Evangelism talk
Reading: Colossians chapter 1 verses 1-12.
Ill:
• Back in 1820 the average person in England wrote only three letters a year.
• And with good reason.
• Letters in those days were mailed without a cover and could be read by anyone.
• But William Mulready had an idea to ensure privacy—the envelope.
• It was an idea he stole from the French;
• On a visit to France Mulready noticed that important messages;
• Were completely enclosed in a little paper case...
• Making them impervious to the peering eyes of the curious.
• On his return to England he introduced this new way of sending mail,
• It was an instant success, and the rest as they say is history!
Colossians was written not on paper but on a scroll or a codex:
• But just as a modern day letter is kept safe and protected by an envelope;
• The letter of Colossians will remind us that are kept safe and protected by Jesus Christ!
Ill:
• Talking about letters,
• There is the old joke of a soldier who wrote to his girlfriend everyday;
• When he eventually returned home on leave,
• He discovered that she had run off with the postman!
The city:
• Colosse was a city in Asia Minor,
• Which is a region of Western Asia (modern day Turkey);
• It was one of a trio of cities: Hierapolis and Laodica being the other two;
• They get a name check in chapter 4 verse 13,
• That were located about 100 miles inland of Ephesus.
• These three cities were almost in view of each other.
Ill:
• This area used to be a meeting point of East and West
• At one time an important trade route passed through there:
• When the road system changed;
• Colosse’s trade business declined.
• By the apostle Paul’s day, this one time a wealthy and populas city.
• Had been reduced to an insignificant market town.
• Quote: William Barcley:
• “Today there is not a stone to show where Colosse stood and her site can only be guessed at”
The Church:
• Paul had never visited Colosse (chapter 2 verse 1).
• But he did spend three years working 100 miles away in Ephesus.
• Acts chapter 19 verse 10 tells us that; People from all over Asia visited that city;
• They heard the gospel, got converted & returned home with the message
Ill:
• One of those visitors to Ephesus who was converted;
• Was a man named ‘Epaphras’ - he gets a name check in verse 7:
• Verse 7: "You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant".
• Ephaphras was a citizen of Colosse,
• And when he returned home he shared the gospel with his relatives and friends.
• And as a result folks were converted and a church was planted.
Note:
• The church at Colosse was probably about five years old,
• When it received this letter from Paul.
• Although there were some converted Jews in the Church;
• It would seem that the Church was mainly made up of Gentiles.
• These sins mentioned w in chapter 3 verses 5-9;
• Were commonly associated with non-Jews.
The crisis:
Ill:
• A man with three sons won £1 billion on the lottery.
• Since he now had more money than he knew what to do with,
• He offered to buy his sons anything they wanted.
• He stressed money was no object.
• His first son said he had always wanted a Jaguar car,
• So his father bought him seven Jaguar cars in seven different colours,
• So he would have a different one to drive every day of the week.
• His second son wanted a motorcycle.
• So the father went out and bought him 30 new motorcycles,
• So he would have a different bike to ride every day of the month.
• His youngest was only 8, and he said he wanted a Mickey Mouse outfit.
• So his father went out and bought him the Southampton Football Club.
This Church was facing a crisis:
• Relegation was not the issue;
• But it could split or even destroy this local Church if help was not given.
Ephaphras who helped start the Church and in verse 7 is called its minister:
• He needed help and so he went to his good friend and mentor the apostle Paul;
• Paul at this time was a prisoner in Rome; (this is mentioned in 4:3, 10 & 18).
• Epaphras came to see Paul and reported to him about a dangerous new teaching;
• That was spreading through the Church.
Question: What was the crisis/problem?
Answer:
• The false teaching was called Gnosticism, that word means “to know”.
• The Gnostics claimed to have a special insight and revelation.
• Ill: It was the opposite of an ‘agnostic’;
• An ‘agnostic’ is one who does not know.
• These Gnostics claimed to be ‘in the know’;
• They claimed to have superior knowledge of spiritual things.
• The Gnostics claimed they were not denying the Christian faith;
• But only lifting it to a higher level.
• Gnosticism was a type of New Age teaching;
• That taught you were missing out unless you took on board their wisdom.
Notice: As you read through the letter note the repetition of certain words:
• “All” and the words “Complete” or Fullness”, “Perfect”.
