Christ Preeminent (Part Twenty-Eight): Breaking the Huddle

Transcript

JRNT 50
March 10, 2024
Christ Preeminent (Part Twenty-Eight): Breaking the Huddle
Colossians 4:5-6
Jesse Randolph

Well, as you know we live in a football state and I know that's probably already a controversial statement because some will say no, volleyball now takes center stage here, Nebrasketball is back. I understand, but Nebraska, I will contend, is still a football state. Cows, corn, fullbacks, that is in the DNA. Now knowing that, it won't be a shock or a surprise to anyone here today to hear me say that an essential part of any football game is the team huddle. In the huddle the offensive players, we know, circle up behind the line of scrimmage, the quarterback relays the play call he has received from the coach on the sideline, triple yellow Y post, green belly 22 go, whatever the call is. With that play call the quarterback is relaying to the other players on the team how they are to execute on the coach's play—which linemen are to pull, which tight ends are to go in motion, which running backs are to pick up blocking assignments, where receivers on the field are supposed to post up. Every piece of that play call is essential and the huddle is critical to how that play call is then executed and brought to fruition. Now engage with me if you would just for a moment, indulge me in a thought exercise. What would happen in any given football game if that huddle never broke, that is if the team stayed huddled up in that circle, never clapping their hands, never yelling break, never lining up in formation, never advancing the ball down the field but instead they just remained in that huddle. Eleven men or eight men or six men, depending on what part of the state you are from, calling themselves football players, donning football jerseys, knowing that their mission is to take the ball down the field but who refuse to do so and instead choose to stay in that huddle. I researched what would happen. If there were a perpetual huddle in a football game and the huddle never broke, there is actually protocol for what would happen. First a delay of game would be called, first violation, depending on how many seconds are on the play clock and whatever part of the state you are in, but then after that more delays of game penalties would be called, successive delays of game. Then eventually players would start being ejected one by one from the offending team until a forfeit was called. So, they would lose the game by delaying the game.

Now can you imagine such a scene unfolding in a football game and the reaction of the various players and parties involved? Can you imagine the play callers, meaning the coaches on the sideline and the fury they would have that nothing is happening on the field? Can you imagine the players on the other side, the opposing team and the confusion that would ensue? Can you imagine the spectators, the fans and the demands for refunds as they left the stadium?

Now I get it, comparisons between football and faith, football and the Christian faith specifically are always necessarily lacking and flawed. They eventually break down as one is a mere game involving the throwing around of a piece of pigskin while the other is the matter of life and death and eternity. But here I do think, where we are going today, a comparison can be fairly drawn between the picture I've just painted of the eternal huddle, I guess you could call it, and the text that we'll be going to this morning. Turn with me in your Bibles if you would to Colossians 4, this morning we'll pick it up in verses 5-6. Our text for this morning is Colossians 4:5-6. God's Word reads, “Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity. Let your speech always be with grace as though seasoned with salt so that you will know how you should respond to each person.” Now with those words spanning those two verses, we see Paul giving his final words of exhortation to the Colossians and by extension to us here today. Paul's change in focus here is really significant because many of the commands and the observations that he has made up to this point in this letter have to do with life in the huddle, you could say, life in the context of the church, the Christian community of God's redeemed people. By way of review here are some of the inside the huddle, inside the church statements that Paul has made up to this point. You can track with me as I go through these, but Colossians 1:13, he says “He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” We have been “called,” Colossians 2, “to be knit together in love.” We have, Colossians 2:6-7, “received Christ Jesus the Lord, so now we walk in Him having been firmly rooted and now being built in Him and established in our faith.” Colossians 3:9 says we do not “lie to one another since we laid aside the old self with its evil practices.” Colossians 3:12 says we are called to “put on a heart of compassion and kindness, humility, gentleness and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving each other.” Then Colossians 3:14 says, “Beyond all these things we are to put on love which is the perfect bond of unity,” unity describing unity with one another. Colossians 3:15 says we are to “let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts to which indeed we have been called in one body.” Next come the commands to the wives and the husbands and the children and the masters and the slaves and fathers which give further instruction later in Colossians 3, about how Christians are to live in community with one another, specifically in their homes. Last week we did a bit of a deeper dive into Colossians 4, and we saw another aspect of life in Christian community which is the importance and centrality of prayer. Colossians 4:2 reminded us that we are to “devote ourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving.” But then as we turn to verses 3-4, we saw that Paul was about ready here to break the huddle by leading this early group of Christian believers into thinking how they might be able to, and he might be able to advance the ball down the field by way of prayer so that the message of the gospel could be presented to the unbelievers around them. In fact, look again with me at verses 3-4 there of Colossians 4 where we left off last week. He asks that the Colossians would be “praying at the same time for us as well that God will open up to us a door for the Word so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ for which I have also been imprisoned that I may make it clear in the way I ought to speak.” He is asking for prayer that the gospel would advance.

