All right, turn with me in your Bible to Colossians chapter 4. One last time here in the book of Colossians. Colossians chapter 4, we're going to look at verse 2 through 18, and that is on page 1254. If you're going to use one of the Bibles that we provide underneath the chair in front of you, this morning we'll conclude our 10-week series on the book of Colossians. So, here we go. We now, God's holy, true and life-giving word, Colossians chapter 4, starting in verse 2. Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. 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, that I may make it clear which is how I ought to speak. 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. Tick-a-kiss will tell you all about my activities. He is a beloved brother of faithful minister and a fellow servant in the Lord. I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are and that he may encourage your hearts. And with him, Onesimus, our faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you. They will tell you of everything that has taken place here. Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, greets you and Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, concerning whom you have received instructions, if he comes to you, welcome him. And Jesus, who is called justice, these are the only men of the circumcision among my fellow workers for the kingdom of God. And they have been a comfort to me. The pafferus, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God. For I bear him witness that he has worked hard for you and for those in Leodicea and Hieropolis. Luke, the beloved physician, greets you as does Demis. Give my greetings to the brothers at Leodicea and to Nympha and the church in her house. And when this letter has been read among you, have it also read in the church of the Leodicea, Leodiceans, and see that you also read the letter from Leodicea. And say to Archipus, see that you fulfill the ministry that you have received in the Lord. I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand, remember my chains, grace be with you. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray. Father, we do thank you so much for the time that you have given to us over these last many weeks to study the book of Colossians and to see the glorious things that Paul taught to the church in Colossi through this letter about Christ and about the gospel. And we thank you that these things are as much for us, that these things he has taught also teach us who Christ is, what he has done, what he is doing. And so we pray now as we conclude our sermon series, as we look at this last passage here that you would bless us, that you would open our eyes to the glory and majesty of the Lord Jesus, and that you would strengthen us for continuing our mission to make disciples of our neighbors and the nations. And we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Last night Hannah and I, and actually a number of people from UPC got to attend a fundraiser for crew. And it was so encouraging because we got to hear some stories of some people who have come to Christ. We got to hear about a number of people that have come to Christ even some recently. And one of the stories that we heard was a story about a young lady named Mel, and she was telling her testimony. She was talking about how it was just a year and a half ago. She was a freshman in college, and she was very much down and out. She was experiencing depression even, struggling with alcohol, drugs, her life, and her words was just a mess. And then somebody invited her to go to an event on campus, and she got involved in crew on her college campus, and heard the gospel, and she believed. And she was talking about how it has transformed her life. She has experienced this incredible transformation. And so she was standing there talking about this, and filled with joy and purpose, and it was just so powerful. And then a little bit later we heard about, we heard from a man that came to Christ decades ago, and he was sharing his story about how back when he was in college, he had grown up in a home where Christianity was not really taken seriously, and he, too, was invited by somebody to get involved in a campus ministry, and he got involved, and then he heard the gospel. Somebody shared with him the good news of the gospel, and it transformed him. He believed it, and it brought about all these changes in his life. And then he told this amazing story about how he went back and talked to his dad about being a Christian. I think he said his method was saying, Dad, I've become a Christian, and you have to also. And his mom eventually came to Christ, his dad came to Christ, his sister came to Christ. Just amazing. It's so encouraging, and such a powerful reminder of the way as the gospel goes forth, people believe, people believe in the gospel, if it is God's will at that time when they hear it. And so he was really encouraging, and it's really timely, because here we are at the end of this letter that Paul wrote to the Colossians. And for the majority of this letter, he has focused on helping the Colossians have a right understanding of who Christ is, and helping them understand the transforming power of the gospel, what they're meant to experience as a body of Christ. And now he turns his focus outward, as he calls them to be sharing the gospel and thinking about how they're interacting with the non-believers in their midst. He shifts the focus from what's meant to happen inside the body of Christ there at Colossia to what's meant to happen outside. He's turning to their evangelistic efforts, their efforts to communicate the life-changing power of the gospel to people around them. And so he's calling them to do what people have done for Mel and for