Living with Gospel Intentionality
Gospel Centered Living March 9, 2025 Colossians 4:2-6 Notes
Do you sometimes feel a disconnect between you personal spiritual life and your public life? Do you feel like there is a version of you that goes to church and community group, and then another version of you that goes to work or school or to the grocery store? What would it look like to be more consistent, being your true self everywhere you go?
What if every day you could be more intentional about making your spiritual life and your public life one and the same? Wouldn’t that make every day more of an adventure?
In the apostle Paul’s letter to the Colossians, he told them that their ordinary, day-to-day lives could be radically used for God by living with gospel intentionality.
Audio
It's our part, as servants of God, to be intimately involved in reaching people with the Gospel. We're going to need people working at both campuses. Certainly there's church work to be done, but more than anything, we want to release you as God's people. We gather on Sundays for empowerment.
We gather for power and encouragement, but we scatter for proclamation. We want to scatter as people who are sharing the Gospel, so I wanted to take a couple of Sundays and talk about that. It seemed to me that , we've proven that we desire what God's called us to do,
by the way our hearts have been moved in giving. Now, let's see if we can be generous with sharing the gospel. That's what we're talking about today. I want to refer to a quote from a book. This is a book called, “Total Church: A Radical Reshaping around Gospel and Community” by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis:
They say this: “We need Christian communities who saturate ordinary life with the gospel. The communities to which we introduce people must be communities in which “God-talk” is normal. This means talking about what we are reading in the Bible, praying together whenever we share needs, delighting together in the gospel, and sharing our spiritual struggles, not only with Christians but with unbelievers. We want our life together to be gospel-saturated.
We want to live and talk about the gospel as part of our shared life.” I want to ask you to think about this for a second. Do you delight in talking to others about Jesus? Do you delight in maybe sharing something you read in the Bible that day with your co-worker or somebody you're going to school with or someone in your neighborhood?
Are you transparent when you're having a struggle and even talking to unbelievers and saying, ‘I'm praying to God to help me with this struggle,’ so that they begin to see how you're working things out, that you're not perfect but, you're trying to work things out. Here's the thing I want to ask you - Is there one version of you that you bring to church, that talks about the Bible, prayer and Jesus? Then, is there another version of you that you send to work, to school, to your neighborhood, to your family reunion that's more of a public persona that doesn't allow that kind of conversation? Are there two versions of you?
Do you know what I'm talking about? Do you feel the tension of your two versioned self or is there only one version of you so that you're whole? There's just one you and it's you, filled with Jesus, the spirit of Christ. What would it look like? What kind of adventure, what kind of intention would it require of us to say, ‘I want God to work in me so that I'm the same everywhere I go, so that I'm just as willing to share what I'm learning from the Bible, what I'm praying about, what I'm even struggling with, and talking to the Lord about wherever I go.’
Wouldn't that be an adventure? Wouldn't that be awesome if you could get to that place where you would be willing to do that? Now, I know some of the young people are thinking, Well, look, if I do that, I'm going to lose my “cool at school” card. If I do that, I might not get that promotion at work. I want us to think today, what it would look like to be intentional, to live our whole life with gospel intentionality, so that everywhere we go, we're always talking about Jesus.
In the Apostle Paul's letter to the Colossians, he talked to them about how they might live day to day, prayerfully, always radically living with gospel intentionality. I believe that we can live our daily lives with gospel intentionality. As we look at the text today, I think we'll see three ways that we can live in such a way. So let's “dig in” to the book of Colossians, chapter 4. Starting at verse 2, 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.” This is God's word.
We're looking for three ways on how to live with gospel intentionality. Here's the first way:
1. Prayer.
He's in a Roman prison. Paul's writing this letter to the church at Colossae. It's a church he planted. He's over in.
Rome. Colossae is a city that's in Asia Minor, which today is modern day Turkey. I've been to the site where the town of Colossae existed. Today, there's really nothing to look at.
It's just a mound. It's what archeologists call a “tell.” They've yet to uncover what's there. There's a few pieces of broken marble; a pillar is sitting there and one sign that says “Colossae.” That is all that's there.
But at this time, it was a thriving city, not far down the road from Laodicea. Paul here, is in prison and he's thinking about that church in Colossae and he asks for prayer. First of all, he tells them to pray. He gives them a command to pray.
That's what we see in verse 2. This is in the imperative Greek language here. He says, “Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.” Stay at it.
He says, ‘Be steadfast in prayer” and then, it's the kind of prayer where you don't give up. He says to persevere in prayer.
Be unceasing. As 1st Thessalonians 5 puts it, “Pray without ceasing.” He says, ‘Be steadfast in this prayer life of yours.’ Not just steadfastly, but be watchful. Be watchful in prayer.
You see that in verse 2,”...being watchful in it with thanksgiving.” Be watchful. I remember in the early days of the church, I had led a young man to the Lord, and one of the ways I was trying to spend time with him is I would pick him up and ride with him. That way, we could get more talking time to disciple him and I was teaching him about prayer.
He brought up a need in his life. I’m driving down the road, at about 55 miles an hour and I said to him, “Well, let's pray right now.” He reaches over as if to drive, to grab the steering wheel. I said, “Whoa, what are you doing?” He says to me, “Well, you said you were going to pray.”
I said, “With my eyes open.” Paul says to pray with your eyes open. Here, he's not concerned about driving, but he's saying to be alert. Have God's perspective. Pray “eyes wide open” prayers.
Be circumspect in your prayers so that you know the culture you're in and the people that you encounter. Be watchful. As you pray, be aware.
Be watchful. Be vigilant and alert. Stay awake in your prayers. I don't know what it is about praying, but it will put you to sleep if you're not careful. Now, some people have talked to me and they've said, ‘I tend to get sleepy when I pray.’
Well, get out of bed when you're praying. That's where I would start. So, it's good to get out of bed. I wrote about this a couple of days ago, to sometimes pray standing up or do a prayer walk.
You're walking around. Walk around the block and pray. Do I know the neighbors in this house that live across the street from me? Since I do know them, let's pray for them by name as we walk. Maybe you could be walking with your spouse and do a prayer walk around your neighborhood. These would be vigilant prayers, watchful prayers.
He says to be watchful, and then he says, “pray with thanksgiving.” So, pray steadfastly, pray with your eyes wide open and pray with thanksgiving. Be thankful.
This is a great instruction to live with. Gospel intentionality begins with praying and being aware of what's going on around you that God might want to use you. Then he surprises us, or at least he surprises me. He says, In verse 3, “At the same time, pray also for us,” Now, where's he at?
He's in a Roman prison. He says, continuing in verse 3, “...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”
That is not what I'd be praying; I would be praying, “God, get me out of here!” If I was writing a letter to you, I'm writing a letter to the church at Wilson.
It'd be “First Wilsonians.” I'm writing a letter to you, and I'm writing, ‘I'm over here in jail. Pray I get out.’ That's not how Paul prays.
