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When Opportunity Knocks Colossians 4:5-6 |
June 25, 2006 Pastor Tom Marcum |
When Opportunity Knocks
Colossians 4:5-6
When I look back at some of the mistakes that I made as a parent, I am amazed that my daughter has turned out as healthy as she is. And when I look back at some of the mistakes my ministry mentors made with me, I am amazed that I didn’t decide to become a plumber, a cop, a salesman or anything other than a pastor.
I was 16 when I began to sense that God might be calling me into the ministry and to help me work through that process I sought the advice and counsel of various people whose Christian faith I respected. One person I leaned on heavily during that time was my Youth Pastor, Randy. And Randy threw himself with great gusto into the task of mentoring me for a lifetime of Christian service.
Randy invited me to come to his office each day after I got out of school so that I could get experience doing the kinds of things that Youth Pastors do. I began to assist him in a wide variety of ministry related projects. Randy was determined to provide me the kinds of experiences that would help me develop crucial ministry skills. Sometimes those experiences were helpful and sometimes they didn’t work out so well. I still shudder, for instance, every time I remember the learning experience that Randy conceived as a way of teaching me how to share my faith with non-Christians. Here’s what happened.
Randy picked me up at my house early one Saturday morning, drove me to LAX (Los Angeles International Airport), pulled up to the curb in front of one of the terminals, handed me a little gospel tract called, “The Four Spiritual Laws,” (I’m sure that some of you have seen it, probably even used it), and then he gave me these instructions: “Go into the terminal and use this tract to lead people to the Lord. I’ll be back to pick you up tonight.” And with that, he drove away and left a terrified 16-year-old kid to fend for himself in a hostile and totally unfamiliar environment.
For the next 8 hours I walked up to total strangers, usually weary and agitated businessmen waiting for their flights to who knows where and I said, “Hi, have you ever heard of The Four Spiritual Laws?” It was truly one of the longest days of my life as I moved from one awkward and unnatural encounter to another. But the experience was not in vain. In fact, I learned a valuable lesson… not the one that Randy had planned for me to learn… but a valuable lesson nonetheless, namely, that there must be a better way than this to share with people the good news of God’s love and grace.
And it’s this better way that is the focus of the scripture passage that we’re going to examine this morning on this last stage of our journey through the book of Colossians. Two weeks ago we listened as Paul encouraged the Christians in Colosse to pray for his effectiveness as he looked for opportunities to share the good news of Jesus with others and now he brings his letter to a close by showing us how we can be effective as we look for opportunities to share our faith with others.
In Colossians 4:5-6 he writes,
“Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”
In just 2 verses Paul offers us 5 important lessons to help us become more effective in leading others to discover for themselves the love and grace that we have found in our own relationships with Jesus. And lesson #1 is to be wise in your encounters with non-Christians. As Paul writes here in verse 5, “Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders… ” That word, “outsiders,” encompasses everyone who does not share our faith in Christ and wisdom among outsiders shows itself like this—both our words and our actions work together to offer a consistent witness that points people toward Jesus.
(1) It means, in the first place, that we exercise great wisdom in the things we do among non-Christians so that our actions don’t invalidate our spoken witness.
I remember discovering, when I was in seminary, that many of the local merchants would not extend credit to seminary students because so many of these preachers in training had graduated and moved away without paying their debts.
Folks, we can tell people about Jesus and the wonderful impact He’s had on our lives all day, every day and it will mean nothing to them if we don’t back up our verbal testimony with genuinely Christian lives.
(2) And being wise among outsiders also means being wise in the way we speak. It means being attentive not only to the content of our testimony, but also the manner in which we deliver our testimony. The point is this—the message that we have to share is truly good news. But good news clumsily delivered is not likely to be warmly received, as I discovered as a 16-year-old one Saturday at LAX.
In 1 Corinthians 9:22 Paul described his passion for delivering the good news in the best possible manner like this,
“I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.”
In other words, Paul didn’t have a one-size-fits-all approach to sharing the gospel. He didn’t alter the content of his message, but he was constantly adjusting his style of delivery to find the one best suited for the person to whom he was speaking.
--So, by all means, be confident in your message—it really is Good News.
--But be confident also in the manner in which you deliver your message. Deliver it with wisdom. Ask God for the wisdom to share your good news in the right way and at the right time.
And that brings us to our second lesson, which is found at the end of verse 5 where Paul writes, “… make the most of every opportunity.” The best way to understand this phrase is as an outworking of the previous call to “be wise.” So, when we put it all together it means that one of the ways to demonstrate wisdom as we live and work among non-believers is to be constantly alert to those opportunities that can serve God’s purposes. It means moving through our days with eyes and ears that are quick to recognize those unplanned moments with non-believers that are suddenly bursting with redemptive potential.
