Theme: Paul concludes his general call by setting forth the dynamics of life with a mission. He
speaks to them as a partner in ‘manifesting the mystery’ of Christ to those around them. The
dynamics involved include: prayer, sacrifice, seeking opportunities, and sensitivity (i.e. appropriate
conversation.)
Intro – Every life longs for a mission… to be a part of a larger story… something that gives it
meaning.
If we don’t find ourselves part of any compelling drama… we watch Jerry Springer… or 24… or
create drama from what really doesn’t matter..
As we conclude our series entitled The Liberated Life based upon the letter to Colossi… or
what is commonly called the Book of Colossians… Paul brings us into a life filled with
mission.
Paul has spoken of the grand drama… how this new life in manifest in our relationships… and
now he closes his general call to that of how this is manifest in relationship to the larger
world…. the larger community of lives who do not yet know of this new life. Here we hear
something of the great drama and mission of life.
These are the words of one who knew he may be at the end of his earthly life… so what he says
is reflects a desire to convey what matters most. He wants to help every life discover and develop
what matters most.
Colossians 4:2-6 (NLT)
Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart. 3 Pray for us, too, that God will
give us many opportunities to speak about his mysterious plan concerning Christ. That is why I am
here in chains. 4 Pray that I will proclaim this message as clearly as I should. 5 Live wisely among
those who are not believers, and make the most of every opportunity. 6 Let your conversation be
gracious and attractive so that you will have the right response for everyone.
Here Paul sets our minds towards the mission that animates his life… and it is that of making
the mystery of this new life known.
Up until now… he’s been explaining the grand drama… now it’s as if he says… so are you
ready to really join it?
Illustration – It makes me think of the famous part of the Mission Impossible show.. when they get
the explanation of what is really going on… and then come the famous closing words of the
instructions…which say, “Jim, should you choose to accept this mission…’. It was a mission. With
the knowledge few others were aware of… came a mission… a mission that had to be accepted…
that one had to choose.
That is how Paul relates to what he has come to know of the work of God to bring new life in
Christ.
Paul has no savior complex… he has gotten over any sense that he is the hero of the story…
and we need to get over that too. He sees his life not as an answer to what others needs… but
as a bridge… a bridge to hope.
• Important… because any assumption that those who claim to receive this life of Christ are
superior will deflate everyone… because we know it’s just not true.
• If you are hear today… perhaps just exploring… I’m sorry for the way you may be made to feel
like you are not as good or smart as those who claim to know Christ.
• Paul held no such pretense… referring to himself as the ‘chief of simmers’ …one who was
simply met in God’s timing and plan.
• God did something to get a hold of him… but also brought people to help him understand
what God was doing.
> It’s his relational emphasis that is important to hear. While programs can serve the personal
nature of relationship… there is no substitute for the relational spreading of this new life.
We become a relational bridge in the grand drama that we are living in… a bridge which can
manifest and make clear the mysteries of Christ.
If we are going to discover and develop this life of mission… there are four elements involved.
(While not listed as some kind of formula… they are the four qualities which we find most
consistently in both Jesus and now taken up by Paul.)
Discovering and developing a life of mission involves…
1. Praying that engages us in the mission
It’s probably only natural that we should be called to begin in prayer.
This mission brings us into the spiritual realm. Paul had come to grasp that we live in the
intersection of two dimensions… and relate to both. This is what the disciples of Jesus had begun
to recognize was at the center of his life. So they ask him.. ‘Lord teach us to pray.’ And his model
of prayer was directed to the Father in the heavenly real… and asked… “Let your kingdom come on
earth as it is in heaven.’
Clearly Paul sees this to include the mission of God’s reign reaching out and reclaiming lives. This
is what we saw flow out of Jesus as he touched the least and lost and said his very reason for
coming was that of seeking and saving those lost.
John Piper said, “Prayer is not designed as an intercom between us and God to serve the domestic
comforts of the saints. It’s designed as a walkie-talkie for spiritual battlefields. It’s the link between
active soldiers and their command headquarters, with its unlimited … power and wisdom.”
> Every mission needs to be connecting with it’s source… who can keep us clear in what is around
us.
There are four aspects of prayer that Paul gives in quick fashion:
Ongoing (“Devote yourself’; continue steadfastly)
“Continue earnestly in prayer”
‘Our prayer must be “devoted.” Another way of translating the word Paul uses here is our prayer
must “continue steadfastly.” It has the sense of “giving constant attention, unremitting care, to
persevere, to wait continually upon, to be in constant readiness.” Some of you might hear an echo of
Paul’s words to the Thessalonians where he encourages us to “pray without ceasing.”