Now as we turn to our text for today, verses 5-6, we're going to see that Paul continues on to exhort and encourage the Colossians, and again this is applicable to us as well, to break the huddle. Or to put it in a different manner of speaking, to pop the Christian bubble, to break the glass case, to stop sitting around as God's frozen chosen and instead to start advancing the ball down the field as we seek to win others to Jesus Christ and call on them to repent and believe in His saving gospel. The title of the sermon you've heard already, surprise! Surprise! is Breaking the Huddle, which represents the big idea of our passage today which is namely that as Christians we cannot be content with leaving our faith here in a church building on Sunday mornings or in our various other midweek holy assemblies or holy gatherings. No, we are called to be ambassadors of Jesus Christ, proclaimers of His gospel, lights in the world, and we've been charged with bringing that message of salvation through Christ to a lost and hopeless world. We do so by adorning and packaging that message in some specific way, which brings us again back to our text, Colossians 4:5-6. In this passage, by the way, we're going to see the Apostle Paul give four specific instructions with a fifth one implied. It will be a five-point message today about what it looks like to step away from our Christianized comforts and instead to break the huddle and go out and proclaim the name of Jesus Christ.

Let's start with the first one, if you are a note taker here this morning you can put it this way, Show Yourself Sage. Look at the first few words of verse 5. It says, “Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders.” Now those first few words, “Conduct yourselves,” come from the Greek word or the Greek verb peripateo which simply means to walk. Paul's concluding command, in other words, here in Colossians 4:5 is that the Colossians walk. That's a fitting final command because that happened to be the first command that Paul gave this church back in Colossians 2:6. Looking back at Colossians 2:6, I'm sure I mentioned this when we first went through this passage, but Colossians 2:6 is the first command given by Paul in this letter. He says, “Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.” That same idea of walking is also found back in Paul's opening prayer in this letter. Look at Colossians 1:9 where Paul says, “For this reason also since the day we heard of it have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.” As we saw when we worked our way through both of those passages many months ago now, we saw that walking is a metaphor. It is picturing the totality of one's way of living, the totality of one's life. Here in Colossians 4:5 when Paul here says to “Conduct yourselves” or walk “with wisdom toward outsiders,” that's an active imperative verb which means that the walking that we are to be doing is to be consistent and steady and complete, meaning we don't just walk in this manner when we feel like it, we don't walk when it's good for us to do so, we don't walk when it brings us the greatest amount of happiness and comfort. No, we walk, period, and we walk consistently. You'll sometimes hear the statement made by really confused people, sadly with some really bad theology that they are just not walking with the Lord right now. Well, that's not how the Bible describes salvation. You are either walking or you are perishing, you are either walking or you are deceived, you are either walking or you don't know the Lord, you are unsaved. “He who is not with the Lord,” we know from Matthew 12:30, and to be with the Lord is evidenced by how you walk with the Lord. “He who is not with the Lord is against the Lord.” It's as simple as that. Paul gives this command here to walk, or as our NASB translation has it, “Conduct yourselves.”

