God is answering, as we begin to pray these things, if we begin to list even in our minds the doors that God is opening, it’ll keep us from getting discouraged with the ones He hasn’t opened yet. And so if we’re looking for open doors to share the gospel, God calls us to be prayerful in that. Don’t just wait until you run into somebody.

Pray about those encounters ahead of time. But then open doors also call us to be aware. If we’re looking for open doors, God calls us to be aware.

He says, walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time. There’s a bank that my dad used to work for that they have billboards up all over southeast Oklahoma that says, spend life wisely. Now, this is not a commercial for the bank, but I like that.

Not necessarily when it comes to banking, but I like that when it comes to our philosophy as Christians. God’s given us a certain amount of life to live. God’s given us a certain amount of time here on this earth, and we’re called to use that life, to use that time in a wise way.

and how do we do that? He says redeem the time. Redeem the time.

When you start to dig into what Paul’s talking about here, he’s talking about time slipping away. Do you feel like time slips away from you? I still occasionally think of myself as relatively fresh out of college and then I realize what year it is.

Or I talk about something that happened when I was a teenager and then I do the math and realize that was 20 years ago. I think it’s not fair. Why me, Lord?

Take everybody else, but why me? I know some of y’all are saying, what are you whining about? I know.

I’m just now old enough to run for president now. I’d be young by some standards, and yet that time has slipped away fast. And it doesn’t seem possible that I should have a 10-year-old. And I look at some of the pictures of them, and I think, man, it’s like it was just yesterday.

And with Benjamin, we’re halfway to him being an adult. We’re more than halfway to him being an adult. Madeline, we’re halfway to her driving.

Good night. If you’re watching Madeline, you’re halfway to driving if you behave. We’ll see.

Time slips away. It goes so fast. And there’s not a thing we can do to stop it. I mean, if you figured out a trick to slow it down or put it in reverse, let me know.

We could make some money. But there’s nothing we can do to stop it. It’s just always going.

So we’re not going to be able to save time. We’re not going to be able to halt time. All we can do is rescue the time before it slips away.

Use it in the best way that we know how. Use it in the wisest way we know how. And there are all sorts of things that we can do with our time.

There are all sorts of good things we can do with our time. You’ve got to know what you’re trying to accomplish. You’ve got to have a list of priorities and you’ve got to know which one’s at the top.

Like when I have a day to work in my yard, I have a list that’s many thousands of days long of things that I need to do. But I’ve got this many hours, what’s at the top of the list? What’s the one thing I need to accomplish today?

And that’s what I try to focus on. I’m a little ADD when it comes to, you know, I’ll bounce around because I see something over here. but I try to focus on doing that one thing.

Folks, of all the things that we could do with our lives, even the good things, what is the most important thing that we can do? What is the thing that is going to matter most in eternity? It’s whether or not we advance the good news of Jesus Christ. And so as we’re redeeming the time, it means we’re making the most of every opportunity that we’re given.

We are making the gospel. We’re making the good news of Jesus Christ. We’re making the souls of the people around us. Those who are without, we are making them a priority.

Because it is so easy to go through our regular life and get busy doing the things we’ve got to do that are not bad things. Not bad things at all. Hear me on this.

We can get so busy taking care of our families, which is a good thing. We can get so busy earning a living, which is a good thing. We can get so busy trying to be productive in our jobs.

We can get so busy trying to take care of things at church. We can get so busy doing lots of good things and neglect the most important thing. It’s way too easy to do.

He says, redeem the time. Look for the opportunities. Be aware of the opportunities that God’s putting before you.

Walk in wisdom toward those who are without. When God brings people across our path, it’s not by accident. They were there for a purpose.

And they’re there for us to point to Jesus Christ. Not there for us to argue with. Not there for us to win an argument. They’re there for us to point them toward Jesus Christ. And I think the more we’re aware of those opportunities, the more we’re aware that that’s our number one job, it’ll change the way we deal with other people.

And then if we want to see open doors, God calls us to be gracious. And honestly, I’m not sure which of these is the hardest. But He says, let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one. So He talks about our speech being with grace.

And this idea of speech in the New Testament does include the way we talk. Because Jesus said, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. What’s in here is going to come out here.

So the way we talk is important. But when he talks about our speech, it can also just encompass the way we carry ourselves in life. The way we deal with others should be gracious and it should be kind, especially in our words, should be the kind of speech that exemplifies the grace of Jesus Christ. And all too often, I’m guilty of doing the opposite.

As a matter of fact, when he says grace, let your speech always be with grace, we could draw a circle around a bunch of the characteristics that are listed in chapter 3 of what the unregenerate world looks like. The world that does not know Jesus Christ and who we were before Him. All the things He says we’re supposed to put off.

