Colossians: Spiritual Fuel for Prayer and Evangelism
CoaH member Dr. Jonathan Simpson preaches from Colossians 4:2-6. Discussion points: We can’t follow the commands of God without the correct spiritual fuel, the Holy Spirit is in us giving us the fuel we need to live in Christ, ultimately prayer is our most effective tool for evangelism.
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Scripture reader: [Colossians 4:2-6] 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.
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Preacher: Alright, good morning everyone. All right, it's a pleasure to be with you this morning. My name is Jonathan. For those who don't know me, I'm a member and CG leader here at CoaH Somerville, and it's my joy to be bringing the word of God to you this morning. And today is our second to last week in the series through the book of Colossians that we've been going through. Actually, no, it's our third to last week because Fletcher is going back to the passage that we skipped, but fourth to last week. OK, there we go.
And Colossians is one of my favorite books. I've been really enjoying this. it was one of the first books that I studied properly in college, and so, hey, I have, just great memories of discovering rich and beautiful truths from this book for the first time. And today we're looking at 5 short verses from the beginning of chapter 4, and in fact the passage is short enough that I'm just going to read the whole thing again.
So Colossians 4 chapter, chapter 4 verses 2 through 6, 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. 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 little section is listed in the ESV version under the heading further instructions, which I think is a very apt description. You know it's, it's short and sweet, and it's not really very difficult to understand. A few basic instructions written by Paul to the church at Colossae. And if we were to summarize these instructions, it might look something like this. First of all, in verse two, we have the instruction to continue in steadfast, thankful, and watchful prayer. Then in verses 3 to 4, pray for the spread of the gospel and then verses 5 to 6, be a wise and gracious witness in word and deed to those who are not yet Christians. Simple, right? Right? OK, great. well, you'll keep doing that then I guess. Oh wait, you want me to say more? I knew I should have written more notes. OK, I'm not that out of touch, don't worry.
Because in all seriousness, these are simple instructions on paper. But there's really nothing difficult about understanding what they mean, right? Be steadfast in prayer and in our evangelistic witness. But if I asked you all how you're doing on those things, then how many of us would say that we've got it down? How many of us could say, yep, Paul, that's me. I'm the epitome of what it looks like to be steadfast in prayer and faithful in evangelism. And if that is you, then you have my permission to leave early and go and get a bagel, cause I don't think this will be much use to you.
But for most of us, I suspect that calls to prayer and evangelism stir up feelings of dissatisfaction, inadequacy, or maybe even guilt. And we probably fall into one of two camps here, you know, first, I think there are those of us who know the value and importance of prayer and evangelism. We believe that prayer is a way to commune with our heavenly Father and we know that He hears our every plea. We'd love to see the lives of our unbelieving family and and friends and co-workers be transformed by the love and the power of Jesus' gospel. But sometimes praying faithfully and sharing our faith just feels so hard.
And then in the second camp are those of us who feel stuck or disillusioned. Maybe at some point we've tried to build good habits of prayer and we've shared our faith, tried to share our faith with others, but it just, it didn't work, you know, we prayed to God even fervently for deliverance or provision or help, but it feels like he didn't hear us. You know, we've tried prayer and evangelism once, but it just didn't work. So we've pushed it aside and told ourselves it's for other Christians, they can do it, but it's it's not for me.
Do you resonate with either of those descriptions? Because I know for that myself, I've certainly been in both of those camps at, at different times. And friends, if you're feeling the same way, then I've got good news. And the good news is, is that scripture never instructs us to do something without also providing us the spiritual fuel to do it. And let me, let me explain what I mean by giving you an illustration here.
Earlier in the year, I bought a car for the first time since moving to the US. It's nice, yeah, it's great. It's so good having a car. It's, it's a nice little red Subaru Crosstrek. Any Subaru drivers out there? Yes. Some of you had the pleasure of riding in my little Subaru Crosstrek, but I didn't buy it new, I bought it used, and as with any used car, it comes with, you know, a bit of wear and tear, there are a few scratches on the paint and, you know, there's a little bit of a rattle under the hood. Not serious problems, but and also nothing that can't be fixed, and getting those fixed isn't, things fixed isn't a bad thing, you know, after all, who doesn't want a shiny new car that, that works like new.