Next comes this qualifier which defines the way we are to walk. We are to walk, it says, “with wisdom toward outsiders.” Now we're going to take those terms in reverse order here because I think that's going to be the most helpful way to think through what is being communicated here. It says we are to walk, toward whom? Toward outsiders and who are they? Who are outsiders? Well, we see that term, outsiders, used in a couple of different contexts in the New Testament. First, Jesus Himself refers to the Gentiles of His day as outsiders. In Mark 4:11 it says, “And He was saying to them, to you,” speaking of the disciples, “has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God but those who are outside get everything in parables so that while seeing they may see and not perceive and while hearing they may hear and not understand. Otherwise, they might turn and be forgiven.” He's talking about Gentiles there. We also see Paul in some of his other writings describe individuals with different degrees of attachment to the church being described as outsiders, not truly in the family of God. I Thessalonians 4:10 it says, “But we urge you, brethren, to excel still more and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands just as we commanded you, so that you will behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need.” Or then we get to I Corinthians 5, that incredibly immoral church that Paul is rebuking over and over, but I Corinthians 5:11 says, “But actually I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person or covetous or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or a swindler. Not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders.” Same word here. “Do you not judge those within the church? But those who are outside, God judges.” Outsiders in other words, are the unsaved, those who don't know the Lord, those who are in a state of rebellion against their Maker, those who disregard the creative works of the Lord as we see in Psalm 19:1-6, those who ignore the fact that the heavens are telling of the glory of God, those who ignore the commands of the Lord and dismiss the commands of the Lord as revealed in His Word. These are the ones who will face the Lord in judgment one day when He casts them into the never-ending, never-to-be-quenched flames of hell. Let it be said here this morning, and let it be said clearly that an outsider by definition is one who rejects Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. The outsider is the one who rejects the truth and exclusivity of the gospel message, meaning a good and devoted Roman Catholic is an outsider, somebody who ascribes to the Muslim faith is an outsider, somebody who is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, i.e., a Mormon, is an outsider. They all hold to a different gospel, a false gospel that undermines the gospel of grace; and of course, so is the atheist who believes in no gospel at all, an outsider. But let's also be clear about the counterpoint there, that a true believer in Christ, meaning one who has trusted in the exclusivity of Jesus Christ and His saving gospel, is not an outsider. So, let's not blur those important lines by tarring and feathering those who come from different theological camps as though they are outside the family of God, i.e., they are unsaved. Let me put a finer point on that. A covenant theologian just by virtue of being a covenant theologian is not an outsider. A five-point Calvinist just by virtue of being a five-point Calvinist is not an outsider. Someone who talks about living in the kingdom today or living right now in the kingdom, by definition of their confusion is not an outsider. Somebody who might be a bit more charismatic in their take on spiritual gifts that are in operation in the church today or not, by definition of those beliefs, is not an outsider. Someone who raises their hand in a worship service is not an outsider. John Piper, R. C. Sproul, those men were not outsiders. Now to be sure we come to the Bible differently than those men, we have much different presuppositions, we see an entirely different storyline of Scripture than men like the ones I just mentioned. But those men are brothers in the Lord with whom we will experience glory one day. As long as I am here behind this pulpit, we won't be calling those from those camps, outsiders. We are different, sure. I won't be writing journal articles for Ligonier Ministries or Desiring God anytime soon. But let's stick with what the Bible teaches about who is an outsider and let this also be said, that there are also many outsiders inside churches today. That includes children who rely on their parents' or their grandparents' profession of faith, however many years ago as being the key that's going to turn the door for them to get into heaven one day. That also includes adults who are relying on some flimsy childhood conversion story involving flannelgraphs and bedtime prayers and asking Jesus into their heart. That also includes pastors and ministry leaders who hold themselves out as being Christian thought leaders, all the while they are teaching these watered down, all roads lead to heaven, let go and let God type of messages which show that they know nothing of Christ. All this needs to be said, by the way, about outsiders inside the church. The reality is that there are outsiders inside the church because one day the mask will come off for those outsiders and one day some of those folks before they die will eventually walk away from the faith. It happens, it's inevitable. One day we will have to wrestle with what I John 2:19 says, that “They went out from us because they were never really of us. If they had been of us, they would have remained with us. But they went out so that it would be shown that they are not of us.” Of course even more frightening for them is the reality of the judgment they will face on the last day, thinking they were inside when in reality they were outside, when as they stand before Christ in all of His glory with the hair like white wool, with the eyes like flaming fire, with the sword coming out of His mouth and they try to reason with Him and they try to explain to Him that they were even doing things for Him in His name, He's going to slam the door shut on them and cast them into outer darkness. Matthew 7:21 says, and these are the words of Christ, “Not everyone who says to Me Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name and in Your name cast out demons and, in Your name, perform many miracles,” and in the modern church age you name the ministry function we performed. “And I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.” It's a tragic fate, it's a scary thought for all who think they are on the inside because they pushed open a church door and attended a Sunday service when in fact, they are outsiders.

Back to our text which speaks of outsiders, the unsaved, those who don't know Christ. It says we're to “conduct ourselves with wisdom toward outsiders.” We as Christians are to conduct ourselves toward outsiders with wisdom. What is that underlying assumption in this passage? The underlying assumption is that Christians will be among outsiders. We will as believers be near those who don't believe. This side of glory we are not called to lives of monastic seclusion, but rather we will be rubbing shoulders with the unsaved. We are in the world yet not of the world and though we don't have fellowship with darkness, nevertheless we still live in this dark world which means we will continually be around people who are spiritually blind, fumbling around in the darkness. In fact, Colossians 3, verses 6-7 reminds us that it wasn't very long ago, relatively speaking, that each one of us was in that very darkness. Colossians 3:6, it says, “For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience and in them you also once walked when you were living in them.” That's very similar to what it says in Ephesians 2:12 that at one time every unbeliever was separate from Christ, “having no hope and without God in the world.” But now having been saved through the sacrifice of the One who is called the light of the world we no longer face the prospect of the wrath of God falling on us, we no longer walk around in dim shadows of hopelessness as the unbelieving world does. Instead, we walk in an entirely new manner. Ephesians 5:8 says, “You were formerly darkness but now you are light in the world so walk as children of light.” Not only do we walk as children of light, we walk as it says here, Colossians 4:5, with wisdom, “with wisdom toward outsiders.”