He prays for an open door, not to get him out, but for an open door to get outsiders in. What kind of man is this, that even in prison, he assumes that God put him there? It is because God is sovereign over him. Caesar's not over him. The governor's not over him.
If he's in prison, there must be somebody there he's supposed to share the gospel with. ‘Pray for us that God would open a door for us so that we could share the Word with where we're at right now.’ You know, sometimes we're some place and we think, Now, this ain't the right place to be sharing the gospel. This is a place where I just need to focus on ME. I'm in a spot here. I'm in a hospital room or I'm in the doctor's office, and I don't need to be sharing the gospel with this person next to me. I'm in trouble; I'm at the bank and I need a loan.
I'm at the Walmart and this clerk has been rude to me and I don't need to be nice to her.
Are you with me? But that's not how Paul thinks. He's in prison, but he's not worried about that. I don't know what kind of man this is. He's not worried about that.
Instead, he is concerned and he says, ‘Do you know what got me here? Do you know how I ended up here? Let me remind you, “to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison.” Preaching the gospel is what got me here, and preaching the gospel is what I'm going to keep on doing.
That's why I exist. It begins with prayer, though. He says, ‘That's how I want you to pray for me. I want you to pray that God would open a door for the word that I could declare the mystery of Christ.’ Unusual language, or at least the way we understand “mystery.”
The word, “mystery,” in the Greek is “mustérion.” It tends to mean “secret.” Not so much like something to solve, but something you could never know unless someone told you more, because that's what is required for people to come to Jesus. He must be revealed to them, primarily through us speaking the Gospel to people, although we've been reading about for the last, really ten to twenty years of a great movement in the Middle east of Muslims having dreams of “Issa Almasi,” Jesus the Messiah, and then they go looking for someone to tell them about Jesus.
But the mystery, the mystery of Jesus here is the secret that we know. It's not a secret to us, but the world doesn't know it. He says, ‘Pray for us that we won't waste our time here in prison, but that we would have an open door to share with these Roman soldiers and these cellmates. Pray for us. That's how I want you to pray for us.’
So pray steadfastly, watchfully, with thanksgiving. Pray for an open door. Then, in verse four, he says, “that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.” Pray that I make it clear, because what's clear to this person might not be clear to this person. So pray that the Holy Spirit will help me speak in a way they can understand, which is how I ought to speak.
Paul's praying, not for an open door to get out, but for an open door to get outsiders in. Lord, I want to be more like that, don't you? It begins with a life that is steadfast in prayer, that gets God's direction before a day begins. We are called to stay alert in prayer. There's a sister book to Colossians; it's the book of Ephesians.
The city of Ephesus was not that far from Colossae. They were both churches that Paul had planted. Ephesus today is on the coast of modern day Turkey. He writes similarly to them. In Ephesians chapter 6
he says, Ephesians 6:18-19 (NLT) “Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere. And pray for me, too. Ask God to give me the right words so I can boldly explain God’s mysterious plan that the Good News is for Jews and Gentiles alike.”
He gives both of these churches similar prayer requests. I think he's calling us to the kind of prayer that is aware of the need around us so that we're actually looking at people differently. He writes this to his son in the Lord, Timothy. He says, 1 Timothy 2:1-4 (ESV) “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
We are spending our effort and all of our posts on our social media sites about our political points of view and what we're for and what we're against and what we're judging right and what we're judging wrong; I'm not saying that these things might not be important. What I am saying is that the instruction from God's Word seems to be here to live a quiet, Godly, dignified way, aiming always at praying for people that are in positions of power and then, being mindful always that God desires that people everywhere hear the gospel and have an opportunity to be saved. No matter where we're presenting ourselves, social media, in the neighborhood, in person, at work, at school, always be praying that our life would demonstrate the love of Jesus wherever we are.
Warren Wiersbe says this. He says, “If each believer would pray for the lost, and watch for God’s open doors of opportunity for witness, we would win more people to the Savior.”
The apostle Paul was traveling from Asia Minor. He'd been involved in planting churches in Colossae, Laodicea and in Ephesus. He's up to the area that's called Troas and God opens a door for him there. He closed the door to go east.
He said the spirit wouldn't allow it. He looked west, and he had a vision of a man of Macedonia beckoning him to come. So he called a boat and went over to a little town called Philippi. He goes to Philippi, and he begins to preach the Gospel. He and Silas have been preaching for days and they've got this one young lady.
She's a slave girl who's possessed by a demon. Her owners sell her time to people because she had a gift of predicting their future.
She was a fortune teller and with demonic power. She's following them around, saying, “These two are prophets of the God Most High.” Every time that Paul would try to preach, she'd open her mouth and start saying, “They're prophets of the God Most High.”
Finally, Paul prayed, “Get out of her in the name of Jesus” and the demon came out of her. Then, the owners are ticked off because they've lost their source of income, right? The woman's clean. She wants to follow Jesus now.
She's no good to them now. So, they bring Paul and Silas before the magistrate there in the city of Philippi and they say, ‘These Jews have brought some strange word here that's not of Rome and they need to be punished.”
They publicly chain their arms to a pillar in the marketplace in front of the magistrate's seat of authority and publicly beat them and throw them into jail. We keep reading about this in the Book of Acts, chapter 16. That night, Paul and Silas start singing. I don't know what they were singing.
I don't know what song they were singing, but whatever song they were singing, they started singing a chorus in heaven, and the whole place shook like an earthquake and the doors flew open. Now, that was one of those situations where yours truly would have been like, ‘Well, thank You for the open door, Lord. I'm getting out of here.’ But that's not what Paul and Silas did. They stayed in there
and here comes the jailer, the Philippian jailer. He's ready to kill himself because he is thinking, Surely all of my prisoners are gone when he saw all of those gates, all those doors open. Paul says to him, ‘We're still in here.’ He brings in a lamp and there they are. He takes them home with him and he cleans up their wounds, their beaten backs. He offers them food and they share the gospel with him and his family.
The whole house comes to Jesus and is baptized. That Paul. His idea of open doors and my idea of open doors are completely different. He spent his life praying for God to open doors for the Gospel. I wonder what it would look like for us to get up in the morning, say, “Lord, I'm available to talk to anyone that You put in front of me today, that you open up a door for the Gospel.” Would it be God's will to answer a prayer like that in the positive?
What do you think? ‘God, I'm available today.’ Would He answer that prayer? I want you to think about this. We have this container down front that we're using for these impact cards.