The problem is that for a used car, the cost of getting those things fixed can amount to a significant portion of the price that you actually pay for it. Now, imagine that I used up my entire budget I had set aside for car expenses to pay for a panel beater to fix every last scratch on the pane and for a mechanic to restore the engine to to new. But then I realized that I actually had no money left over for a tank of gas. Right, I, I have this nice shiny new car, but I can't drive it anywhere, it has no gas. It, it needed gas and not glitter. Or even worse, what would happen if I realized my mistake, knew I didn't have any money left, and so tried to fill up my gas tank with tap water. You know, now I have a nice shiny new car that's got a completely busted engine, you know, it's definitely not gonna go anywhere now.
And while this seems absurd, doesn't it describe our Christian lives sometimes? You know, just like my car needs fuel to run, our Christian lives also need to be fueled with the correct spiritual fuel. But just like it's possible for me to spend all my money and effort on fixing my car without ever fueling it. It's also possible for us to spend all our energy trying to obey the God's commands without ever attending to our spiritual gas tank. You know, without the correct fuel for our spiritual lives, we inevitably find ourselves sputtering out, feeling defeated or disillusioned. And then like putting tap water in my gas tank, we try to put alternative fuels in to motivate us. Guilt, moralism, or even fear of being rejected by God. But that just causes further spiritual damage and disillusionment.
But friends, as I said, scripture never instructs us to do something without also providing us the spiritual fuel to do it. And that is what this passage is about today. It moves us from sporadic or skeptical prayer to steadfast prayer. You know, it takes us from, neglectful evangelism or fearful evangelism to joyful evangelism. You see this passage gives us the fuel for steadfast prayer and joyful evangelism. Now you might be thinking, Jonathan, I thought you said that these were just simple instructions. Like I didn't hear Paul say anything about this is the spiritual fuel to do these things. And of course you're right, Paul doesn't explicitly say that, but if we look just a little bit closer, then we see that Paul's motivation for these things, for prayer and evangelism is actually very clear.
So that's where I want to go here for the rest of this message, and I've got two main points. First, we'll discover what it is that fuels steadfast prayer and evangelism. And then we'll look at exactly how it fuels those things. So first of all, what is it that fuels these commands to prayer and evangelism? Look at verse 3 again with me. Paul says, 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. Through this prayer request of Paul, we learned for the first time in Colossians that he's in prison. And we know from the book of Acts that this is referring to his imprisonment in Rome.
He was in the temple in Jerusalem and he was arrested by the Jewish religious leaders around AD57, and they hated him for preaching the gospel to Gentiles throughout the Mediterranean during his missionary journeys. And during his trial, or his sham trial really, he, Paul appeal, appeals to Caesar and then is extradited to Rome, where he's kept under house arrest, probably chained to a Roman soldier the whole time. So, this isn't your typical small jail cell with bars, but nonetheless, Paul wasn't free to go and do the missionary work.
And at the time of writing Colossians, Paul had probably been imprisoned for about 5 years at this point. Now, if I was unjustly imprisoned for 5 years, then I think my first and only prayer request would be, Lord, get me out of here. But that's not what Paul asks. Look at the language here, he doesn't ask that God would open the door for the prison, open the prison door, but he asks that God would open a door for the word of Christ to be proclaimed. And this is an intentional play on words on, on Paul's part. He wants his readers to understand that his priority is not his freedom, but the freedom of the gospel, the spread of the gospel. In fact, the very gospel that got him into prison in the first place.
Clearly, Paul has a source of motivation here that's beyond his own personal interests. And if we look closer, we see what it is. Notice that Paul doesn't actually say gospel, although he could have, but he asks that God would open a door for them to declare the mystery of Christ, right? The mystery of Christ. And that's a key phrase because it points us back to chapter one, where Paul explains what he means by the mystery of Christ.
Look at chapter 1 verses 25 through 27. Paul says, I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. To them, God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Christ in you, the hope of glory. There it is. Right? That's the message that Paul wants to proclaim, the mystery of Christ, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
And Christ in you is not just the message that Paul is proclaiming, but it is the very thing that motivates him towards steadfast prayer and joyful evangelism. Christ in you is the fuel of steadfast prayer and joyful evangelism. Now you might be thinking, OK, that's, that's a nifty catchphrase with bad grammar, but what does it actually mean that Christ is in us? Well, Fletcher did a great job, of course, of explaining this a month or so ago when we were looking at Colossians one, but I think it pays for us to have a reminder.