So, we've beaten that concept of outsiders to death, let's now look at what it means to walk with wisdom toward those outsiders. We need to define what wisdom, true wisdom is. Now practically speaking, if we want to give a practical definition, wisdom is applied knowledge—knowing how to live and behave and then living that way and behaving that way. Now we should hear that, and we should think that wisdom is not about the number of degrees that one has on a wall, wisdom is not about the number of letters that follows one's name. Then you get a little bit more specific, and you find that true wisdom, biblical wisdom is about having the fear of the Lord. That's Proverbs 9:10, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” meaning that to know what true wisdom is, we need to first know what does it mean to fear the Lord. To fear the Lord means to worship the Lord for who He is as He has revealed Himself in creation, in history, in providence and most specifically through His Word. The one who fears the Lord, truly fears the Lord, doesn't worship some idolatrous figment of their imagination, heavenly sky daddy, a divine vending machine, someone or something that gives them a foggy notion of sense or purpose. Rather the one who fears the Lord worships the God who is: the majestic Creator of all, the transcendent ruler of all, the divine sustainer of all and the One who is the Savior of all who would put their faith in His Son. But a person cannot fear the Lord, and by extension a person cannot have true wisdom unless they worship the God who is; and they can only worship the God who is by encountering what He has said about Himself in His revealed Word. Colossians 3:16 teaches that we are to “let the Word of Christ richly dwell in us.” Then it goes on to say, “so that with all wisdom we may teach and admonish one another.”

Back to Colossians 4:5 here, to walk in wisdom involves having this right reverent fear of the Lord. To walk in wisdom also involves having this commitment to exalting the name of Jesus Christ in whom, Colossians 2:3, “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” To walk in wisdom also means to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, which you might remember we already saw earlier, was the very prayer that Paul prayed for the Colossians back in Colossians 1:9-10. So how do we do this? How do we walk in a manner worthy of the Lord? How do we walk in a manner worthy of Christ? I mean, this is going to sound obvious, but we do so by walking in a Christ-like manner. We live godly lives under the control of the Holy Spirit; and we do so not only here at church but in our interactions with the unbeliever, in our dealings with the outsider. That's the whole context here, is how we walk in a manner worthy of Christ in a context of our outside relationships with the aim of winning them to Christ. That means we continue, Colossians 3:5, to “consider the members of our earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and greed,” meaning as we relate to the unbeliever we don't fudge on our timesheets or our taxes, we don't subscribe to things we shouldn't subscribe to and watch what we shouldn't watch and read what we shouldn't read. We don't soil our reputation with a compromised life. We put aside, Colossians 3:8, “all anger, wrath, malice, slander and abusive speech from our mouths,” meaning when dealing with and encountering unbelievers we don't yell at our wives, we don't talk bad about our husbands, we don't undermine our parents, we don't curse at our children, we don't twist the words of those with whom we disagree. Instead, we put on, Colossians 3:12, “hearts of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” In the context of the unbeliever that means offering a helping hand, putting the needs of others before our own, not laying on the horn because the person in front of us in the left-hand turn lane with the flashing yellow arrow is not going fast enough. I suggested a while ago putting Indian Hills Community Church bumper stickers on our car to help regulate that one. Stay tuned. No. To walk worthy to walk in wisdom toward outsiders specifically means to walk in a manner which increasingly resembles the perfect example of our Lord. It means, I Peter 2:12, to “keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers they may, because of your good deeds as they observe them, glorify God in a day of visitation.” It means to as Philippians 2:15 says to “prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God, above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom you appear as lights in the world.”