We have them at all four tables down front where we're asking people, “Who do you know that we would pray that they would come to Christ?” We've been emphasizing raising the income in order to make Jesus famous. But what's my individual part? Well, I think it begins with who God is bringing to my heart right now that I already should be talking to
and would I be willing to write their name down? Who's my “long shot?” There is a line that says, “ My long shot.” That's the person you've almost given up on
or maybe, it's someone you don't like and you're thinking, I don't even know if I want them to spend eternity with me. I don't even like spending time with them now. That's definitely who you need to write down there and say, ‘Lord, change my heart towards that person.’ What if, at the end of the service today, one of your steps of prayer, of taking this first step of being intentional, would be to write down the names of some people and prayerfully drop it in here and say, “God, I want to not only pray for their salvation, I want You to use me. Give me an open door to talk to this person, to write this person a letter, to send them a text message, to begin the conversation of talking to them about Jesus.”
This is the first way. We've covered verses two through four. We recognize that Paul is praying for an open door and he wants you to join him in prayer. He's always looking for an open door, and he's always asking for prayer to open those doors. This is the first way: prayer. Here's the second:
2. Care.
I try to use words that will help us remember what we've studied today. Prayer and then Care. That's the second way we can live with gospel intentionality. We're at verse 5,
“Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.” Walk in wisdom. Now, the word, “walk” is a kind of Jewish word that they would use to describe your lifestyle.
”As you go,” you're going somewhere “as you go” through life. Walk with wisdom. What kind of wisdom toward outsiders? Now, what does he mean by outsiders?
He means outside the family of faith. He means people that don't know Jesus. Don't just be going through life celebrating that I'm in the family.
That's great that you're in the family. I'm just going to hang out with family members. I don't even like outsiders. I'm going to stay away from outsiders. That's not what he says.
He says, ‘Walk with them in mind, caring about them. Walk with wisdom toward outsiders. Be careful the way you speak, the way you walk and your manner of life before outsiders.’ Then he says this, “making the best use of the time.”
Literally, the idea here is to redeem the time. It's an unusual word. It's a marketplace word in the Greek to buy back the time.
I didn't really have a chance to talk to that person. I was there getting gas or I was there picking up groceries.
I know some of you are better than me. I know some of you are more Christian than I am. You're more spiritual than I am. I'm trying to grow, but I tend to think of projects before I think of people.
It’s something about my personality. I always have a checklist in my head, and I'm always in a hurry to get it done. Y'all pray for me, okay? So, I have to pray that God will go against the grain of my personality and I don't put projects over people.
Well, I'm here to buy this item. I'm not here to talk to that person that wants to talk right now. I have to watch that and I'm aware of it. God's working on me.
Y'all pray for me. I'll pray for you. You got whatever your issue is, right? He's saying to make the best use of your time. Well, usually, I think my best use of the time is to go ahead and get that done and get out of there.
That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about walking with wisdom toward outsiders; the way you redeem your time here is by the impression you make on people outside of God. You thought you were there getting groceries, but no, you were there to be a blessing to the checkout clerk who was having a bad day.
The lady in front of you in line chewed her out for putting the wrong price on her apples or whatever it was. There she is, making minimum wage. She's got tears in her eyes. You're next in line; what will you say to her? Will it be, ‘Make sure you get my apples right,’ or will you be concerned for her?
How are you going to live day to day, so that you're walking with wisdom before outsiders, so that you're redeeming your time, using your time wisely. You're already going somewhere. We send teams out on the mission field, we send them out internationally, we do domestic trips,
but you're doing something every day; every time you walk out your door, you're walking into the mission field. Redeem the time. Don't waste your time.
In the book of Ephesians, he again says something similar to what he says to the church at Colossae. He says, in Ephesians 5:15-18 (ESV) “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, (there's that turn of phrase again)
redeeming the time because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.” O Lord, fill us with Your spirit so that we care about the things You care about. So that we care for people
and we put people ahead of our own agendas. That's what You said when you came to Earth. You were asked, ‘Lord Jesus, why do you eat with sinners? Why do you spend time with tax collectors and prostitutes?’ You said, “I came to save those who are lost.”
A physician doesn't go to the well, he goes to the sick; he is aware. So, if we say that we're Christ followers, if we're following Jesus, then we'll follow Jesus, because Jesus is on the mission field every day. The spirit of Christ is calling the body of Christ every day, to be His hands and His feet and to care for people, because we know this: “People really don't care what you know until they know that you care.” We say it another way at the church, that we're “building a bridge of trust that will bear the weight of truth.”
If we will let people know, ‘I really care about you’ then they'll be more apt to listen to the Gospel. Remember what Jesus commands to us? He says, Matthew 28:19 (ESV) “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” The word, “go” in the Greek is really a participle.
It means “going, as you go” to make disciples. You're already going somewhere. as you go to work, to school, to your neighborhood, shopping… As you go, be a disciple maker; be watchful, walk in wisdom, be prayerful.
Think about the story of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37; remember how that story begins. A young man came to Jesus and was asking him some questions and Jesus said, in verse 27, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
He said, ‘but who's my neighbor?’ and Jesus told him a story. He told him the story about a man who was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. It's downhill all the way.
Jerusalem's up at a height. Jericho's down close to the Jordan Valley. As he was going downhill, down that way, he fell among thieves and robbers, and they stole all that he owned and stripped him and left him for dead in a ditch on the side of the road. The story continues as Jesus told it; along came a priest.
He's coming up the road, headed up to the temple probably, and he hears the man moaning over there. He thinks to himself, ‘If I touch him, I'll be unclean. I won't be able to go to the temple for seven days. Surely the Lord cares more about me getting to the temple on time and serving than He does…’ (I'm putting that part in the story.
It's not in the story, but I'm trying to understand the priest.) Why'd he do that? Then along came a Levite and he probably thought the same thing. He heard him over there and he went over to the other side of the road, because if he got on that side of the road, he might be tempted to help him.
He went on up to Jerusalem. But then came a Samaritan. That story has more of an ironic feel there, because the Jews hated the Samaritans. The Samaritans had been Jewish from the city of Samaria, but they had intermarried with the Assyrians, and so they called them “Samaritan dogs.” They would go around Samaria when they were traveling north to south.
Here in this story, Jesus tells about the good Samaritan who goes into the ditch and takes care of the man. He puts him on his donkey, he takes him to an inn and pays for the price. He cleanses his wounds, he feeds him, and he comes back and checks on him later. Then, he asked the man who was the neighbor and he said, “The one who showed mercy.” Caring for people is often the way people are opened up to the Gospel.
Praying for an open door sometimes means taking care of somebody to put in your daily routine or a desire to have a listening ear. Whenever that person comes to you that's always talking so much and you can't get any work done, wonder what it is there that you could listen to and help them. That person who needs an act of kindness, the person who no one sees but you see them. You decide, I'm going to see this person.
What is it going to look like for us to care for people, to care enough to bring them Jesus? Here's the third word:
3. Share.
Dr. Chris Castaldo calls this: “Share, Share, Share,” saying there are three levels of conversation with an unbeliever. He gives here three descriptions of speech:
First of all, gracious speech. Do you see it in verse 6? “Let your speech always be gracious,” Notice he said, “always.”
He didn't say “most of the time.” He said “always.” Gracious; God's grace has been poured out on you. What is God's grace?