• Paul’s main theme in the letter is summarised in the verse (chapter 3 verse 11):
• “Christ is all in all”. Quote J.B. Phillips: “Christ is all that matters”
• Ill: Of the 95 verses in this letter, Christ is mentioned in 80 of them.
Note:
• Paul’s second main theme in the letter is chapter 2 verse 10:
• That we are “Made complete in him”.
• Since we are complete in Christ,
• We don’t need Gnostic wisdom, or anything else.
• Now alongside the Gnostic wisdom was a form of Jewish legalism;
• Jewish converts wanting the Church to embrace Jewish traditions and practices.
Ill:
Again this was a mixture of Jesus and ‘extras’.
• e.g. Jesus and traditions,
• e.g. Jesus and circumcision.
• e.g. Jesus and the practice of strict diets,
• e.g. Jesus and plus the compulsory observance of holy days;
• e.g. Jesus and a variety of other things that you will see as you go through the letter.
• So Paul’s second main theme in the letter is chapter 2 verse 10:
• That we are “Made complete in him”.
• Since we are complete in Christ,
• In other words: we don’t need Gnostic wisdom and we don’t need Jewish legalism!
Note: The book divides into two halves:
• Chapters 1 and 2 are mainly doctrinal,
• Chapters 3 and 4 are manly practical.
Chapter 1:
• Contains 21 verses (for your homework read it!)
• I want to pull out one thread that is woven through the first 13 verses of the letter.
Ill:
• Coca-Cola is one product that has far outgrown its humble beginnings.
• In 1886, Dr. John Pemberton first introduced Coca-Cola in Atlanta, Georgia.
• The pharmacist concocted a caramel-coloured syrup;
• In a three-legged brass kettle in his backyard.
• He first "distributed" Coca-Cola by carrying it in a jug down the street to Jacobs Pharmacy.
• Where it was sold as a brain tonic – it sold 25 bottles in its first year!
After little more than 100 years:
• Surveys show that 97% of the world has heard of Coca-Cola.
• 72% of the world has seen a can of Coca-Cola.
• 51% of the world has tasted Coca-Cola.
• All due to the fact that the company made a commitment years ago;
• That every one on the planet would have a taste of their soft drink
We should stand up and take note here;
• 97% of the world has heard of this sugar and water concoction.
• While 1.7 billion people world-wide have no access to the good news of Jesus Christ!
What a rebuke to the Church of Jesus Christ those statistics are!
• The motto of Coca-Cola, posted in the company’s headquarters, simply says:
• ‘THINK GLOBALLY, BUT ACT LOCALLY.’
As Christians that is our responsibility to the world:
• We are to ‘THINK GLOBALLY,
• As we do that we are to change the world by ACTING LOCALLY.’
• The Great Commission reminds us to think big – the world!
• But each & every Christian must start witnessing where they are – locally!
Paul in these few verses we read together:
• Emphasises to us, this gospel
• And he tells us 6 things about it!
(1). The gospel is good news (vs 12-13).
Ill:
• A guy came home from playing golf one day;
• And his neighbour asked him about his game.
• He said, "I shot seventy." His neighbour said, "Hey! That’s pretty good!"
• The golfer replied, "Yeah, and tomorrow I’ll play the second hole."
Unlike that golfer, our gospel really is ’Good News’:
(a).
• The Colossians had discovered a message that according to verse 12-13:
• Had "Qualified them to share in the inheritance of the saints”
• Just think for a moment of what that means,
• These heathens, pagans, unbelievers, who were once far away from God;
• Because they were converted (‘in Christ’);
• They now had the same standing before God as David, as Moses & as Abraham etc, etc
• These gentiles were qualified not by a religion and an adherence to it,
• But by a person and their faith in him!
(b).
• It was a gospel that had “rescued them from the dominion of darkness;
• And brought them into the kingdom of the Son he loves".
• If you are in trouble;
• Then it is good to be rescued;
• Quote G.K. Chesterton was once asked;
• What single book he would most like to have if he were stranded on a desert island.
• With typical wit, he replied
• “Thomas’ Guide to Practical Shipbuilding”.
What makes the gospel of Jesus Christ good news is this:
• What we cannot or could not do to rescue ourselves,
• God has perfectly done in the person of Jesus Christ!
“He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness;
And brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves".
(2). The gospel is true (vs 5: "The word of truth")
Ill:
• A lady entered a butchers shop in a butcher is a small town in Hampshire,
• Just as it was closing and most things had been packed away.