And I want you to think all the way back to, Genesis, with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. They were created by God in the image of God, or as Jared reminded us a few weeks ago, we could say that they were created in the image of Christ or in Christ. God's intention from the start was to intimately dwell with humankind. He walked with them in the garden. But when Adam and Eve disobeyed God and sinned, their sin caused this cosmic separation between God and man, and as a result, they became less human. Now God in his justice could have done away with them and forsaken them. But in his mercy, he chose to continue pursuing mankind because he still intended to dwell with them. And we see this in his covenant promise to Abraham, where God promises that a great multitude will come from Abraham and that he will be their God and they shall be his people. And then we see that God delivers the Israelites, from their captivity in Egypt and leads them into the wilderness and his presence comes and dwells in their midst in the tabernacle.
But it turns out to be kind of terrifying, to be honest. Only the priests could enter into the presence of God in the holy, in the Holy of Holies, once a year and then the people had to adhere to strict rules for worship and sacrifices in order to be accepted and forgiven by God. God's presence dwelt in their midst, but it looked nothing like the intimate union we saw in the Garden of Eden.
But then, then we see the promised Messiah come, Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us. Finally, the presence of the Lord is dwelling intimately amongst His people and, and even in human form. Jesus doesn't reject anyone who comes to him. Because the sacrifice of his own perfect life restores this chasm between God and man once and for all.
But that's not all, because do you know what's better than God with us? God in us. That's why Jesus says in John 14, I, to his disciples, he says, I will ask the Father and He will give you another helper to be with you forever. Even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. And then in in John 16, he says, I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.
Why was it to his disciples' advantage that Jesus goes away? Because Christ in you is even better than Christ with you. You see Christ in you means that His Holy Spirit, the very presence of God, dwells within the hearts of all those who believe in Him. And I know this concept might be hard to grasp, but it's, it's something far better than what the terrified Israelites had. It's even much better than what Jesus' disciples had. And in, in one sense you could argue that it's even better than what Adam and Eve had in the garden.
And friends, as I look out here on all of you today, I see the fulfillment of God's promise way back in Genesis that he will once again come and dwell with his people because Christ is in us. God is dwelling in our midst, and that's just something so amazing. We have an intimate union with God that no one has had since Adam and Eve. And what's even more remarkable is that God has made this restored union with him available to everyone, not just the Israelites. Do you see how glorious this truth is? We have intimacy and access to the goodness, power, and love of our Creator God because Christ is in us.
Now I should point out that if scripture says Christ in you, then it also automatically implies that just as glorious truth which is so intimately related of you being in Christ or us in Christ. Now I don't have time to go into detail of what it means that we are in Christ. This is kind of confusing, Christ in us and us in Christ, but essentially being in Christ is a shorthand way of saying that everything that Jesus has, we also have. You know, in case it's not obvious, I can't flap my wings and fly like a bird. Gravity and physics sees me and says, no. But if I'm in an airplane, then gravity and physics sees the airplane and says, yep, that checks out. Like you can fly now.
If I'm outside of Christ, God sees my sinfulness and gives me my just reward, spiritual death and separation from him. But if I'm in Christ, God sees Jesus. His righteousness and his sacrifice for my sin, and gives me Jesus' just reward of spiritual life and communion with God. The glorious truth of Christ in us and us in Christ are two sides of the same coin and wow is this the most beautiful and precious coin that we can be in possession of.
Look how Paul just beautifully summarizes this in Galatians 2:20 and identifies it as a spiritual fuel of his life. He says, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, in Christ who loved me and gave Himself for me. Or in other words, I've died with Christ to my old self. Jesus now lives within me and his life is my life. His life is my motivation, my energy, and, and my power for everything that I now do.
You see, to Paul, Christ being in him and him being in Christ was the essence of Christianity. In fact, he never once uses the word Christian to describe believers. But he does use the word or the phrase in Christ no less than 150 times in his letters.
And then look at what theologians have said. Thomas Goodwin in his sort of classic 17th or 17th, 18th century language says being in Christ and united to Him is the fundamental constitution of a Christian. And then J. I. Packer says communion between God and man is the essence of true religion. It is indeed the definition of Christianity. Friends, this is what we have. We have union with Christ because Christ is in us and we are in Christ. Union with Christ is our life and it's what fuels and empowers us to obey the commands of God. So that's my first point.
But let's now take a closer look, from our passage at how Christ in you fuels steadfast prayer and joyful evangelism in particular. Look again at verse 2, the command is to continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. How does the truth of Christ in us and us in Christ, enable this? Well, the idea of being steadfast means to keep at it, to continue, even if it feels like it's not worth it. And this makes sense, if, if Christ is in us by His Spirit, then he's closer to us than any other person in our lives. He's always with us.