It's undeserved favor. You didn't deserve it. So I want you to think about that person that you know that does not deserve your grace; does not deserve your favor. That's the one I think, most of all, that God has put in your life to ask, ‘How can I be graceful in my speech towards this person and what would it look like?’
What is this grace? Some have said it's “charming” speech, it's “edifying” speech. It's a speech that makes you want to lean in and listen to more. It's an “encouraging” speech. It's speech that just feels like a warm fuzzy that's just come on you and made you feel so sweet and good and warm inside.
My daughter Erin, when she was a little girl, a little toddler and she was just learning to talk. (The boys never did this. Girls and boys are different. I don't know if you agree with that, but you're wrong if you don't.
They're different.) My daughter was different from the boys. She would climb up in my lap and I couldn't just talk to her and watch football on Sunday afternoon because she would take her little hands and put them on both sides of my face and say, “Daddy, look at me.” Then, I'd look at her and I'd say, “Well, what do you want to tell me?” I guess in the intensity of that moment of me looking at her, she forgot what she wanted to tell me.
But then I'd say to her, “You sure are pretty. You've got brown eyes like your daddy and I sure do love you.” She'd do this; she'd start putting her ear close to my mouth like, ‘Bring it on. Keep it coming.’ Now, she has three kids, two boys and a girl. Her youngest is named Penny.
Last weekend, me and my wife, Robin, were watching Penny. Penny's about the same age as Erin was at that time. he likes to climb up in my lap and she requires my full attention. She was holding my face and she was doing this, trying to figure out, how did that happen? How'd you get that on your chin? Then, I started saying to her, “You're beautiful; where did you get those beautiful eyes?
I sure do love you.” There came her ear close to my mouth. What is that? We love gracious speech.
It's like we were built to be loved and built up and yet we deny it to people. God's grace has been poured out in us and we should overflow with it. That's the first kind of speech. He says, let it overflow. He doesn't say, be gracious.
He says, let, which is like, allow, because it comes from God. It's not from us, it's from God. Let it bubble up and go out. Let there be gracious, edifying, beautiful speech and people will follow you around like a puppy dog just to hear you because you encourage them. They love to hear you talk.
Gracious speech. Then the second kind was salty speech, he says, “seasoned with salt.” Salt has many uses, but I think here he has in view the flavor of it. The flavor of it, I think, seems to be the proverbial use here of salt as a seasoning agent.
You might say “tasty” speech, so that it tastes good to hear it. Your ears think it tastes good to hear. I think it also has the idea of what Jesus talked about in the Sermon on the Mount, that it has to do with sharing spiritual truth and biblical truth with people. He says, “You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.” I think it has to do with spiritual speech, salt seasoned speech.
Then he says, “... so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” So it's the kind of speech that takes into account the person in front of you so that you speak in a way that they can understand, not for your own benefit, not according to your own timing and need, but according to theirs. You might think, Well, how would I like it if I just met somebody? How would I know how to say something that was perfect for them? Well, remember, you've already been praying about it and you've already been caring.
You already have an attitude. I care about this person, even if I did just meet them. Then, you're asking the Holy Spirit to tell you what to say to them. If you're sensitive to the Spirit's voice inside of you, you'll say things to people and they'll think, How did you know that?
How did you know what to say to me? You have to be honest and say, “I didn't, but I just had a sense that God wanted me to say that to you.” Paul says, “so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” Life becomes an adventure when we live like this, when we go out prayerfully saying, “Lord, use me today.
Open doors of conversation for me to talk to others about Jesus. Give me a broken heart for people so I care for those that don't see. Help me to care for them. Lord, I'm not finished till I share the gospel with them,
but help me to do it with grace, seasoned with salt, and in a way that they can understand it.”
We want to bring out the flavor. I know some of you like popcorn without salt. You're on a diet. I'm sorry, I can't do that. I like salt on my popcorn.
It just tastes better. I think maybe I like the salt better than the popcorn. I don't know what that is, but I do like salt on it. It enhances the flavor. Our speech should be seasoned with salt, full of grace and always attentive to the hearer and
what they would need to hear in order to bring out the opportunity of the gospel. Prayer, Care and Share, Share, Share. What if we go out from this place like that? What if we gather for power today from the Holy Spirit and we scatter for proclamation; we go out and we start talking about Jesus everywhere we go. Church, we've said “yes” to God and we've made these commitments financially.
But, the most important aspect of this vision that God's calling us to as a church is, as you go, we're to make disciples. We're to be out there with gospel intentionality, praying for gospel opportunities, caring for others, and sharing the gospel in an attractive and generous way. Let's pray. Lord, thank You for Your word. Thank You for this people Lord, that You've called us together to serve You, to be Your hands and Your feet.
Lord, before we pray for ourselves, I want to pray for those that may have come in today and you're an outsider. You're someone that God's working on right now and you came in on a thin thread today. Somebody invited you
or you found us on the Internet. You're watching online. You're hurting and you're far from God today, but you want to come near. Would you pray with me right now? Would you pray right now and make a decision to hear about Jesus and to follow Him and to give Him your life? Pray like this.
“Dear Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner. I've been living my life my own way, but today I surrender my life to You. I believe You died on the cross for my sins and that You were raised from the grave and that You live today. Come and live in me. By Your Holy Spirit, make me born again.
I want to be a child of God and I want to follow You all the days of my life as my Lord and Savior.” If you're praying that prayer, believing, He'll save you. Others are here today and you're a believer, you're a Christ follower, but you've been living two lives, one public and one personal, one private. Pray, “God, forgive me. I want to be whole.
I want to live for You everywhere I am and everywhere I go. Lord, I lift up the names of the people that You've put on my heart this morning. Lord, I pray for an open door to share Jesus. In His name we pray. Amen.”
Audio
Church, it's so good to be with you today. I had promised you last week, or not really promised, but I had told you that we were about to start in the Sermon on the Mount. But I was so excited about that series that I wanted to put even more effort into study and preparation for it. So the Sermon on the Mount is going to wait two weeks. All right, those of you who are excited about that, and I wanted to spend just a couple of weeks on a topic that I think is timely for us.
This topic is Gospel centered living. So for the next two weeks, we're really going to dig in. Just some nitty gritty stuff together that we haven't talked about in a while, and I think that'll be great. Today we're going to be talking about this idea of living with gospel intentionality. But I want to give you a quick report, those of you who I'm sure would love to hear.
Last week we reported that we had exceeded our goal with its time. I want to let you know you can pop this up for me, James. We are now at 1.635 as a commitment. So give the Lord a hand and pop up the next one, if you will. James, we've already, already given this much between our church, both campuses, so praise him for that.
I'm very thankful for what God is doing. So let's dig in. This idea of its time was meant to be, always meant to be an opportunity for us to be strong and do the work and be fearless. And that begins really with our gospel intentionality, that we would be the kind of people that just emit, if you will, exude the gospel wherever we go. And that's, I think, the Christian goal above all things is that we would represent Christ well and wherever we go.