• She explained that she had just had a phone call;
• And as a result she was going to have unplanned guests and so she needed some meat.
• She told the butcher she needed a "large chicken".
• He went out back to the refrigerators and came back with the shops only unfrozen chicken.
• When he put it on the scale;
• She stretched to see the weight and declared, "I need one larger than that!"
• So he took it out back and a few moments later returned with the same chicken,
• This time when he weighed it, he added a hidden finger on the backside of the scale.
• When she eye-balled the scale;
• She confidently declared, "Excellent, I’ll take both chickens please!"
• The gospel is a message based on the truth.
• And it must be shared in truth.
Notice the expression Paul uses “The word of truth”.
• He is reminding the Colossians that this gospel came not from men but from God!
• And so it can therefore be trusted 100%
• Other religions may contain ideas that can be said to be true,
• But only God’s word can be called the “truth”
• There may have been many writers in this book, but there was only ever one author!
• It is a revelation from God, and not man made ideas of how to get to God.
Quote: D.L. Moody:
“The best way to show that a stick is crooked is not to argue about it or to spend time denouncing it, but to lay a straight stick alongside it”.
Having the truth breads confidence:
Ill:
• My work – Kids, Teenagers, Men, senior Citizens, prisons, schools etc
• I go with confidence.
• Not in my abilities and talents, not because I think my sermons are great,
• I go with confidence because:
• Every person or group I encounter needs the truth, i.e. Jesus Christ!
• And I have him! (or rather he has me).
That’s why we operate on the truth of this book:
• And on the basis of the Lord’s sovereign authority.
• I minister in His name, I depended on His power and His guidance.
• We are fully equipped to face each & every opportunity comes our way!
(3). The gospel is universal (vs 6: "All over the world").
Quote:
• “God does not speak with a ?????????? English accent!”
• A Midland one possibly – No! God does not speak with an English accent.
ill:
Now in the Bible for example in ‘The Great Commission’;
• We are told to reach “All nations” (and not as some translations have it the ‘world’):
• Now I am not nit-picking, this is a very important truth.
• The Greek word that is translated ITGC never means a political country;
• i.e. England, France, Germany etc.
• It refers to “People Groups” to “Ethnic groups”.
• A group of people who are distinct, i.e. Language, location, religion or culture.
Ill:
• Serbs in Yugoslavia.
• Kurds in Iraq.
• Navajo in America.
• Pit-Jan-Jara of Australia.
There are about:
• 230 countries in our world.
• But within those countries you will find about 12,000 people groups.
• Ill: India alone has 4,635 people groups.
• When the Bible speaks of all nations, it means not just the country but these people groups.
Note this:
• Out of the 12,000 people groups on planet earth,
• We have reached about 6,000.
• What a rebuke to the Church of Jesus Christ!
• What about us ill: Park Gate, Southampton, Hants, England, Europe?
Ill:
At age twelve, Robert Louis Stevenson;
• Was looking out of his bedroom window and into the dark;
• He was watching a man light the streetlamps.
• Stevenson’s governess came into the room and asked what he was doing.
• He replied, "I am watching a man cut holes in the darkness."
What a great description of our task on earth?
• We should be as sharers of God’s light,
• People who are busy cutting holes in the spiritual darkness of our world.
(4). The gospel is productive
• Verse 6: "His gospel is bearing fruit and growing".
• The Living Bible: “This gospel is changing lives”.
Ill:
• The ‘word of God’ was described by Jesus as a seed (Luke 8:11),
• This means ‘the word’ has life in it (Hebrews 4:11)
Ill:
• Pond 17 fish called Eric,
• Last Christmas my mother-in-law gave me a plastic Lilly to go on pond,
• Yesterday as I cleaned out the pond I noticed,
• A seed from somewhere has lodged itself on the artificial flower and is growing!
A good seed will produce life!
• When planted in a persons heart & mind,
• It can produce life.
• And the word of God is the only seed;
• That can be planted anywhere in the world and it can still bring forth life!
(5). The gospel tells of grace.
• Verse 6b
• "The day you heard it and understood God’s grace in all its truth."
The gospel really is good news because it is a message of grace:
• God is not demanding things from us,
• In fact the opposite is true, he is giving things to us!
• He is a God of grace,
• Giving us what we do not deserve.
Ill:
• A beggar stopped a lawyer on a busy London street;
• And asked him for some loose change.