Rankin Wilborn in his fantastic book Union with Christ, which I'd highly recommend, provides this little exercise that has been helpful for me in embracing this idea of being steadfast in prayer. And he talks about the internal narrative that we have with ourselves, just continuously throughout the day, which is often and almost always framed in terms of I. So what, what do I need to do? What do I want, you know, I, I, I. But if Christ is in us, then we can actually reframe and we should reframe that conversation that we have as in terms of we, what should we do? What do we need?
You know, imagine if your best friend was by your side wherever you went. It would be crazy if you never said a word to them about what you were experiencing, you know, what's on your mind and your heart, you would just naturally talk to them. But Jesus is closer than our best friend by our side because he lives within us. And this idea of, of having a conversation with Christ who is in us is, is better than the proverbial what would Jesus do, because it reflects the reality that Jesus isn't over there or somewhere in the past, but he's actively living within me today. So steadfast prayer becomes an internal and natural conversation with Jesus.
And then we also have these ideas of being watchful and thankful in prayer. Being watchful in prayer reminds us of the night when when Jesus was betrayed in the garden of Gethsemane and his, he told his disciples when they were falling asleep to watch and pray because the enemy was at hand. You know, perhaps the enemy's best tactic to distract us from the things of God is to make us forget that Christ is in us, you know, to make us think that Christ is not near.
You know, as, as I've been preparing this message, I was reflecting on myself on, on how I've been doing with prayer and evangelism. And to be honest, it's, it's not the best. You know, I have this desire to, pray daily and, and I often do, and, but then I was also thinking about, when I last shared my faith with someone, and to be honest, it was probably a few months ago, and when I realized that I was just kind of grieved and disappointed by it. Because I have this genuine desire to do it and it gives me a lot of joy, right? And I'm sure it does for you as well. Praying to God is a joyful thing and sharing our faith ought to be a joyful thing as well.
But as I was dissecting, why, why is it that I haven't been doing these things faithfully, it wasn't so much because I don't find joy from it or I don't think it's important. But I think the main problem is that I am just so easily distracted from the things of God. Do you feel this? Yes, we ought to be watchful against temptation towards, you know, the big sins. But perhaps the most important temptation we need to be on constant lookout for that I need to be on constant lookout for is the temptation to become easily distracted and forget that Christ is in us. Because that's when I'll default back to my old self, thinking that I'm at the center of my life. But if we are watchful in prayer, then we are on alert for this insidious and sneaky tactic of the enemy. And we are able to recognize that when we, when we are forgetting that Christ is in us. And then we have this call to thankfulness. Christ being in us is, is the source of all of our thankfulness.
You know, when we remember and meditate on this fact, our hearts naturally well up with thankfulness because we have something that's far better than than anything else and so we can see the world and everything that we have from God through a lens of thankfulness. And even in the most dire and horrible situation we may face, he still lives in you. He will never forsake you, and that's something to be truly thankful for.
So that's how Christ in us reshapes our prayer, but what about these next two commands? Well, in verses 3 to 4, as we saw, Paul asks for the Colossians to pray for the Lord, to open a door for the gospel that he would be able to speak it clearly. And I just want to point out that this is actually a very reassuring thing for us to read. You know, I think a lot of the times we think of Paul as this super apostle and then we tell ourselves that we don't have the same sort of courage or eloquence or knowledge to be able to share our faith like that. And the truth is, we don't. But Paul knew that too. He couldn't rely on his own knowledge or courage to share his faith. That's why he asked the Colossians to pray that the Lord would open the door for them, for the gospel to be proclaimed.
You know we can share our faith effectively only because the Holy Spirit lives in us. He's the one who enables and empowers us and he's also the one who works in the hearts and minds of those who hear the gospel to make them receive it. Friends, it doesn't depend on our courage or eloquence, or perhaps more accurately it doesn't depend on our lack of courage or lack of eloquence. But it does depend on prayer. God loves to hear the cry God loves to hear us cry out to Him for lost souls to come to Jesus, and he moves when we pray for it.
As Billy Graham said, the most important step in in preparing for evangelistic outreach is prayer, prayer, prayer. But again, one of the biggest barriers to praying for the gospel or praying for the spread of the gospel is becoming distracted from its importance. But it doesn't have to be that way.
And you know, sometimes I think there's just some very simple things that we can do. When I was thinking about this yesterday, I just set a reminder on my phone that goes off at 12 p.m. daily, and just reminding me to pray for one unbelieving friend and pray for us as a church to spread the gospel. And so I'm just gonna take 5 or 10 seconds, it doesn't have to be long, and just pray to God and just ask for those things. And I'd encourage you to do the same thing too, but don't do it now because you'll get distracted. But do it after the service. You know, it's just a very simple low stakes thing, but let's, let's see how God answers our prayers for these things.