And so that's the idea of today's word. We're going to be in Colossians, chapter four and talking about this idea of the gospel being a part of everything, every aspect of your life. I would recommend a book to you. It's not a small read, but if you like it, if you're a reader, you like this kind of stuff. The book Total Church by Chester and Timmis.
These are some British guys, so they've got a kind of a different look at things than maybe you always get. But here's a quote from that book. We need church or we need Christian communities who saturate ordinary life with the Gospel. The communities to which we introduce people must be communities in which God talk is normal. This means talking about what we are Reading in the Bible, praying together whenever we share needs, delighting together in the Gospel, sharing our spiritual struggles not only with Christians, but with unbelievers.
We want our life together to be gospel saturated. We want to live and talk the gospel as part of our shared life. So the gospel, then, is just a part of everything you do. The way you work, the way you speak, no matter who you're talking to. Church member, Christian, non believer, it's the same from you all the time.
That's what it means to be a follower of Christ, to be Christlike. But maybe, I bet a lot of us, sometimes even me, you may feel a disconnect between your personal spiritual life and your public life. There may be, at times you feel like there's a version of you that goes to church and community groups. And maybe even the way you speak in this setting is more encouraging and more uplifting. And then Monday hits and then it's back to work, right in the same group of people that have been cutting one another down for 10 years, you know, or however long you've been there.
It can be a cutthroat world. Maybe Monday morning you're back in the schools where there's bullying and hardship and there's which version of you. It causes you to ask a question of what is my true self? Like? If I was to live the most pure version of me, whatever God has made me to be, what would that look like?
How would that impact the way I talk tomorrow, the way I live out my life? Which version of me is really me? What would it look like to be a little more consistent, such that I'm the same guy everywhere I go? What if every day you could be a lot more intentional about your spiritual walk, a lot more intentional about the things that are going on in your study of the Word, the things that are going on with your prayer life. What if that began to just invade every aspect of your life?
That's a wonderful what if? That's what Paul's talking about to the Colossian church. That's really the point, if you will, maybe the ultimate point of the Christian walk is this, that your life would be following Christ. Every day, every moment of every day, there are going to be mistakes. It's not about perfection.
It's about a goal in mind of every day I want to look a little bit more like Jesus. I want to speak a little more like him. I want to be a little more intentional with his Word. Here's what Paul tells the Colossians, the Colossian church he says that their everyday lives could be radically used by God if they would just live out their lives with gospel intentionality. And we can do this too.
I believe the text is going to make very clear three ways to live out our lives with gospel intentionality. So let's read together. Colossians, chapter four. Just a handful of verses. It says, continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.
At the same time, pray also for us that God may open a door to us for the Word to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison, that I may make it clear which is how I ought to speak. Listen to this church. Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. This is God's word.
Amen. What a wonderful word to us today. A very simple word. But simple doesn't always mean easy. It's a challenge to us to walk this way.
So how do we do it? How do we live with gospel intentionality? These are very easy points that if you can't remember them, I can't help you. There's just. There's no help for you.
The first one is prayer, alright? And these are going to not only be one words, but they're going to rhyme. So I don't know how to help you more than this. The first one is prayer. This is where Paul leads off.
That's an obvious choice. Paul, of course you let off with prayer where there's a reason that the discipline of prayer ends up leading off every time you study the Scriptures. It's because our power for living starts with our walk with the Lord. Our power for living starts with conversation time spent with the Savior. We can't at any point imagine that we're going to have the words necessary, the energy necessary to live for Christ.
If we don't spend time with Christ, that's kind of crazy. I know. But sometimes we try this. We really just try to power through the day without the power of prayer. Paul starts here.
He says continue steadfastly in prayer. This is one of the imperatives of this text that means the commands. He says continue in it. I want you to persevere in this. In fact, he tells the Thessalonians in 1st Thessalonians he says pray without ceasing.
That prayer should just so inhabit your life that you're constantly praying. That self worry that you're already doing. Move that. It's not that hard. Just go from worry and anxiety to, alright, let me take that thought and say, here you go, God.
Hey, I'm pretty nervous about this situation. I begin praying without ceasing by just taking all these thoughts captive, as Paul says, and turning them into prayers. And then something wild happens. Now suddenly the anxiety and the worry begins to change the way I think about other people, begins to shift the anxious feelings I have towards others that I don't like so much. When I turn those into prayer now, suddenly I can feel a well of grace that only comes from God.
And so steadfast prayer. And then he goes on to say there's a kind of watchful prayer, if you will. He says, being watchful in it. In what? In the prayer that he's talking about.
So continue steadfastly in prayer and be watchful in it. What in the world does that even mean? You ever watchful in prayer?
That means you want to hear God speak, right? I hear this constantly from people. I just wish God would talk to me. I just wish he would show me his will. He would speak into my life.
That means you've got to stop running your mouth sometimes. You ever pray like that? Just pray, pray, pray. My dad used to say it this way. Pray empty and then wait.
And sometimes praying empty takes a while. Some of you haven't talked to God in so long that praying empty might take all day because you hadn't spoken 10 years. It's time to get on that take tonight. Spend some time in prayer. But pray empty and then wait.
Wait for what? Watchful prayer. I'm listening now. God, speak to me. What's that going to look like?
Is it literally going to be a and all of a sudden I'm going to be down on my face? I don't know. That'd be cool. Tell me about it later. He can do that if he wants to.
Do you think God could do that? Sure. He does it in his word. What's most likely going to happen though is thoughts are going to begin to invade your mind. That you're like, I don't think that's from me.
When it sounds really smart, it's probably not you, right? Or when it's really challenging, it's probably not you. You need to reconcile with your father. Something like that invades your mind. You're like, that's probably the Lord.
You need to make things right with your spouse. You need to do this with your children. If it's super challenging, it's probably God. If it's super wise, it's probably God. But pray.
And then Paul says, be watchful. That means stay awake. This isn't really what Paul's speaking of, but this is maybe an aside. When you pray at night, maybe don't pray laying flat in the bed and wonder why you just woke up. I was in the middle of prayer.
Well, you're not being highly intelligent. You're sleepy, all right? So get down. There's a reason that Christians had a habit in the past of being down like this, hard to sleep like this, being watchful in prayer.
And then he says with thanksgiving. So he's really given us, very quickly, some helpful hints as to how we might pray. Continue in it, persevere in it. Pray without ceasing. Be watchful.
Listen, once you've prayed, pause for a while. Okay, God, however you want to speak to me, speak to me. And then finish with thanksgiving. God, whatever you're doing, whatever you're up to, everything doesn't look perfect. There's some hard things going on in my life, but I trust you and I'm grateful because I don't deserve you.