Mark, the gentleman who shared his testimony last night. He's calling them, and God is now through this text calling us to be people who share the gospel, to be people who advance the good news of the gospel. See, believing in applying the truth about Christ with people inside the church is supposed to be coupled with grace-driven efforts to share the gospel with people outside the church. We want to be a church that has a good balance of inward focus of our own spiritual growth and outward focus, reaching more and more people. So our focus this morning, as we bring this sermon series to a conclusion, is that Christ calls his followers to both experience and export the life-changing gospel of grace. And I want to do that this morning by talking about three things that we see here in this passage. Paul talks about prayer. If we want to be a church that's fruitful and reaching people for Christ, we're going to have to be a praying church. Number two, he talks about wisdom. We'll see what he says about having wisdom towards nonbelievers, those who are outside of the church, and then third vision. He gives us an incredible vision for the power of the gospel to transform anybody. Okay, let's jump in. Look at verses two through four. Keep your bibles open. We'll just walk right through here. And let's talk about prayer. What we're going to see here is that a church that wants to reach people for Christ has to be a praying church, verse two. He says, continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with Thanksgiving. 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, that I may make it clear which is how I ought to speak. So if we want to reach people for Christ, we need to be a praying church. Some translations say devote yourselves to prayer. That prayer would be a huge part of our walk with Jesus and our advancing of the gospel. One author says we should understand what Paul is saying here is a call to pray habitually and with perseverance. And notice he says to be watchful. Why does he say to be watchful? Well, that's likely because of the Christian belief that one day Christ will return. He's going to make all things new for everyone who trusted him in their lives. So it's a reminder to be watchful of the fact that one day Christ is coming back. But what he's doing here is he's helping them understand that the Christian life is not one of just waiting for Christ to return. But also telling people about the gospel as we'll see in a moment. The Christian life is not simply kind of waiting in the lifeboat for the Coast Guard to arrive, but rather reaching out and trying to bring in people who are still in the water, so to speak. So he's leading by example here, he's showing his passion for reaching nonbelievers with the gospel by asking for prayer, prayer for them, prayer for him, prayer that the gospel would go forth. But look at what he wants him to pray. This is so important to see. Notice what Paul is depending on here. When he asks for prayer that he would be able to communicate the gospel, notice what he's depending on because it's not himself. Look closely again and notice what he says to pray for. He says pray that God may open to us a door for the word. That's really huge. When he says the word, that means the message, in other words, a door for the gospel. What he's depending on is the power of the gospel itself. So he's saying pray that God will open up doors for the word to get to the people who don't yet believe. And he knows that the power to transform a life is in the word, in the message, in the gospel message itself. You and I cannot convince anybody to believe. Did you know that? No matter how articulate or persuasive we are, we don't have that power. And so to depend on ourselves would be foolish. The power is in the word itself. And I think one of the reasons that 67% of Christians have never shared the gospel is because we naturally think I'm going to have to convince somebody that this stuff is true. But Paul doesn't say, pray that God opens a door for him, does he? He says pray that God opens a door for the word. The power to change a person's heart is exclusively found in the word of God. It's like Paul says elsewhere in Romans 10, 17, faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word about Christ. Doug Moose says about this, it is the word that must be given entrance because it is the word that has the power to transform human beings. This is huge for us to understand that as we, what we're praying for is that we would have opportunities to simply share the gospel, believing that the gospel has the power in itself to change someone's heart and mind if it's God's will for them at that moment. It works on its own. We don't have to depend on ourselves. It's thinking about this. I remember years ago when my oldest child, my boy, got his first shot. We went to the doctor in Hannah, couldn't be there for some reason and I took him to get his shots and he's just a little baby and I've never done that before. So the nurse was saying, hey, dad, get home, he's dad, dad, if you ever, is it your first child? It's the first time you've seen your child get shot. I'm like, yep. And she's like, okay, I'm going to tell you what's going to happen. I'm going to stick him in the leg with the needle and then he's going to take a deep breath. He's going to hold it. He's going to get a little blue and then he's going to let out the loudest scream in the history of the world and then it'll be all over and you can hold him and we'll get through it, okay? I'm like, sure, whatever, let's do it. And she sticks him in the leg and he takes this huge breath and he's not letting it out. His hands are shaking and I'm forgetting everything she said and I'm like, malfunction, do something, something's