Take your Bibles with me and turn to Colossians 4. Colossians 4. We are almost through this great book. A few more weeks and we will be starting a series through the gospel of Luke. But I am very excited about what God has for us today.
Colossians 4. Let's read verses 2-6:
Colossians 4:2-6 2. Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving; 3. Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds: 4. That I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak. 5. Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time. 6. Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.
This is the beginning of the personal section of this letter. It's the beginning of the conclusion. But that doesn't mean that there aren't many things for us to learn here. In fact, this section may contain one of the most important lessons for our church in the whole book.
I want you to imagine a scenario with me: A beloved religious figure is in prison. Let's say the guy who started your denomination or group. He got in prison for preaching the gospel. So he is in prison unfairly. There is no release date in sight, in fact, they are slow walking the trial and it seems like he is going to be in prison for a few more years before he ever gets a chance to plead his case.
He writes a letter to your church from prison. The letter barely mentions his situation. It's all about Jesus. But you get to the end of the letter and the pastor starts sharing personal prayer requests.
What would you expect that prayer request to be? Duh. It's so obvious. "Pray that I get out of here." "Pray for my freedom."
That is exactly the situation in this letter. Paul was writing this letter from prison. He barely mentions that fact in the letter, but it's there.
Twice in this chapter he says that he is "in bonds" (once in verse 3 and once in verse 18.)
So Paul is writing from prison where he is unfairly jailed and I want you to take careful notice of his prayer request. He asks them to pray for him not that he would be released from prison, but (look in verse 3 and 4)
Colossians 4:3-4 3. Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds: 4. That I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak.
Paul's great prayer request isn't "get me out of here" it is "pray that God would let me preach Christ, pray that God would give me open doors for ministry, pray that I can make Christ and His gospel clear."
And that brings me to the theme of my message this morning:
The most important thing for the church is that the gospel is made manifest to those outside the church.
The gospel needs to be clearly seen by the world. Christ desires that He be clearly understood and recognized.
Paul is writing to this church and most of the stuff he's been writing so far has been internally focused. It's been on them and there problems. But here as Paul closes this book he points them outside of themselves to the lost world around them.
Can I tell you something - the church does not exist for itself. The church does not exist for it's own comfort. The purpose of the church, the purpose of our church, isn't to be a social club of familiarity. It isn't to preserve what has always been. The purpose of the church is to preach Christ not to us, but to the world.
The church cannot be an internally focused organization - we must be an externally focussed organization. We have to focus our attention on preaching Christ and making Him manifest both here and around the world.
A few weeks ago I made a change I don't think anyone noticed to our bulletin. On the cover of the bulletin it used to say something about us being a place of fellowship and preaching. I changed that little blurb to put our churches mission on it.
To make the Bible clear and accessible in Mattoon and around the world.
That is what I believe God put our church here for. It is not to be a place of comfort and familiarity. It is not be a kind of social club for a certain kind of saved people. It is to get the gospel out and the teaching of the Bible out to as many people as we can both here in Mattoon and around the world through our missions efforts.
As Paul said the mystery of Christ needs to be made manifest. The truth of Christ needs to be revealed to those who are not saved. To the lost people among us.
We know that is what Paul is talking about because he says in verse 5 we need to walk in wisdom to them that are without. In verse 6 Paul talks about the need to speak with grace and have an answer every man.
So Paul's great charge here at the end of the letter is for this church in Colossae to turn their attention outward and to seek to evangelize the world around them.
Listen, Mattoon needs the gospel. Charleston needs the gospel. Gays and Arcola and Neoga and Trilla need the gospel.
We did the math one time and on any given Sunday, 80% of the people in Mattoon are not in church. 80%. We aren't even talking about people going to a good church. We are talking any church. Most of your neighbors, most of your coworkers, most of your extended family members - they aren't in church anywhere this morning.
We talk about the gospel like it is old hat - and most of the town doesn't know what that means. They have never clearly understood the gospel.
This plays out in our neighborhood. I can think of the 15 or so houses around here and maybe three of them are in church anywhere this morning.
Think about your neighbors. How many of them know Christ? How many of them have believed the gospel? How many of them are following the Lord with their life? My guess is not many.
Our mission is to change that. Our mission is to preach the gospel to every creature. To be witnesses of Christ in our Judea, and our Samaria and to the uttermost part of the earth.
Our mission is not in here, it is out there. It is not internal, it is external.
And Paul closes this book with a reminder of that. But these verses are not just a reminder that we need to be focused on sharing Christ - they also tell us how we need to do it. They tell us what we need to do as a church to see the gospel take root and to see Christ be manifested.
There are three things Paul asks the church at Collossae to do here and they are three things we need to do if we are going to fulfill our mission.
The first thing they need to do to make Christ manifest is to...
Look at verses 2-3 again:
Colossians 4:2-3 2. Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving; 3. Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds:
If we are going to see people come to Christ - we cannot rely on our own power. We have to pray. We have to pray faithfully to that end.
Let's be honest, most of our praying is not about the lost world. It is not about Christ's mission. Most of our praying , if we pray at all, is for this health need or for that health need. But we aren't praying for our neighbors. We aren't praying for the evangelistic efforts of the church. We aren't praying that the gospel would go out strongly. We aren't praying for open doors of utterance.