And yet you've given your life freely for me. Prayer. Now, what's Paul praying for here? Now, this is a prayer. I have to admit, a lot of us don't pray very often.
He says, pray for open doors. We have a habit of praying for things that we ought to be praying for. Our daily bread. Hey, Christ says pray for that. We have a habit of praying for things like forgive us our debts as we forgive others.
We ought to be praying for that. Those tend to come to mind first. God help me. I don't have enough. I don't know how I'm going to pay this bill.
That's good. Pray that God forgive me, I repent. I've messed up again. That's great. You should pray for that.
But Paul says pray for us to have an open door. How often do you just pray? Hey, God, that co worker of mine, that's getting on my last nerve. Would you provide an open door for me to be a gospel witness to them? Oh, not that person, Jonathan.
Whoa. I don't want to pray for that person at all. That's the person you definitely better pray for. Pray for them first.
Pray for an open door, he says. Here they are being persecuted, walking through the streets of these Roman cities. Paul goes from place to place, getting beaten, imprisoned, and he says, pray for open door. I just want to talk about the gospel with these people. You don't have it that bad, friends.
You just don't but he mistreats me. You wouldn't believe what they said to me. Well, he didn't hit you with rocks. That's an improvement.
Pray for an open door. That God would just swing these doors open. This is the kind of way that Paul prays. This is so amazing. I just want to remind you there's this.
There's this sense throughout Scripture where Paul and the apostles are listening to God. They're watchful in prayer in such a way that Paul says in another place in the Book of Acts, he says, I was on my way to Asia, but God closed the door. And then I had a vision of a man in Macedonia and I felt God was leading me there. How does that happen? Unless you are watchful, steadfast in prayer and praying for open doors?
Paul says, this is my habit. I want you to understand. God is showing me the way. He wanted me to be in Greece and in Rome. That's where God desired me to be.
Pray, pray steadfastly. Declare the mystery of Christ. He says, I want the open door for something specific that I could declare this mysterious thing that Christ has done. He says, stay alert, be watchful in prayer. He tells the Ephesian church in Ephesians 6.
Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere. I might argue that's the hardest prayer of all, that you would pray for all believers everywhere. There's believers in this very room you don't care too much for. Paul says, all believers everywhere pray for me too.
He says, ask God to give me the right words so I can boldly explain God's mysterious plan that the good news is for Jews and Gentiles alike. Do you have this kind of lifestyle of prayer and of sharing? He tells Timothy in 1 Timothy 2. First of all, I urge you that supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings be made for all people, kings, those in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way that is good and it is pleasing in the sight of God, our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the full knowledge of the truth. Warren Wiersbe, he's with the Lord now.
A great commentator, a great pastor. He says, if each believer would pray for the lost and watch for God's open doors of opportunity for witness, we would win more people to the Savior. That's blunt and that's true. Paul had this kind of lifestyle. I want to encourage you with a Story.
This is one that might be familiar to some of you. Paul has this experience on his second missionary journey. They think it's somewhere around the year 51 AD. You can check this story out in the Book of Acts, chapter 16. But when he's writing to the Colossians from prison in 61 AD, about 10 years later, he might be envisioning what God has done in the past on many occasions.
There's this one occasion where Paul is jailed in Philippi. And instead of being humdrum and whining about it, which is probably what I would do, I'm just being honest, I'd probably be there going, God, I thought you called me to this place. I'm in prison. They're probably going to kill me. What in the world?
But Paul and Silas decide this is a good opportunity to sing. I don't know what they were singing, but it must have been quite a song. It must have been quite a time of worship because a quake hits. The doors are broke open. God shows up.
If you've ever been in a room where God shows up, it's a powerful time. And it always looks like this. It's always beyond compare. And God shows up in a mighty way. The doors are broken.
The jailer comes in and is like, I'm going to kill myself. I'm sure they've all escaped. And Paul tells him, we're all still here. God opened all these doors. I don't know what Paul was praying that night, but God literally opened his jail door.
And Paul knew this isn't what God wants me to do next, though. He doesn't want me to walk through it. He wants me to hang around and guess what happened. The Philippian jailer comes to Christ. He and his family.
I think the Bible says there. Amazing. Paul's got an experience with God literally opening doors. He knows what it means to pray in worship and see God move. I would ask you, church, would you begin to pray like this?
God open doors in my life. God open doors for the purpose of the gospel. Not just doors that I might succeed and that I might get more and more high on the rung of my career. Those are doors we often ask God to open. But God, open a door with my co worker, open a door with my dad, open a door with my sister.
God, open a door with my cousin. God, open a door. Lord, what if we prayed like this? Lord, I'm available to talk to you about anybody that you have in my life that you would have me speak to. Let's talk about it.
I'm listening, God, I'm available to speak on your behalf with anybody you've kind of put in my path. You know, I have no doubt that there's people in your life right now that God intends for you to speak the gospel to. He's purposely positioned you right where you are for that very reason. And some of you are complaining about your work, and it might really stink, I don't know. But I want you to know something.
It's not accidental right where you are. God has a purpose right there. Where? And in your family for sure. What would it look like to say, God, I am willing, I am available to speak on your behalf.
Write those names down. Who are those people? We're still doing this together. This is a thing we should never tire of. We've got these impact cards in the back.
They're orange. It's an opportunity for you. Write a few names down. In fact, on that bottom line, there's one that says, my long shot. Right, right there.
The person that you believe, there's no way, unless God does a miracle, this person's coming to Christ. You're in luck, though. God does miracles all the time. What would it look like to consider opening doors? Here's the second way that Paul speaks to.
So the first is prayer. Got it. The second care. Oh, man, I might remember these. Prayer, care.
You've heard it said before, perhaps, that people don't really care how much you know until they know how much you care. And that's just true. That's just a principle. That is so true. And if you don't show people love and grace and mercy and caring, they could care less what you say about Jesus.
In fact, you're a poor representation of him. If you're an aggressive, spicy, difficult individual, they'll say, well, yeah, that guy goes to Eastgate Church, but man, they're the worst. I don't ever want to go there. Just don't tell people you go to this church. If that's who you are, you're welcome here.
I hope you'll be a little less of what you are when you leave the day that there's a better version of you that cares. Paul says Walk, verse 5. He says, Walk in wisdom towards outsiders. This is the second imperative in this. Walk is the idea.
It's not literally this. The Hebrew idea of this is the way you live, the way you conduct yourself. The word walk is often used in scripture to talk about living in such a way with wisdom. He says, walk with wisdom to towards outsiders. Wisdom has to do with knowledge, sure, but it's more about doing what is honorable, proper.
Having a wisdom comes from God, if you will. Having a God kind of mindset, a Christ like mindset about how to deal with outsiders. He's specific here. He's saying, I want you to live a certain way among those outside of the faith. That's what he's speaking about.
Outsiders are. He's not talking about Gentiles, he's talking about those outside of the gospel. Sometimes we call them the lost. That might be you today. We ought to walk with wisdom, certainly in Church.