wrong here. He's turning blue and I'm like, mate, mate, mate, and she's like, I told you about this, I warned you about this and I'm like, this is bad, this is bad. And then finally, he lets out this huge scream and he starts to cry and then finally, she's all done. She's putting on the little band-aids and I can pick him up and he finally calms down and shortly after that, I finally calm down and it's all said and done. And I always think about that because you know, like medicine in that way is so interesting, right? Like once the medicine goes in, that's it, you don't do anything. The medicine somehow, on its own, knows where to go. It knows what part of the body to affect, I have no idea how that works. But the medicine has the power in and of itself to go do in the body what needs to be done, right? This is what Paul is saying about the gospel. This is why he's saying pray that God opens a door for the Word, the message of the gospel, because the gospel has the power in and of itself to come from us, yeah, we say it, but then as it goes in through the ears, it's the gospel itself that goes where it needs to go to the heart, to open eyes and minds and faith in the heart of a person. So that's huge because that means when we're seeking to be a fruitful church, what we're praying for is not that we'd be the greatest evangelist in the history of the world, but simply that we would have the ability to simply deliver the gospel, okay? That people would hear the gospel trusting that it will do what it's going to do on its own. So in fact, I think there's two applications here. One, I think it's important that if you are a Christian that you have, that you learn some simple way to present the gospel to others, okay, and there's a whole variety of ways to do that. So I want to challenge you in your community groups to talk about the various ways that you share the gospel with others. That would be a really good application here. But then second, to be praying, praying in your families, praying in our community groups, we pray as a church that we will have opportunities for the word to go forth, okay, that God would open an door, open opportunities for us to simply deliver the message of the gospel, and then we'll let the gospel do what the gospel does. So we need to be a praying church. Second, wisdom. Look at verses five and six. A church that wants to be reaching people for Christ has to be a church that's applying wisdom in the way that we interact with nonbelievers. Let's take a look at what he says. Verse five, walk in wisdom towards 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. So in Paul's day, people use the word walk as a way to describe the way you live. So he's saying, live with wisdom towards outsiders. And it's interesting that word wisdom can also be translated as skill. So he's literally saying, live with skill towards outsiders, okay. And when he talks about outsiders, he's just talking about people that are outside of the faith, they're not part of a church. Live your life with skill towards those who are not part of the faith, not part of a church. That's quite a call. And then he tells us how. He tells us exactly how do we live with wisdom toward non-Christians? And what he says is that we need to speak graciously, seasoned with salt. What is he saying there? Doug Mu, a commentator says this, Paul is calling Christians to speak with their unbelieving neighbors and friends with gracious, warm, and win some words. Isn't that interesting? He's saying, be gracious and loving and kind with the people that we're trying to reach. It seems like common sense, but yet so often, we don't, right? We're not gracious towards those outside the faith. But he's saying that we need to, we're called to be warm and win some to communicate the good news of the gospel in warm and win some ways. It's part of how God opens the door for the word to go through our seeking to love and be kind to those that we're trying to reach. We don't often think about this, but the signals that we send to those who don't believe matter. The way we talk to people who don't believe, the way we react when they talk about things that they value or they believe, it sends signals. And the way we send signals or the signals that we send matter when it comes to our being fruitful in sharing the gospel, in fact, there's this crazy story about in 2004, Portugal was going to be hosting the European Championships for Soccer. This is a tournament that happens every four years. And so Portugal in 2004 was going to be hosting the tournament. And they knew that hundreds of thousands of people were going to flock in to watch these games. And so there was one big problem that they were worried about, English soccer hooligans. Maybe you've heard of the term soccer hooligans. Well, basically, the Portuguese police knew that the soccer hooligans had this history of just trashing the place when they would come in for watching these games. In fact, four years before this happened, when the Portuguese police were getting ready for this to happen, they were looking back four years to when it happened in Belgium. And they knew that Belgium had the police in Belgium, when it was going to be hosted there, they had spent millions of dollars in training, in riot gear, in surveillance cameras, and information systems. And they thought they were ready, but they weren't. And over 1,000 people ended up getting arrested in the streets as the soccer hooligans smashed in windows and beat up innocent bystanders and just rioted at nightmare. So they knew that had happened in Belgium. So now Portugal is supposed to host in 2004 and they're thinking, okay, we need to get ready too. And they did get ready. They spent a lot of money getting ready, but they