Not only that, but there is also an important detail here about what it means to conduct ourselves, to walk in a certain way that I want to make sure we don't miss here. It comes from the companion verse to this one over in Ephesians 5, where we're going to see one more component of this worthy walk, this walk of wisdom, this walk involving fearing the Lord. Look at Ephesians 5:15, it says, “Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time because the days are evil.” Now that's a timely word if I've ever heard one, that the days are evil. They are evil, are they not? The President of the United States a few nights ago made very clear that he intends to legislatively enshrine the so-called right of a woman to slaughter her child in the womb. There is a global pandemic of sex-trafficking and pornography happening in our world. Men these days are calling themselves women, women are calling themselves men. There are men and women who are calling themselves, well they don't know what they are anymore. Parents are increasingly allowing their minor children to transition to whatever gender or lack of gender they want. Addictions are rampant, suicide is skyrocketing, hopelessness abounds. No doubt the days are evil. The great Methodist revivalist, Leonard Ravenhill, once pointed out bluntly just how evil the days are. By the way this was written 30-40 years ago. He says, “Sodom which had no Bible, no preachers, no tracts, no prayer meetings, no churches, perished. How then will America and England be spared from the wrath of the Almighty? We have millions of Bibles, scores of thousands of churches, endless preachers, and yet what sin.” He's right. He wrote that 30-40 years ago when people still knew what a man and a woman was. But it's the same problem today and think of that first sentence, the first part of that sentence, “Sodom had no Bible.” We have Bibles everywhere, translations abound and yet look at the culture, look at where things are going. Things are evil and it's into that torrent of moral turpitude that we are called to walk worthy, to live in a Christ-honoring way among outsiders. We understand that the ability to convert a soul rests with God. We understand that it is the gospel, Romans 1:16. that “is the power of God unto salvation,” but at the same time we understand that first impressions matter and we understand that our walk must match our talk and we understand that we are to live and function as walking billboards and we understand that there cannot be this wide gulf between our walk and our witness. We understand that if we are living these inconsistent train-wreck lives we actually might be a source of stumbling to those that we are trying to reach with the gospel. All that is baked into those first few words, “Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders.” Our heading there again was Show Yourself Sage.

Now as we read on Paul builds out the thought, saying “making the most of the opportunity.” So, it's “Conduct yourselves,” or walk “with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity.” If you're taking notes our second point here is Select Your Spots. As we walk in wisdom toward outsiders, we are to make the most of the opportunity. Now I know up here I tend to get carried away as I geek out over various Greek words, but I need to do it with this one as well because Paul has a very specific idea here with the words he is selecting and I don't want us to miss this as we think about how we conduct ourselves and how we walk in a world that is not only watching, but a world that is in this hell-bound nosedive. The word Paul uses here for “making the most of the opportunity” is exagorazo, and the word is derived from the Greek marketplace, the agora. You put it in verb form, and it means to buy, to purchase, to redeem. This could be translated buying these opportunities, purchasing these opportunities. It's the same word given in the New Testament to describe the fact that through the shed blood of Jesus Christ we have been purchased of God. Galatians 3:13 says, “Christ redeemed us,” same verb, exagorazo, “from the curse of the Law.” Galatians 4:4-5 says, “But when the fullness of time came God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law so that He might redeem,” exagorazo, “those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.” So, in both of those Galatians passages that verb is being used to describe us having been purchased out of slavery. At the cross a price was paid, the shed blood of Christ to purchase and redeem sinners out of their captivity to sin. Now the idea here in Colossians 4 is that just as God through Christ bought us out of slavery to sin so Christians need to buy up the time. Or as some of the older translations have it, redeem the time, to purchase opportunities to witness to and win over additional souls to that same Savior. That's the picture that Paul is painting here. If anybody here ever does like garage sales, it's the picture of the bargain hunter. They realize they have to get out there early before anybody else gets there. They realize that they need to find that sale and snap up whatever good sale they find. The idea here is letting no opportunity escape you, let no opportunity elude you, don't leave that precious token on the blanket there. Snatch it up and buy it.

Now we all have, speaking of redeeming the time, the same amount of time. Do we not? I mean, some of us of course will live longer lives and some will live shorter lives, but when you put it in the context of any individual year that we live, we have the same amount of time, the same 365 or this year 366 days, the same 52 weeks, the same 7 days in a week, the same 24 hours in a day, the same 60 minutes in an hour, the same 60 seconds in a minute. We all have the same amount of time. So, what are we doing with it? I mean, if we think that the time with our kids is passing by quickly or the time with our kids has passed by quickly, that's only measuring an 18 or so year period against the 70, maybe 80 years, maybe 60 years that we have on this planet. Now compare that to souls who one way or the other are going to live on for eternity. Depending on what they do with Jesus Christ, they will either spend an eternity in hell or an eternity in glory. Time is short, eternity is long. To borrow from the old line from C. T. Studd:

Only one life, it will soon be past,
Only what's done for Christ will last.