--On Monday morning a co-worker casually mentions the great time he and his family enjoyed at the beach on Sunday. And you respond with an easy word about the joy that your family has every Sunday as you worship together. That’s making the most of the opportunity.
--A friend tells you about the excitement he’s feeling as his vacation to Las Vegas gets closer. You tell him about your growing excitement over your plans to take a week of your vacation time to go to Mexico to build a house for a homeless family because you sense that it’s what God wants you to do. That’s making the most of the opportunity.
That phrase, “make the most of every opportunity” literally means to “buy back the time.” It conveys the idea that instances like these… when an ordinary moment can be instantly transformed into a moment with eternal potential… these kinds of moments are so valuable that we need to buy them up without regard to the cost. Redeeming these moments is worth whatever sacrifice they might take.
So, Lesson #1 is to be wise in your encounters with non-Christians.
And lesson #2 is to make the most of every opportunity.
And that brings us to verser 6, which begins like this, “Let your conversation be always full of grace… ”
And, now, lesson #3 is to fill your conversations with grace.
So, what does a grace-filled conversation sound like? Well, it has to do with both the content and the spirit of our conversations.
--On the content side, a grace-filled conversation is one that reflects the impact that God’s grace has had on our lives. God’s grace freed us from the awful burden of trying to earn God’s forgiveness through our own effort and freed us to accept God’s forgiveness as a gift secured for us by Christ. As Paul said in Ephesians 2:8-9,
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”
When the content of our conversation is filled with grace, we never come across as prideful, self-righteous or holier than thou—all of which instantly kill any hope of a warm reception for our message. Grace removes any appearance of boasting by putting all of the emphasis on what God has done for us. The only thing we add to the process is our faith. “Yes, Lord, I believe.”
--And on the spirit side, a grace filled conversation is one that is infused from top to bottom with a spirit of love and kindness. A grace filled conversation never feels to the person to whom we’re speaking like an invasion of their privacy or an assault on their character. What’s more, grace filled conversations are real conversations in which we actually listen to, dialogue with and show respect for the thoughts, opinions and feelings of the other person. Consequently, grace filled conversations deepen relationships, rather than threaten them.
Does that mean that we have to shy away from speaking the truth? No. It just means that we speak the truth in love.
And with that we come to lesson #4 which is to season your conversations with salt. Returning to verse 6 Paul writes, “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt… ”Salt, at the time, was used as both a preservative and a seasoning and it seems fairly clear that Paul is speaking here of the seasoning power of salt. Salt brings out the flavors in the foods we eat. In short, salt makes food taste better.
So the point here is that when we engage in conversations with non-believers about our faith we need to make those conversations appealing and pleasing. We need to season those conversations with enough salt that it makes those we’re speaking with want to hear more. And the best way to do that is usually not through lectures on doctrine, judgments about their beliefs or behaviors or reciting a dozen scripture verses that you’ve memorized. The best way to season your faith-conversations with salt is to make them personal. To simply say, “I don’t have all the answers, but I can tell you that Jesus has changed my life and here’s how.” Folks, that is a grace filled statement, well seasoned with salt.
Which brings us to our final lesson and that is to treat everyone as a V.I.P. Returning once again to verse 6 we read, “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”
Now, let’s quickly review the previous 4 lessons before we jump into this fifth lesson.
--Paul tells us that there will be times when we will find ourselves in a conversation with someone who does not share our faith in Jesus.
--And when that happens the first thing we’re to do is to flip the wisdom switch. To immediately begin to pray that God will give us wisdom for this conversation.
--Then, we’re to look for opportunities to steer this conversation in a direction that God can use for kingdom purposes.
--And as that opportunity presents itself, we’re told to be sure that the words coming out of our mouths are filled with grace and…
--Seasoned with salt by making it personal. “This is what my relationship with Jesus means to me.”
And why are we to handle these situations with such care? Well, that brings us here, to the end of verse 6. We handle these situations with care, “SO THAT” we will “know how to answer everyone.”
Now, I want to close by making three quick points about that:
#1 Everyone is worth our attention. We are never wasting our time when we are talking to someone about our faith in Christ.
#2 Everyone needs what we have found in Christ. We will never speak to anyone who does not need what we have experienced through Christ.
#3 We cannot answer a question that we have not heard. The point here, is that its not enough to be willing to tell someone about our faith, we also have to be willing to listen to their story. Why? Because it’s in their story that we’ll discover their needs. And once we know their needs we can point them to Jesus for His answer.
Folks, if Jesus has changed your life you have a story to tell…
…and people need to hear it.
Ask God to show you how to tell it often…
…and ask God to show you how to tell it well.
© Copyright 2006 Pastor Tom Marcum