decided to take a very different route. They decided to approach this whole situation differently. They listened to some direction from a psychologist from Liverpool University named Clifford Stott. Stott had studied the LA riots in 1990. He'd studied some riots that happened in the UK. And as the 2004 championships were approaching, he proposed a theory. And he suggested it would be possible for the Portuguese police to keep these hooligans from being a real problem. But he had a very unconventional method. Here's what he said to do. He said, first, no riot gear in view. No riot gear, no helmets, no armored cars, no nothing. Okay. Second, he said, all the police officers who are visible should be wearing a pleasant blue vest, not the normal yellow bright vest. Third, he said that only the friendliest police officers get to be visible and talk with people. And then fourth, he said that, let's see, often what would happen is the hooligans would be kicking soccer balls around and the police would go get it and then they would start fighting with them. So he said, only if soccer ball comes within your reach are you able to actually take it. Don't go get it. And so his theory was that if you send signals that were actually here for you, we're not against you. We're not going to fight. The things will go very differently. In fact, it got affectionately referred to as the hug a thug approach. And it worked. It totally worked. A million people flooded into Portugal to go to these games. And out of 2000 police crowd interactions, only 0.04% qualified as disorderly or violent. In fact, the only place there was a really violent altercation was where they had riot gear out and in view. You see, what this psychologist news that the signals sent by the police matter. When they sent the signal were actually for you, we care about you, we're not here to fight, it changed everything. And this is what Paul's saying here too. What signals are we sending to those who don't believe? Are we sending signals of, I'm judging you. Are we wrong? I'm right. Are we sending signals of, we're not here to fight. We're here to love you. We care about you. We have your best interests in mind in those of the whole world. This is a call to engage those who don't believe with grace, with love and with kindness, to be winsome. Here's where I think this can get really practical. A lot of times I've been around people, Christians and non-Christians together and then the non-Christian will talk about something they value that God doesn't, or they'll talk about something they do that God says not to do. It's such a temptation for the Christian to say, well, that's wrong, you shouldn't do that. And all they hear is judgment, right? Oh, you're judging me, right? And then they're going to bow up too because they feel like there's a fight. The Paul's saying, we need to trust, we need to expect non-Christians to live like non-Christians. Why wouldn't they? We get to be gracious. We get to speak to them with grace. We get to be winsome to them. In fact, let's think about it. Ultimately, wasn't it the grace of God that led your heart to repent and to trust in the Lord Jesus and set same kind of grace that Paul's saying here, push the grace, push forward the grace, show that you actually love them, we actually care about them, be winsome and warm. It's a hard, it's a big challenge, but it's a big part of what it's going to look like for a church to be a fruitful church. So we want to be praying for opportunities for the word to come from us, but ultimately from God to the people. And we want to operate with wisdom. We want to send signals of actual love and care for the people that we're trying to reach. And then third, we need a vision, okay? Look at verse 7 through 18, I'm going to take each verse one at a time now, just kidding. We're going to have to go through this next part fast, but that's okay. We need to pray and we need to operate with wisdom. And then third, we need a vision, a church that wants to reach more people for Christ needs a vision for the power of the gospel to transform lives, any lives. And that, whether he meant to or not, that's exactly what Paul does here. He gives us a vision of the power of the gospel to transform lives of a variety of different people, of all types of people. Take a look at what we see here. If you think about the diversity in this group, it's really quite remarkable. And these are all people, by the way, that the greetings are for people that he knows. These are people who have heard the gospel. They believed themselves. They became part of the world Christian movement. They became part of the church whose mission is to make disciples, to share the gospel and teach those who believe how to follow Jesus. And one of the things we see is ethnic diversity, ticacus, tapafris. These guys are Gentiles, Aristarchus, Mark and Justice. They were Jewish Christians. And we don't often realize how much animosity there was between Jews and Gentiles. But now the Gentile Christians and the Jewish Christians, they're all in the same group here. They're all united to Christ and to one another. So it's a picture of the power of the gospel to transform people from any ethnicity, from any traditional background. Second, we see socioeconomic diversity. Verse 9, you see Onesimus. Onesimus was a runaway slave. He had nothing, not even two pennies to rub together. And then a few verse later, in verse 14, you see Luke, Dr. Luke, the beloved physician, Paul says. So you've got a doctor who has a very special role in society and would make money then like they make money now, and then you've got this runaway slave who has nothing. So you see total socioeconomic diversity here. The gospel reaches people from all types of economic