That being so, how are we using our opportunities with outsiders, the unsaved that lie before us. Are we taking advantage of them? Are we snapping them up like that ambitious bargain hunter at the garage sale? Because the reality is we are one day closer to the Lord Jesus Christ rapturing His church and taking us out of this world and we know that's going to set in motion a series of events. The tribulation will then come on the earth and then Christ will one day return with His church, and He's going to defeat Satan and his enemies and wrap this whole thing up. Knowing all that is coming in the offing and on the horizon, and it's going to happen in a twinkling of an eye, are you redeeming the time? Snatching up time? Conducting yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, preparing for those opportunities to share Christ that will inevitably come your way? That's what it means to make the most of each opportunity, to buy up opportunities, to redeem the time. That's built into our second point there, Select Your Spots.

Well as we're going to see, it's not just a walk that we are called to walk as we walk in wisdom, as we seek to buy up opportunities to share with the unbeliever. No, as we engage in those conversations, as we walk, we're also called to talk a certain talk. We're called to walk a certain walk and talk a certain talk. Look at verse 6 which says, “Let your speech always be with grace as though seasoned with salt.” That's our third point this morning, Salt Your Speech. As we break out of our holy huddles or Christian bubbles or Christian comforts, we're called not only to show ourselves sage and select our spots, but we’re also called to salt our speech. Now building out the broader idea here as we walk among those who are outside, those who are unsaved, those who remain dead in their sin, we are to talk a certain way. We are to use our mouths, our tongues, our words, our lips in a certain way. Now review time here. What does the Scripture say about our tongues? Is the Scripture's assessment of our tongues, our words, our mouths positive or negative? James 3:5 says, “our tongues are boastful.” James 3:6 says the tongue is “a fire, the very world of iniquity.” James 3:8 says that pink fleshy muscle that is attached to the base of your mouth is a “restless evil and full of deadly poison.” James 3:9 says with our tongues we “bless our Lord and Father and with it we curse men who have been made in the image of God.” Our tongues, in other words, have the potential to cause great harm and peril and we see this throughout the Proverbs. I won't quote these all but Proverbs 12:18 says the tongue is causing one who “speaks rashly to engage in sword thrusts, one who speaks rashly like the thrusts of a sword.” Proverbs 15:1 says that “a harsh word stirs up anger.” Proverbs 18:21 says “death and life are in the power of the tongue.” That's a real fitting word, by the way, that last one, when we think about the words that we use in the context of relationships and interactions with unbelievers, those who are outside. How often do you think to yourself when you're going to go to some event where you know unbelievers will be there, whether it's a family event or a school event or a Husker game. How often do you think, I need to watch how I speak, in fact I want to be intentional with the way I speak today. I'm here as a child of God, I'm here as an ambassador of Jesus Christ, I'm here as a witness for the One who died for my sin, who was buried and who rose again. I'm here to represent Him well, I'm here and ready once any door opens to share, to walk through that door. How often do you think that way before you get in the car, start the car and drive to that place? How often do you show up to events like that prayed up and ask God to do what Paul was asking God to do back here in Colossians 4:3, praying that “God will open up a door to us for the words that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ and that we may make it clear in the way we ought to speak.”

Here in verse 6 what is being commended to us is not that we adopt the way of the unbeliever as he uses his tongue and his lips and his mouth, his words. Instead like Paul here we are to show up, prayed up to each of our encounters with unbelievers, ready to speak to the one who is outside, that is the unbeliever, in a specific way. Look at what it says again, verse 6. “Let your speech always be with grace as though seasoned with salt.” The main idea there is that our speech is to be always with grace, that's the dominant thought here and then the topping, the sprinkling is the salt that comes after. But let your speech always be with grace, that's the key word here, the key principle here. As those who have because of grace been transferred from the domain of darkness, as those who because of grace have received forgiveness for our sins, as those who because of grace have received peace through the blood of His cross, as those who because of grace have been reconciled in His fleshly body through death, we are to insure that sometimes we speak with grace? Or ensure that we every once in a while speak with grace? No, it says, always. Our speech is always to be with grace, whenever we're speaking, whatever we're speaking about. Because of whom we are in Christ we are to speak with grace.

Now what does that look like practically speaking, to always speak with grace? Well, negatively speaking it means heeding the words, we've seen them already this morning, of Colossians 3:8 which means to put aside in our speech towards unbelievers all “anger, wrath, malice, slander and abusive speech from our mouth. Do not lie to one another.” I mean, can you imagine if the unbelievers in your life, the unbelievers in your circles thought of you primarily, the first thought that came to their mind, that you are the soccer mom who screams at her kids? The salesman who engages in shady practices? The wife who verbally cuts down her husband? The church member who slanders other church members? How would God be glorified? How would Christ be represented well? How would the gospel be adorned? To have our speech always be with grace means to put all of those devious practices aside. Ephesians 4:29, “Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification, according to the need of the moment so that it will give” what? “Grace to those who hear.”