So that's the instructions to be steadfast in prayer and, and pray for the spirit of the gospel, which leads me on nicely to this last set of instructions, which is to be a wise and gracious witness to those who are not yet Christians. In verses 5 and 6, Paul tells them to walk in wisdom toward outsiders, and by outsiders, he's not necessarily meaning those who are outside the walls of the church, but he's referring to those who are out of Christ. You know it's entirely possible for you to be in a church building and even think you're part of the church but still be out of Christ. It's only through faith in Jesus that we are in Christ.
And so if you're sitting here today and you're not sure whether you can say that you have faith in Christ, you're not sure whether you are in Christ, then first of all I just wanna say that you're very welcome here and we're so glad that you're here. But don't remain out of Christ. Talk to a Christian friend you trust about how to have faith in God and come and talk to me. I'd love to talk to you after the service as well, we have prayer counselors who will be back here during the last song. But for those of us who do have faith in Christ, let's make the best use of the time in our interactions with outsiders, as Paul says.
And what does he mean by that? Well, think back to the airplane analogy from earlier. As insiders, as people inside the plane, we cruise comfortably at 40,000 ft. But if you're outside the airplane, then you're free falling, and it's only a matter of time before you're gonna hit the ground. We only have a limited time to interact with unbelieving friends while we're on this earth. So let's not waste our time, but let us make the best use of the time and have some urgency towards seeing unbelievers come to know Christ. Now that doesn't mean that you have to ambush on your unbelieving friends with the gospel in every conversation, you know, that's probably gonna be counterproductive. But there are tasteful and wise ways to do this.
You know, as I said before, the first and most important thing will be prayer. But then as Paul points out here, one of the most effective witnesses will be our words. This world is is full of people complaining about things and criticizing and gossiping and putting people down. But if we have speech that is always gracious, meaning that it is not full of complaining and gossip and and slander and those sorts of things, then that's gonna stand out, right? Gracious speech is tasteful. It brings out the best in people. It's like salt to a meal that enhances all the good flavors and it's full of encouragement, care and love, even when we don't feel like showing those things to people.
But how do we keep up this kind of witness in a broken world full of complaining and selfishness? Well, you guessed it, right? It's by Christ in us. And as we remember the riches of Christ and daily live in the glorious reality of that, we find ourselves wanting to speak of the love and goodness more and more. As Jesus said, rivers of living water will flow out of us. If we are enjoying the riches of Christ's life in us, then we'll want nothing more than for those who do not know Christ to come and also be in Christ and experience the riches of what that means.
And so church family, as I wrap up here, I want you to see that the reality that we are in Christ and Christ is in us is what fuels steadfast prayer and evangelism. But even using the word fuel doesn't really do it justice, you know, fuel is a commodity that is burned up, but union with Christ is our life, it's our being, it's our everything to us. And I just want you to, as we close, to hear the words of Jesus and what he says in John 15. He tells his disciples, abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me, you can do nothing.
Apart from Christ, we can do nothing to please God. But when we were, when we are in Christ and Christ is in us. Then we are like fruit, a fruitful branch that sources all its life from its vine. We have all the power, strength, and motivation we need to live the life that God has called us to. So let's not be forgetful branches. You know, let's remember that everything we have comes from this vital relationship we have with Christ, and if you're feeling discouraged or disillusioned or worn out, then know that Christ is in you and that he loves you and He will graciously supply the life and the energy that you need to obey God's commands. And let's be people who meditate on the riches of Christ in us and encourage each other in that each day. And when we do that, when we daily remember those riches of Christ in us, it's then that we'll be a people of steadfast prayer and joyful evangelism. Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we just praise you and thank you for your great love for us and the reality that Christ is in us when we have faith and we are in Christ. Lord, we, we can't receive anything greater than that. So I, I pray for each person here and for myself that you would open the eyes of our hearts to see the riches of the glory of this reality, Lord, of what it means that you are in us. And I pray that we would just live daily, abiding in you in the reality of your riches, and that through that, our hearts would well up with thankfulness and joy, that we would feel the strength and motivation to obey your commands and and delight in that. So Lord, I pray that you would strengthen us to be a people of steadfast prayer and joyful evangelism as we remember that you are in us. And so I pray this in Jesus' name, Amen.