Verse 5 goes on to say, making the best use of time. I really love this phrase. In the Greek, it literally means to redeem the time, to buy it back. This is the sense that you would look at each hour and go, what is the best way I can use this moment? It's easy.
And I don't blame you at all for counting down the hours to which you can finally leave work today, for counting down the hours before it's Friday. Some of us tomorrow morning will wake up and go, Friday's coming. You got a long week though. A lot of opportunities. Paul says, making the best use of time.
He writes this. I just want to put it in perspective. Paul is writing this in jail. So I'm praying, would you pray for me that I'll make the best use of my time? What time?
What are you doing, Paul? What's he in there doing? Praying for more open doors. God, you've got me in this place. There must be another prisoner that I'm supposed to reach.
Maybe you want me to do a Philippian jailer 2.0. I'm here for you. Whatever you want me to do. God, making the best use. If Paul can do that in jail, you can do that tomorrow at McDonald's or wherever you are.
You can do it.
I want to buy back. The time I've spent. This year will be 40 for me. I'm about to hit big four zero, everybody. And I can tell you right now, I've wasted a lot of time.
I've wasted a lot of time and so have you. Paul says, I want to buy it back. I want to redeem it with what time I have left. I'm going to make the best use of what's left. And the way I'm going to do that is the way that I treat others, the way that I walk.
In wisdom, he says, be filled with the spirit. This is what he tells the Ephesian church about walking under the influence of Christ. He says, look carefully in Ephesians 5. Look carefully then how you walk, how you live. Not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time.
He loves this phrase. Why? Because the days are evil and you can get wrapped right up in them. You can just get sucked into the evil days instead. He says, walk differently, therefore.
Don't be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Do not get drunk with wine, for that leads to debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit. Walk under the influence of Christ and go therefore. Jesus says this in Matthew 28, the great commission, one of the most famous texts of all. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
I've said this before, but the word go there is a participle. It literally means as you go, as you are going. Jesus isn't confused about who you are. He knows that you're already going somewhere, you're already doing things. He says, as you go, make disciples.
As you go to work today, make disciples. As you go back home after church today and have lunch with your family, make disciples. You know who you should definitely be making disciples? Your children. If you think that's the church's job, you haven't read your word.
That is your job. Mom and dad go home, make disciples. When you go back to visit your friends and family over the holidays, over Easter, whenever, make disciples. As you go. When you go and do police work, when you go into a hospital, when you go and exterminate bugs, go and make disciples.
When you fix people's H vac units, make disciples. Make disciples. What's the purpose of your life, friend? Somebody's asked me this many times, hey, what should I be doing? I don't know what my God given purpose is.
Well, I don't know specifically what it is, but here's what I do know. And as you go, make disciples. If you're not doing that part yet, you're beyond the initial question. Work on that first. Jesus tells this wonderful parable about caring about this idea of walking and making the best use of time.
One of the most famous parables of Jesus, this is in Luke, chapter 10. He tells this story of a man who gets robbed and beaten and left for dead on the side of the road. And he's telling this to some people that were definitely put on edge by the way he tells it. This man is left dead and beaten on the side of the road and a priest walks by and the priest looks away. And moves on.
A Levite walks by, sees him and moves on. And then a Samaritan, a person who is kind of vile and somewhat hated in Jerusalem, an outsider walks by, picks the man up, puts him on his own horse, takes him, feeds him, cleans him up, pays the innkeeper to take care of him, and says, whatever else he runs up in cost, I'll come back and pay that. It's the Good Samaritan story we hear. Oh, the parable of the Good Samaritan. Have you really looked into this story, Christian?
Because I got news for you. A lot of the world thinks the church is filled with priests and Levites and not Good Samaritans. I don't know if you are aware of this. Just pay attention to the media, to things you watch, to friends, to people you interact with. They have an assumption that the church isn't really taking care of people.
Christians, that is not what he taught. You want to give people the good news of the gospel. It starts with, you're laying dead on the side of the road. I don't need to preach to you yet. I need to pick you up.
I don't need to preach to you at this moment. I need to help you stop bleeding. This is why some churches, they'll say, hey, we need to be about the social gospel. Yes. We need to take care of needs.
We need to help people. Guess what? That's just part of what we need to do. Some churches say we need to be about the word and the doctrine and this. I want you to understand something.
Both are true. We should do them both. And it's challenging. But it's a wonderful calling. It's a wonderful challenge.
Perhaps they walk by the priest and the Levite, the religious. Perhaps they walk by because they're too busy or they're put off or they'll assume, hey, I've seen a guy that looks like that a hundred times on this path. Who's this guy? I'm not dealing with him. He's asking for money.
You know, we get in our way and we just assume the worst about people. What would it look like to care and to act? He was interruptible. Part of being caring. Church believer.
Part of being caring starts with just simply being interruptible. Not being so stinking busy that you can't do anything for anybody. Build more margin into your life. Who is in your daily routine right now that might need a listening ear, an act of kindness right now? Co worker, family member, who is in your life right now that could use a Good Samaritan?
People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Here's the third share. Some of you felt that coming you'd already gotten it. Prayer, care, share. We like to lead off with share.
Sometimes some of you are real gung ho. I appreciate you just know this. Sometimes when you're sharing precedes praying and caring. It doesn't go great unless the Lord is just somehow doing something miraculous. Generally, we need to be filled with the Holy Spirit and genuinely care about people.
And then sharing begins to be easy. Look at verse six. One writer says of this. He describes this as three types of speech. Verse six.
It says, let your speech be gracious season with salt and answering the person. So it's not just random you're answering something. So it's a gracious, seasoned and appropriate kind of speech.
Now, I could go a lot of different ways with this. I got news for y'all, church. There's kind of an expectation on you when people find out that you're one of these Christians. Alright? This might be bad news.
It shouldn't be. Should be good news to you. There's an expectation on you when people hear you're a Christian, you're one who's faithful in church. There's an expectation that you're not dropping the F bomb every other sentence. There's an expectation and it's the right expectation.
Friend.
Oh, it's just a word. Yeah, it is. And there's a lot of bad ones out there. It is just a word. Gracious speech.
This word means filled with grace. Charming. There are some words that aren't charming. There's a lot of words that aren't curse words, that are pretty horrible words. But I'm just.
I'm at the water cooler, I'm talking with my friends, I'm telling dirty jokes. You're not the dirty joke guy, man. You've moved on. Guess what? The old creation, the old you, is dead.
There's a new creation in Christ Jesus that's encouraging, filled with grace, filled with mercy. Man, that's going to take a minute. Yeah, okay. Give your tongue over to the Lord. Maybe your prayer life starts this week with God.
My mouth is a hot mess. Would you begin to guide my language? Gracious speech, attractive, edifying, pleasant to the hearer, that gives grace and unmerited. Favorite. This kind of speech is generous.