Now on the positive side, to ensure that our speech is always with grace, that means that our speech demonstrates as those who have been chosen of God, Colossians 3:12, that we truly have “put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” That means that our speech demonstrates that we have true wisdom, that we truly do fear the Lord and we are committed to following the example of the Lord. In fact, turn to Luke 4:22, it's spoken of our Lord there that “gracious words were falling from His lips as He ministered to those around Him,” meaning when we speak to the unbeliever, the outsider with grace we are very much following the example of our Lord. I love how one commentator encapsulated this idea of speaking words with grace to the unbelieving world specifically. He says, “Our accent should betray the country to which we belong.” That's really good. We are a people that have been birthed by grace, so we are to exude grace in the very words we speak. Our accents should indicate where we are from and who we represent.

Well, as we continue on in verse 6, we finally get to this additive, this extra ingredient that's to adorn our gracious Christ-like, Christ-honoring speech and that's salt. It says, “Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt.” Those words call to mind the fact that in three of the four gospel accounts Jesus Himself addressed His disciples using a salt metaphor to describe how they were to behave and interact with those around them who were doubting and disbelieving. I'll give you the references here just for time's sake. That would be Matthew 5:13, Mark 9:50 and Luke 14:34. There has been a lot that has been written on this subject of what Jesus meant by that salt language and what it means to be salted as believers today. There will be some who are more liberal and seeker sensitive in the theological world who write commentaries, but even those mega church pastors who wear capri pants and wear trucker caps as they preach as part of their attempts to engage the culture, they'll talk about how being seasoned with salt means being interesting and exciting and winsome and you just need to stay fresh and exciting to win people over. Staying salty is the idea. But not only that approach reveals a low view of the sovereignty of God in salvation as though you can somehow twist the arm of God into saving anyone by being fresh and exciting. The word salt in this context in our text has a very specific meaning. Speech, which is salted, look at the context there, it comes right after saying let your speech always be with grace. Speech which is salted is merely referring to the fact that our conversations are infused with the very grace that has been shown us by God through Christ. As recipients of divine grace, we display that in our interactions with anybody else. It's not about being fresh, exciting, winsome, it's about reflecting the greatest thing that has ever happened to you, which is that you have been redeemed by grace.

As we are about to see, our salted, grace-fueled speech has a specific end and purpose in view which is to break out of the huddles that we find ourselves in, walk through the doors the Lord opens for us and now give answers to those who have questions about our hope and belief. Which takes us to the next words, the final words of verse 6 and our fourth point this morning, by the way. Point #4 is Study Yourself Sure. Take a look at the last words of verse 6. It says, “So that you will know how you should respond to each person.” Why do we show ourselves sage and select our spots and speak with grace and salt our speech? We do so in preparation for the response, specifically the questions that will flow out of our gracious salted speech. What Paul clearly has in mind here is believers who are in communication with the outsiders around them, meaning they aren't perpetually caught up in the holy huddle. Instead, they have broken out of that huddle, they are now having regular conversations with outsiders and their conversations have now opened up opportunities, doors, to share their faith. It's like the old southern saying that more is caught with honey than with vinegar. That's the concept here. Paul here is saying don't be surprised when you receive questions from outsiders about your faith when you use that grace-fueled, salted speech. Don't be caught off guard also with nothing to say in response. Instead prepare yourself, ready yourself, study yourself, sure. Why? The answer is there in verse 6, “so that you will know how you should respond to each person.” It sounds very similar to what Peter says in I Peter 3:15, “Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you,” so there is the content of what is to be shared, and then he says, Peter does, “yet with gentleness and reverence.” That sounds a lot like what Paul says here in verse 6 when he says your speech is always to be “with grace as though seasoned with salt.”

So how do we get there? How do we get to the place where we study ourselves sure and we have the ability to know how we should respond to each person, namely unbelievers who have questions for us. Well, the answer goes back to Colossians 3:16, to having the Word of Christ richly dwelling within us, to be diligent students of the Word of God, to be those who have studied ourselves sure, having drunk of the riches of the Word of God. The Word is breathed out by God's Spirit, the same Spirit who will bring details to our minds when we need an answer for that outsider. But on the other hand if we haven't studied ourselves sure, if we haven't studied the Word for ourselves, if we're relying on the acquisition of biblical knowledge from ten or fifteen years ago, what one of my professors called stale bread rather than fresh bread, then there is going to be nothing for the Holy Spirit to bring to our attention when the outsider brings the question. The Holy Spirit brings to mind the Word that is hidden in our hearts. So, the key to being ready, the key to being ready to provide this hope that is within us, to give an answer to those who are outsiders is to be not only well-grounded in your faith broadly speaking, but specifically to be well-grounded in the Word, to study yourself sure.