When we reflect on the life of Jesus we see that he was a man of prayer. He took regular time for
private, intense, devoted conversation with God the Father. On one evening Jesus took his disciples
to a Garden to pray. He told them “Watch and pray, lest you fall into temptation.” It is our nature
that in the course of prolonged prayer, in the course of extended Christian duty, in the weary
workaday schedule, to become listless and sluggish. As Christ said, “The spirit is willing, but the
flesh is weak.” Thus Paul tells us, “be wakeful in prayer.” “Watching and praying” means praying
with our eyes open, looking for God’s action around us – in our families, our workplaces, in the
headlines. The disciples in Gethsemane thought it was just another evening, but as they dozed
and struggled to keep their eyes open, the battle between the kingdom of Darkness and the kingdom
of God was being waged in their midst.’
Watchful
“with an alert mind” or “being watchful” (wide awake)
When is God actively at work? Always. That is what Jesus grasped as he lived fully alive.
John 5:17 (NLT)
Jesus replied, “My Father is always working, and so am I.”
Thankful
“with … a thankful heart.” (“with thanksgiving”)
Six times Paul stresses this in this short letter (1:3,12; 2:7; 3:15,17; 4:2). Thankfulness…
gratitude… is the most central issue to really being open to what God is doing.
Without it we are left focused on problems… with it we begin to see what God is doing in the
midst of life’s problems… and we are awakened to the potential at hand.
Purposeful (3a)
“praying also for us”
Too often our prayers are too vague and general. We pray, “Lord, bless …” but Paul is pressing
into very specific needs. When Paul made this prayer-request he may have been thinking of a
summons before the Roman tribunal for a hearing, probably not the first one. Most notably he
prays for the very purpose of God… that what God has revealed would now become clear.
2. Sacrificing our comfort for the sake of others
Paul notes in verse 3 that this mission has led to being in chains. (‘…for which I am in chains.’)
(Likely he is under house arrest…where he is bound to his home while waiting trial.)
Paul’s mention doesn’t reflect a sense of ‘what went wrong’… but more a sense of ‘as is fitting of
what this involves.’
Set backs and sacrifices are simply natural. Resistance is natural.
This makes me think of my relationship to resistance… and in how I need to understand the
nature of this mission. If I only want to help people discover and understand God to the degree that
they may appreciate it… and appreciate me… then it’s really about my comfort… and I haven’t
become a servant for others.
It also causes me to think about finding mission in the mundane. Paul is bound up in a jail cell or
small home. We can think that if we are involved with a mission… it will always be the venturing
out that is in adventure. But Paul understands that the mission is always at hand… even when life
may seem limited. Paul doesn’t allow the limits to steal the mission.
3. Seeking opportunities to genuinely relate
Paul’s prayer and purpose is ‘that God will give us many opportunities to speak’… and that in the
same that all who grasp this life will (verse 5) ‘Live wisely among those who are not believers, and
make the most of every opportunity.’
When get a great understanding of what this means in what he wrote in…
1 Corinthians 9:19-23 (NLT)
Even though I am a free man with no master, I have become a slave to all people to bring many to
Christ. 20 When I was with the Jews, I lived like a Jew to bring the Jews to Christ. When I was with
those who follow the Jewish law, I too lived under that law. Even though I am not subject to the
law, I did this so I could bring to Christ those who are under the law. 21 When I am with the Gentiles
who do not follow the Jewish law, I too live apart from that law so I can bring them to Christ. But I
do not ignore the law of God; I obey the law of Christ. 22 When I am with those who are weak, I
share their weakness, for I want to bring the weak to Christ. Yes, I try to find common ground with
everyone, doing everything I can to save some. 23 I do everything to spread the Good News and
share in its blessings.
This is such a rich expression of how we should live… that I want to share how it is
paraphrased by Eugene Peterson in The Message…
1 Corinthians 9:19-23 (MSG)
Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a
servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: 20 religious, nonreligious, 21
meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, 22 the defeated, the demoralized—whoever. I didn’t
take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to
experience things from their point of view. I’ve become just about every sort of servant there is in
my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. 23 I did all this because of the Message. I
didn’t just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!