We could draw a circle around those and say when He says here that our speech is supposed to be with grace, He’s talking about doing the exact opposite of what we used to do. And this idea of being seasoned with salt, I had to spend some time digging into what He was talking about here. But basically it means that it accomplishes something.

You know, salt today, not a big deal necessarily. I mean, I love it. But it’s not a big deal. We get it in little packets.

Sometimes we throw it away. Sometimes we try to avoid it for our blood pressure and other things. In their day, salt had real value.

Salt could be worth its weight in gold. Part of the reason for that, it wasn’t just because it tasted good. It was because of what it could accomplish.

Salt preserved things. It kept things from spoiling. Salt did all sorts of things.

It can clean wounds. And so when he says, let our speech be grace seasoned with salt, he’s talking about our speech accomplishing something. Because it’s easy to confuse the idea of our speech being grace with our speech being just pious platitudes.

Folks, our speech being grace is more than just telling everybody, hey, God loves you. And that’s okay that we tell them that. But think of all the cheerful little bumper sticker slogans that you can think of for Christianity.

And when he says, let your speech be grace, he’s not talking about reducing it to that. where we become almost a parody of what the world thinks about us and say, well, isn’t that lame? That’s not even helpful.

Some of those things that you know are true, but you don’t necessarily want to hear when you’re hurting. Just as an example, I remember after the loss of a child being told, it’s okay because God has a plan. Absolutely true, and I believe that, but it is not what I wanted to hear at that moment.

It was not helpful to me. The world sometimes thinks that we have this Pollyanna view of the world. And you might hear, let your speech be grace, and think, well, we’re just supposed to be bubbly all the time, and keep it light, and keep it cheery.

That’s not what he’s talking about. He’s talking about speaking like Jesus. Jesus was gracious, and He was kind in the way He dealt with others.

But He also told them the hard truth in a loving way. Jesus’ speech was gracious. His dealings with other people were gracious, but they also accomplished something.

I guess the point I’m trying to make, and I’m not saying it real well, is that for our speech to be grace seasoned with salt doesn’t mean that we become sappy and syrupy. It means that we are kind and we are gracious and we speak the truth, but in a way that actually helps people. In a way where we’re actually saying something.

In a way that actually points people to Jesus Christ. Not just gives them the warm fuzzies, but actually points them to Jesus Christ. We’re called to be gracious. Called to be kind and gentle. And to think through the things we say and with the Lord’s help to say the things that they need to hear.

And again, I want to reiterate tonight that our open doors depend on God. Ultimately, He’s the one responsible for getting through to people. This is one of the hardest lessons I’ve ever had to learn.

And it’s one I wish I had learned a lot sooner because it would have taken a lot of stress off of me trying to argue people into heaven and beating my head against a brick wall, trying to figure out why will they just not understand? Why will they not just believe what I want them to believe? God ultimately is responsible.

He works in their hearts and their responses between Him and them. God opens the doors. The open doors depend on Him, but God uses us in His work.

God chooses to use us sometimes as the instrument by which He opens those doors. That’s why He called them to pray that God would open the door. He’s ultimately the one who opens the door with the listener.

But as we read all these other things that He tells us we’re supposed to do, and that we’re supposed to try to do, we can see in there that how we conduct ourselves, What we focus on, how we treat people, how we love them, and how we try to help, that these things actually do make a difference in whether or not we are useful to His purposes. Again, understand, God is the one who does the work. Sometimes we’re the tools He uses to accomplish that work.

And a tool can be good or it can be bad. I put a new bunk bed together for the girls on Friday night. And it was storming, and I didn’t necessarily want to walk out through the rain and the lightning and the mud to my workshop, so I made do with some tools that weren’t the right tools for the job.

Did not go well. I needed the right tools. Sometimes a tool can be helpful and sometimes it can’t.

We want to make sure that we are the tools that are helpful. God doesn’t need us, but He chooses to use us. God can use us to open the doors, but He’s not going to use us to open the doors if we constantly are slamming them shut.

And sometimes my attitude has been responsible for slamming them shut. I won’t pull the room to see if I’m alone here, but I suspect I’m not. And I also suspect it won’t be the last time that I’ve ever done that.

but as we pray and as we seek to make the gospel primary in our interactions with other people, God begins to work in us. He changes our heart. He softens our hearts.

He changes our focus so that we can be more effective. So we need to be more intentional about preparing ourselves for when the opportunities arise. Be willing to see people as He sees them.

See them not as a means to an end and not as impediments that stand in the way of what we’re trying to accomplish in our daily business, but see them as people that Jesus loved and He died for. See them as people who need to hear the good news and people that we should address in an intentional, loving way so that we’re pointing them to Jesus rather than away from Him. Pray for opportunities.

Look for the opportunities and treat every encounter you have as a potential opportunity to point somebody to Jesus.

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