situations. You see men and women, Nympha, as mentioned, she's a woman who was, they think she was a widow who hosted the Laodice in church in her house. And then you see multiple communities, right? The letters to Colosse. They're supposed to read it in Laodicea, and he also mentions Hieropolis. So you have all these different communities. And what you have is this vision for the power of the gospel to transform lives from all different backgrounds, from all different ethnicities, from all different economic status. It's amazing. We should give us all the more courage to pray that we'll have these opportunities, and then to go ahead and share the gospel, win somely, and warmly. It's amazing. You know, think about last week when we heard the testimonies, in the first service, you heard one testimony, in the second service, we actually heard two testimonies. The second testimony was, had to have a translator, because the woman only speaks Spanish. It was beautiful. And they heard the gospel, and their lives are being transformed. We have to have that vision that the gospel can change anybody. Finished with this, I heard about this situation in which there was a revival in this town somewhere in the Midwest, and an evangelist had been having a tent revival for a couple weeks and every night hundreds of people were coming out to this tent, and they were singing, and he was preaching, and they were having a revival. And in that same town, there was this owner of an adult store, and with all of the focus on this revival, nobody was coming to his store. And so he got pretty frustrated, and he actually hired a killer to go and shoot this evangelist so that the revival would end, and people would start coming back to his store, so he thought, so he hires a killer. And this killer goes to the revival, and he's thinking, this evangelist is going to come out on stage, and I'll shoot him, and I'll go. And he is standing there, he walks in, he's got a coat, and he's got a gun covered by the coat, and he's going to kill the evangelist. Well, the evangelist wasn't feeling well that night, so they started without him, and they decided to start doing some singing, so they're playing songs, and some of them are really upbeat songs about loving each other, and they're singing a song about hugging each other, and pretty soon everybody's hugging him, he's standing there with his gun in his hand, he's being hugged by all these strangers, and it's pretty intense moment. And then the evangelist still isn't ready to come out, so they start having people get up and give testimonies. So one after another, he hears these testimonies of how people put their faith in Jesus, and it transformed their life, you know, and being forgiven, and being set free from the power of sin, and they're just telling these stories, and people are amazed at the power of the gospel. Then finally, the evangelist comes out, and this guy's still standing there with his gun in his hand, covered up by his jacket, and the evangelist comes out, and he's on the platform, and he preaches the gospel, and he says that, you know, God is holy and just and must punish sin, but he's also a loving father who wants to forgive, and he said that mankind, we're all sinners, we have sinned, we deserve the wrath of God, and we can't save ourselves. But God, in his mercy, sent the Lord Jesus to die on the cross, to pay for our sins, and to give us his righteousness, and that through faith in him, through repenting of our sins, turning away from that life, and through trusting our life to him, we receive the forgiveness of our sins, where declared righteous, where promised eternal life, he just preaches the gospel. And then he says, I want to invite any of you who want to give your life to Christ to come forward, and so all these people start filing out of their seats into the aisle, and then the killer starts walking down the aisle, too. And he gets right up to the platform, he's just inches from this evangelist, and he drops to his knees, and he's surrounded by other people that are given their lives to Christ, and there's counselors there, and he drops to his knees, and he just cries out, really loud, I can't do it, I can't do it, and one of the counselors didn't know any better, so she said, sure you can't, God wants you to do it! And he pulls out the gun, he says, no, you don't understand, I came here to kill this guy, and I can't do it, I don't want that, I want Jesus, and he gave his life to Christ, right there, right there. We need a vision for the power of the gospel, to change anybody. And with that vision, then that's going to help us want to be, win some and warm towards the people that we hope to reach, and when we're ready to be, win some and warm, then we just pray and say, God, open a door for the Word, and we deliver the message, and we trust that God will take it to the heart, and to the transformation of that person, if it's God's will for that person at that moment, or at some point in the near future. Pray, wisdom, vision, these things will make us a much more fruitful church. Let's pray. Father, it's easy for us to forget that we heard the gospel at some point. We shared it with us, and we became Christians, for those of us here that are indeed Christians. Lord, if there's any here that are not Christians, I pray that today that you would give them the gift of faith, and Lord, we do pray that you'll help us to be a fruitful church, boldly trusting the power of your Word, of the gospel message itself, being gracious and win some towards those outside the church, and living with a vision of the power of your gospel to transform anybody. Lord, please make us a fruitful church for your glory, and for our joy, in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.