It’s about common ground. It’s not about becoming deceptive by pretending to be what we are
not… but recognizing that we actually can relate to the various places people find themselves in.
They are a part of us. I think the great tragedy is that we make more of our differences that what we
share in common.
If someone finds themselves seeking to grasp more but hesitant to be told what to believe… I know
that feeling… it’s a very real part of me.
If someone values some religious traditions that they have had as part of their past… but aren’t
sure how devoted to the deeper beliefs they are… I can relate to that too.
If someone is turned off by what hey call ‘organized religion’… which usually reflects that
seems to emphasize outward conformity but lack real inner integrity… I can relate to those feelings.
There is a lot to explore… including how much Jesus spoke so pointedly at this problem.
(Example of fellow parent of child’s soccer team telling me about he and his wife’s struggle with
religion just last week… especially with the role of the priests… then after about 15 minutes…
apologized for going on so intensely… and asked me what I do. After his surprise… rather than
estrangement… I found lots of opportunity to identify with their tensions with religion… and to
help recognize that Jesus confronted many of the same issues. )
In a similar way…if someone is married… or a parent… these bring experiences in life that I
share… in all their gifts and challenges.
Now Paul refers to the nature of Christ… as a mystery… not because it is mystical… but in
reflection of the definition of mystery that reflects simply what is unknown or unidentified. So we
want to help people identify the true hope that lies in Christ. This leads to the last element
involved…
4. Sharing with the sensitivity that allows the unidentified hope (‘mystery’) of
Christ to be understood
Talking about who Christ is and what he has done… is not something we should shy away from…
nor should we feel the need to shy away from it. If we are appropriate in our conduct and sensitive
to relating to people appropriately… we really can rise above the awkwardness that generally comes
because we think we have to be perfect and thus become pretentious… or because we think we have
to bring some formula that doesn’t really reflect what we understand.
Paul wants an opportunity SPEAK. (‘…opportunities to speak about his mysterious plan concerning
Christ.’)
(Hefner - ‘Christian faith is an experience of the Word: God spoke creation into being, the prophets
spoke, Jesus spoke, the apostles and every generation of Christians since then have spoken. And we
are to speak. So Paul, does not even try to convince us to speak, rather he focus on how we are to
speak.’) So he refers to wanting to ‘speak as he should’… and all growing in the same.
In this he notes speaking…
• Clearly (“that I may make it clear”)
• Graciously
• Individually flavored (‘seasoned with salt’; flavorful)
When Paul writes, “know how you are to answer every person,” he is not telling us to know how to
win an argument… but how to help someone know God. We don’t argue or prove people to Christ.
Rather, Paul is reminding us that each person we encounter is unique, with their own special needs
and concerns. We can share the life of Christ in ways that are sensible to the unique issues that one
is aware of.
Everyone needs a touch from God. But as Christ demonstrated, that touch may be different.
It may be the guiding hand of the Shepherd, the healing touch of the Great Physician, or the
prophetic voice of the True Revolutionary.
I want to give each of us who claim this life… an opportunity to consider at least one person we
now who we can pray for. I want us to consider their need… to pray for an appropriate
opportunity… and an appropriate response to their needs.
Some of us need to get over ourselves.
We may think our lives are too much of a mess. They probably are. But if God is at work…
we can still love people. When someone is remodeling their home… they are still a neighbor.
CLOSING –
ILLUS: A little girl was on the way home from church, turned to her mother and said, "Mommy,
the Preacher’s sermon this morning confused me."
The mother said, "Oh! Why is that?”
The girl replied, "Well, he said that God is bigger than we are. Is that true?"
"Yes, that’s true," the mother replied.
"He also said that God lives within us. Is that true too?"
Again the mother replied, "Yes."
"Well," said the girl. "If God is bigger than us and He lives in us, wouldn’t He show through?"
Throughout his letter Paul declared how Christ is the one who comes above all the empires and
forces of this world… and has begun a new humanity… it is nothing less than the subversive hope
of a resistance movement that was set in motion by a leader who came and defied all powers and
went ahead… now calling us who to join his way of life… and his mission. So then let us continue
devoted in prayer, making use of the time we have, and allowing the grace that resides in our hearts
to issue forth from our lips.
Resources:
Resources:
N.T. Wright, Tyndale New Testament Commentary (Colossians and Philemon)
Sermons on this text by Jason Hefner (From Sermon Central)