• Taking a long, hard look into the man’s unshaven face,
• The lawyer asked, "Don’t I know you from somewhere?"
• "You should," came the reply.
• "I’m your former classmate. We sat in the same lectures together for 4 years”.
• "Why of course I know you!"
• And without further question the lawyer wrote a check for £1000.
• "Here, take this and get a new start. I don’t care what’s happened in the past, it’s the future that counts." And with that he hurried on.
Tears welled up in the poor man’s eyes as he walked to a bank nearby.
• Before entering in he stopped at the door and looked inside,
• He saw well-dressed cashiers and the spotlessly clean interior.
• Then he looked at his own filthy rags and thought to himself:
• "They won’t take this from me. They’ll swear that I forged it,"
• And sadly he turned away.
• And returned to the streets begging lose change for a cup of tea.
The next day the two men met again.
• "Why Sam” said the lawyer to the beggar;
• “What did you do with my check? Gamble it away? Drink it up?"
• "No," said the beggar as he pulled it out of his dirty shirt pocket;
• And he explained to him why he hadn’t cashed it.
The lawyer listened then responded with these words:
"Listen friend, what makes that check good is not your clothes or appearance,
but my signature. Now go on, cash it!"
Sadly, so many people often have the beggars reaction to God’s gift of grace:
• They feel that they are not good enough (of course they are right)
• They do not really deserve it (and of course they are right)
• They feel they must get their act together or get cleaned up first;
• (nothing more wrong!)
The great thing about God’s grace is:
• It does not depend on or involve us in any way.
• What counts is the signature on the cheque.
• Don’t let the "tattered clothes" of your past;
• Keep you from cashing God’s "check" of salvation.
(6). The gospel is humanly transmitted.
• Verse 7:
• "You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant".
• Epaphras was a citizen of Colosse; who was converted when he was travelling abroad,
• Converted through Paul’s ministry, during the 3 years Paul was in Ephesus (Acts 19:10).
• When he returned home he shared this thrilling news with his relatives and friends.
• And as a result folks were converted and a church was planted.
Ill:
• One day in Italy Luigi Tarisio was found dead one morning,
• In his home they found 246 exquisite violins,
• This was his life’s collection,
• Most were crammed into an attic, the best in the bottom drawer of an old rickety bureau.
• In his very devotion to the violin,
• He had robbed the world of all that music all the time he treasured them;
• The greatest of his collection, a Stradivarius,
• Had been silent for 147 silent years, until it once again was put back into circulation.
• Question: how many of Christ’s people are like old Tarisio?
• In our very love of the church we fail to give this message to the world;
• When shall we all learn that the Good News needs not just to be cherished,
• But needs to be told? All people need to hear it.
Ill:
• The New Testament records tell of 40 people:
• Each suffering from some disease, who had been healed by Jesus.
• Of this number, 34 were either brought to Jesus by friends; Or Jesus was taken to them.
• In only six cases out of forty did sufferers find their way to Christ without assistance.
That was the attitude and behaviour of Epapharus:
• When he returned home he shared this thrilling news with his relatives and friends.
• And as a result folks were converted and a church was planted.
People does it not thrill you to think:
• That the greatest message ever known to human beings:
• Has been entrusted not to angels but to people!
• It has not been restricted to a certain group of professionals,
• It is not limited to the experts and the specialists.
• But God has given this message to all who have a real faith in Jesus!
• Every Christian (includes you and me) has a role to play!
The challenge is this day;
• Is what are we doing with it?
• "News" needs to be told!
• Ill: The very word “News” is an acrostic.
• The letters stand for “North, East, West & South”
Ill:
• During World War II, Britons placed large signs;
• At the entrance to their munitions factories.
• The signs carried only five letters: "IADOM."
• A stranger in England during that time probably didn’t understand what the signs meant.
• But the British people knew that the letters were an abbreviation for the words,
• "It all depends on me."
• It was a slogan to remind them that they were fighting for their land and their lives,
• That victory depended on them – they played a key role!
Listen folks:
• We are PLAN A for reaching, Hampshire, England, Europe, the world for Jesus Christ!
• There is no PLAN B!
• Our major emphasis may be local, i.e. church, community etc
• But if we are to be biblical then we must think world!
Ill:
Swedish Au-pair
• Meant to say; “What on earth are you doing!”
• Instead she said, “What are you doing on earth!”