I'm going to give you a fifth point this morning, and you might be thinking why a fifth point. We've already worked through our text, you have covered two verses, you've made your points. Can we get out of here and go to lunch? Almost. Because here is what I want to say on this last one and we will be done. There will be people who will read these two verses and they'll think, great, all I need to do as a Christian is to live an upright life. All I need to do is keep my nose clean and use my tongue to say nice things and not use my tongue to say mean things, occasionally provide Bible answers when they come my way. What this passage I'm seeing is that I can live my whole life without actually ever sharing the gospel with anyone and still be in good standing with the Lord because I trusted in Jesus. I think some church fathers said preach the gospel, use words if necessary. I'm going to roll with that. I don't want to open my mouth, I don't want to be bold, I don't want to be brave, I'm just going to preach the gospel with my life. Sorry to rain on the parade if anybody thinks that way, but that line of thinking is just plain silly because the gospel is not some nebulous idea or concept or thing that we are loosely affiliated with or not offended by. We're just sort of fine with it. No, the gospel is a message. That's what the word gospel means, it's euangelion, good news and what do you do with news? You share it. If I read some article in the Lincoln Journal Star this week that I thought might have an impact on you and your life, I wouldn't just say to you, I'm just going to live my life in light of what the Lincoln Journal Star article taught and live it in front of you and hopefully you'll figure this out. No, I would share that news of that article with you to convey that message to you. So, it is with the gospel. The gospel is not just any news, it's not a back page Lincoln Journal Star article, the gospel is not even only good news, it's the great news, it's the greatest news, it's the most important and crucial news that anyone could ever hear which is that Jesus Christ came to save sinners just like you and me. He stood in our place on the cross, He absorbed the wrath of God on our behalf, He paid the penalty for sin on our behalf. After doing so He rose from the grave, defeating the powers of sin and death which had enslaved us. Why wouldn't we share that news? Why would we keep that light away from those who are in darkness? Why would we, having been rescued, clutch the life preserver and not throw it in the water for anybody else? That makes no sense. It makes absolutely zero sense that someone who has claimed to be reconciled with God, someone who claims to have experienced the grace of God would be so selfish, so self-focused, so frankly unloving to never speak of their Savior.

Now does that mean that everyone in this room has to be a street evangelist? That everybody in this room right after church today needs to skip lunch and start knocking on doors? Does it mean that we all are called to share at the abortion clinic or to cold call strangers at Don and Millie's later today? No. What our text has shown us today is that probably the most effective evangelism we will ever do will be relational evangelism, the very thing we as a church, I hope you remember this, have been encouraging you to do in what we have called day to day evangelism. We know people do the door-to-door thing and praise God for their boldness, but we've encouraged you to be involved in day-to-day evangelism. The way we packaged it and presented it was to choose that one person that over this next year, and we're about six months in now, that you're going to be praying with and you're committed to sharing with, sharing the gospel with. Don't lose sight of this, that merely modeling Christ likeness to your one is not enough. Merely holding your tongue and otherwise being on your best behavior around your one is not enough. No, at some point the message of the gospel needs to be shared, at some point to be faithful in your walk with Christ you need to speak of your Savior, to open your mouth and proclaim the good news message of what Christ came to do for them.

Now last week's sermon, I know, was on one of those convicting topics that we all have to endure at some point, the topic of prayer. This week's is like that, evangelism. Equally causes people to squirm in their seats but I do want to make sure as we leave here that it is so important to be reminded of these truths, so important to be reminded that we are not called to be cloistered, shut in church. Rather, we are called to be a compassionate church, full of grace-gifted, grace-fueled sinners whose core passion is to see more souls won for Jesus Christ. My call on you, my charge to you this week is that you get out there, break the huddle, move the ball down field and faithfully engage with those outsiders the Lord has put in your midst. Show yourself sage, Select your spots, Salt your speech, Study yourself sure and last, Speak of your Savior.

Let's pray. Lord, thank You for this time in your Word this morning. Thank You for the letter of Colossians and the many rich truths it contains. I'm amazed each week that we can work our way through sometimes one verse, sometimes two verses and just be bathed in amazing truth that You have given us, wisdom from above that compels us, controls us and fuels us to live more faithful lives for our Savior, Jesus Christ. May we be found faithful as a body of believers, as individuals in sharing Jesus Christ. What are we doing if we are not sharing the name of our Savior, sharing His saving gospel. God, I pray that we would be known as a body of believers who are faithful to do just that as we wait for Your return. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.