Someone once said
"We spend far more time praying that Christians would stay out of heaven than that sinners would get out of hell."
If we are going to make the gospel manifest than that needs to be the driving force of our prayers. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. The gospel has not lost it's power to save. But we have to rely on God's power and to seek it in prayer.
I read recently a story about Charles Spurgeon. Spurgeon had probably the most successful ministry of any english speaking man who ever lived. Thousands and thousands around the world came to Christ through his preaching and God built a great church in London.
That church became kind of a tourist attraction. As Christians would visit the city they wanted to see the great metropolitan tabernacle.
One day Spurgeon was entertaining a group of these tourists and they looked at the auditorium and spurgeon said "Do you want to see our boiler room? It's really quite amazing - it's what drives this whole place."
"Um, no thanks, can we see the baptistry?"
So Spurgeon showed them the baptistry then said "You want to see the boiler room - it is really what drives this place?"
"Um, can we see the offices?"
So Spurgeon showed them place after place and finally said "You really need to see our boiler room - it really is amazing." and finally they relented "Ok, this is weird, but we will look at the boiler room."
So Spurgeon brought them to a room in the basement and opened the door and in it was about twenty people in prayer. Praying for the ministry. Spurgeon said "this is our boiler room, this is what powers our whole ministry."
Church, God is just as powerful today as He always has been. God wants to save people today just like He always has. Is it possible that we aren't seeing people saved because we have shut off the boiler room of prayer? We are praying for ourselves and not praying for the salvation of others.
Listen, we need to pray. We need to pray continually. The text says "continue in prayer." We need to be praying without ceasing. As we go throughout our day we should be in a state of prayer often, praying for God to work, expecting God to do something, praying for open doors. We have to continue in it.
We need to pray energetically. The text says "watch in the same." Remember when Jesus prayed with the disciples in the garden and they were falling asleep and He said "Can't you watch one hour?" So the opposite of praying watchfully is praying half asleep. We need to pray with ferver and alertness.
We need to pray thankfully. It says "with thanksgiving." We can thank God for His provision, for His salvation, for His care for us and pray that others can experience the same.
We need to pray specifically. Paul prayed that they would pray for Him and pray for His ministry and open doors for him.
Church, I need your prayers specifically. I can only do so much, my part is so little - but God needs to open up doors of utterance. God needs to work in people's hearts. That won't happen if we don't pray specifically.
What is Bible Baptist's boiler room? Who is praying all the time for the ministry here? Who is praying that God's word and the gospel would be manifested here?
We need to pray continually. That's the first thing here. The second thing we see in verse 4.
Colossians 4:5 5. Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time.
Not only do we need to pray continually, we need to...
It says "walk in wisdom toward them that are without." This is talking about the lost world. They need to hear our message, but they also need to see our lives.
The world is watching us. Your coworkers are watching you. Your family is watching you. Your neighbors are watching you. What kind of testimony do you have?
I was talking to someone in town about a certain church, and this person said "I'd never go there, because the pastor is an awful person. He has the messiest house in town. He doesn't pay his bills. He's lazy. He's mean to his wife."
Now, it wouldn't matter if this guy was the greatest preacher ever - his life doesn't match his message. He has a bad testimony.
You can work hard at being the best evangelist ever, but if you are a jerk, if you are lazy, if you are a bad testimony, if you live shamefully in the eyes of the world - then you are not going to be an effective witness for Him.
We have to walk wisely. We have to redeem the time - make the most of our time on this earth. We have to do what we can to shine a light for Christ.
Examine yourself. Try to look at your life with outsiders eyes. Is there anything about your life that is shameful? Is there anything about the way you are living today that would bring shame to Christ? Fix that for the gospel's sake. Don't make excuses for it.
Walk with wisdom to them who are without, redeeming the time.
So we need to pray continually, we need to walk wisely.
One more thing...
Look at verse 6:
Colossians 4:6 6. Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.
Our speech needs to be dripping with the grace of God. That happens when we experience God's grace. When we are close to the Lord. We have no problem talking about it.
You have no problem talking about a new restaurant you like or a new recipe or some place you can find a bargain. But do you struggle to talk about the grace of God? It should be as natural as anything in the world to us.
It says we need our speech to be seasoned with salt. That's an old jewish expression that means our speech needs to be interesting.
If you are going to share the gospel and you should - don't be boring. Be an interesting person to talk to. A big part of that is taking an interest in the people you are talking to.
It says we need to know how to answer every man. Are you studying so you can know how to answer every man?
We are doing a morning class right now where we are studying how to explain Christianity. It would be super helpful for you. Listen, not many of you are coming.
Paul is reminding us here that we have a mission outside of these walls. We have a mission to the lost world around us. We need open doors of utterance, we need the power of God.
The most important thing for the church is that the gospel is made manifest to those outside the church.
Are you praying continually that people would come to Christ? Are you living wisely so as to be a good testimony for Him? Are you making sure your speech is grace filled and salty and studying to know how to talk to people about Christ?
God is still in the business of saving people. The God of Acts 2 hasn't gone away. We've just lost the plot.
Let's pray that God would burden our heart for the lost world around us.
Let's stand for invitation and prayer.