I've never been one to say a lot of, you know, curse words or dirty jokes. It's never really been my habit. But I have to admit something to you. For a long time in my life, I felt like I just was discouraging to people. There's a habit among young men.
I don't know about you ladies. I've heard with my teens, my almost teen girl, they're pretty awful to each other. Girls, I think, on a different kind of level. Like, they're mean, and then they hate each other for life. Like, it's kind of crazy stuff.
So, girls, you listen in. All right? But I know this much, for boys, we have a habit of showing love by saying horrible stuff to each other. And it's kind of manly and it's kind of. Okay, guys, come on.
You hear me on this. Your best friend is somebody you'll call up and say, what's up, knucklehead? You know, you're going to say just silly stuff to them. And I think there's a place for that. But I want you to understand something.
I began to feel like all I did was cut my friends, the people I love the most. I'm cutting them down because we're familiar and we're friendly. Started to feel kind of an ache in my spirit about it. Like, every once in a while, I just need to tell my best friend, you know what, dude? You make life easier for me.
Like, I'm thankful for you every once in a while. And guess what, guys? Some of you who aren't married yet just know this. Your women are not going to be very interested in that. What's up, stinker?
No, I mean, maybe if it's a pet name. But just know they're looking for encouragement. You need to grow. Gracious speech. When's the last time you told somebody you really care about that you care?
Oh, he knows. No, he doesn't. Oh, she knows. Till today. I'm thankful for you.
I'm encouraged by you.
And see what God can do when you begin to speak this way with people. And then he says, seasoned with salt. Seasoned with salt. Some of y'all's speech is simply not tasty. It may not be curse words.
It might not be even bad jokes or bad vibes, whatever. But it just is piercing everything you say. If you're the kind of person, just know that people around you are already aware. If you're the kind of person that only ever says negative stuff and you're wondering why people avoid you and they never want to be in your life, it's because you are negative Nancy. If there's a Nancy in the room, I'm sorry, it's just a phrase.
You're the One who shows up with negativity every time and people start to avoid you. Some people like me. Guess what? I'm a pastor. I can't avoid you.
But just know, all week I'm going, Man, this is going to be a tough one. Hey, Church, do me a favor, all right? You don't have to do this, but just if you need to meet with me about something, can you give me a hint? Because otherwise I'm stressing all week. Are they about to come?
They're about to show up with a gun and shoot me? I don't have a clue what you're coming to talk to me about. I don't have a clue. Jonathan, we want to talk about this. Okay, then.
You can't show up and blindside me with some kind of crazy conversation seasoned with salt. Paul comes, it seems, with encouragement for people, with grace. Let me tell you about the man I know who's changed my life.
Is your speech filled with salt? Are you answering people? This third one might be a challenge for some of you, that you may know how you ought to answer each person. Guess what happens, church. Be ready for this.
When you begin to live a life that is prayer filled, spirit filled, and full of gracious speech and seasoned salt speech, guess what's going to happen. People are going to wonder. Be prepared for that. What's changed in you? What's going on with you now?
You start doing the things that the word of God calls you to. People will ask questions. Don't freak out then, friend. Don't cower now. Paul says, be ready to answer.
Have that kind of boldness, gracious speech. Ephesians 4 says, Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as as is good for building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear salt season speech. Jesus says, you are the salt of the earth. If salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.
You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket. They put it on a stand so it gives light to the whole house. In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
What a wonderful, wonderful picture. Guess what happens when salt loses its saltiness. It's useless. And what good is the light that's covered up? You ever Get a bucket of movie theater popcorn.
And the person just forgot to put salt on it. Just go ahead and put those little Styrofoam things in your mouth. You might as well. Those things that come in packaging. Awful.
This is how some of you speak to other people. Ugh. Oh, gosh. He just keeps throwing it in my mouth. I thought this person was a Christian.
Why is everything they say just bitter? Yuck. Salt is the most powerful spice of life, if you will. I think it's got to be up top 10 at least. Not only does it enhance the flavor in almost everything.
I mean, even if you're going to make a good, like dessert, you're putting a little bit of salt in there to give it enhanced flavor. But not just that. It's necessary for your body. It's so important to the way your body operates. It preserves food.
It heals. I don't know if you've ever noticed, walking through a hospital, it seems like everybody's hooked up to this bag of what, saline? It's powerful. So is your speech seasoned with it? Full of grace?
Does it enhance the flavor of the conversation? Does it heal? Or are you just Captain Destructive Christian? I urge you, pray, care for people, and then share them in such a way that it's grace filled. What would it look like to bring this flavor of the gospel, every conversation, this gracious, clear speech in every part of your life?
I hope and pray for us all in this room, this opportunity that's in front of us. I want you to know something. This week, our loan got approved for the new building. It's wonderful news. Wonderful news.
Yeah. You can get excited, but just hold it in for a second. I'm about to say something. Here's what I know for nothing will change if we don't change. Nothing will grow.
No people will come. We can do all kinds of things and spend all kinds of money to try to reach people, but if we aren't intentional with the gospel, the gospel won't go out. So I just want you to understand something as you look at this text, that it takes every single one of us to live out the gospel. That the church is meant to be God's people on mission, not just some priestly class that doesn't even exist in Christianity. We're all ministers of the gospel, ambassadors of reconciliation.
Let's pray now together, Church. Heavenly Father, I thank you so much that first of all, you did. Such a wonder in my life, such a wonder in the life of this church, that the reason we're even gathered in this place today is because you were so filled with grace, you were so filled with care that you sought us out and saved us. That God, the things that you call us to in your word, you did first on a level that's incomparable, that we can't even reach on any level. God, I thank you for who you are to us.
That your grace and mercy poured out through the cross and that we are set free today and we're freed with a purpose that God, sometimes we miss this as believers, but our powerful purpose is this, that we would be about the gospel and the kingdom moving in our generation. That there's nothing more fulfilling in this life than to get to see God stir in the lives of our friends, our family, our co workers. There's nothing more exciting than to see God change people's lives.
God, I pray now that your people, this church, whatever name comes to mind right now. They would fill in the blank and just fill in a name right now of service. Somebody they're praying for, somebody that God, maybe they frustrate you. God, that person. Would you provide an open door for the gospel?
Maybe it's a dear friend, but they've rejected the gospel before. God, would you provide a fresh door to walk through that I could share my faith? God, would you provide opportunities in my life where I can simply care for people and. And help me have eyes to see it, help me not to overlook it? God, encourage me in this.
God, I pray for your church today that they would have such a powerful prayer life on their own that it would invade every aspect of their lives. I pray that you would so move this week in the way that they pray and in the way that they read your word that they would know God is on the move in my life and he's so ready to use me in a powerful way. God, I pray we would not be able to miss that as a church, that we would never ever tire of the opportunity to be gospel intentional in our lives. That that should never ever hit us. God, encourage us, embolden us in this way.
We pray in Jesus name. Amen.