Colossians 4:2-6: Making an Eternal Impact

Colossians 4:2-6: Making an Eternal Impact

We’ve been working our way passage by passage through Paul’s letter to the Colossians, and today the next passage we come to is Colossians 4:2-6. Hear now the words of the Living and True God:

² Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. ³ At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison— ⁴ that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. ⁵ Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. ⁶ Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

May God bless the reading of his Word.

Let’s pray: Father, we’re gathered around this text of Scripture today because we want to hear from you. And we want to hear from you because we want to know you more and love you more and be more conformed to your image. So, please, bless our efforts and glorify your name. It’s in Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

It’s not uncommon for people to have a so-called “bucket list,” even if it’s just an informal one. Now, in case you’re not familiar with the term, a “bucket list” is a list of things you’d like to do before you die. Maybe you’d like to travel to a certain country or run a marathon or go skydiving or see a certain band perform in concert. These are all common things for people to put on their bucket lists. Personally, if I were forming a bucket list, visiting Israel and seeing the various sites where biblical events took place would be at the very top of my list.

Yet, as someone recently reminded me, it’s actually kind of silly for Christians to form bucket lists because we’ll have all of eternity to do all the things we’d like to do. The Bible speaks of our eternal existence in terms of a new creation—or a new heavens and new earth. So, we’ll be able to see the Grand Canyon, engage in space exploration, climb Mount Everest, and do any of the other things we’d like to do as many times as we’d like to do them. We’ll have all of eternity to enjoy those things.

However, there’s one thing we won’t be able to do in eternity and that we therefore only have a limited window of opportunity to do during our present lives. And that is sharing the gospel—the message of Jesus—with people who aren’t yet Christians. God’s given us the immense privilege of joining him in his redemptive mission in this world by telling people about Jesus so that they too can know him in a personal way. Yet, the window of time we have to do that is incredibly small—when compared with eternity. In only a few short years, we won’t have that opportunity any longer.

And I don’t know about you, but that makes me want to be as faithful as I can possibly be in telling people about Jesus while there’s still time. That’s the task Jesus has left us here to do. When you think about it, Jesus could just take us right up to heaven as soon as we put our trust in him. But he doesn’t, and that’s because he has a mission for us on this earth—the mission of telling people about him.

And that’s the mission Paul encourages his readers to devote their lives to in Colossians 4:2-6. The main idea of this passage is that Christians should pray and live so as to make the greatest eternal impact. Again, Christians should pray and live so as to make the greatest eternal impact. Paul knows that it’s incredibly easy for us to get caught up in various earthly cares and earthly pursuits, so he writes what he does in these verses to encourage us to look beyond temporary enjoyments and devote our lives instead to making the greatest eternal impact we can possibly make.

So, let’s walk through this passage together, beginning with verse 2. Paul writes, “Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.” The reason Paul tells us to “continue steadfastly in prayer” is because that tends to be an area of struggle for the vast majority of Christians. If we don’t see our prayers immediately answered in exactly the manner we want them answered, we tend to get discouraged fairly quickly. Given enough time, we might even become cynical about prayer in general. Yet Paul encourages us to continue in our prayers without losing heart.

It reminds me of a parable Jesus tells about a widow and a judge. Jesus says in Luke 18:2-5, ² “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. ³ And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ ⁴ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, ⁵ yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’”  Jesus then points out that, if even this heartless judge eventually gives the widow what she requests, how much more will our loving God give his own children what they request if they persevere in their asking?

Then, back in our main passage, Paul tells his readers not only to “continue steadfastly in prayer” but also that they should be “watchful in it.” Now, this idea of being “watchful” in prayer certainly includes not dozing off when we pray. In Gethsemane, when Jesus found his disciples sleeping when they should have been praying, he asked them in Matthew 26:40, “Could you not watch with me one hour?” That’s one reason I often like to pace around the room when I’m praying—in order to make sure I’m mentally alert.

Yet I believe Paul’s instruction to be “watchful” in prayer is a lot broader than not dozing off. Paul wants us to be spiritually alert to the specific needs around us that should be given the highest priority in our prayers. These include the need for specific people to be saved, the need for protection from demonic spirits trying to hinder the gospel’s advance, the need for wisdom in specific decisions, and the need for ourselves and other Christians to grow spiritually in specific ways. Being “watchful” in prayer involves being attuned to the things that ought to be our highest priorities in prayer and focusing on those things.

And before we move on, notice those last two words in verse 2: “with thanksgiving.” Paul tells us not only to be “watchful” in our prayers but to be “watchful…with thanksgiving.” Those last two words are far from insignificant. They actually continue a theme found throughout the letter. Paul’s already told his readers to express thanksgiving in Colossians 1:12, Colossians 2:6, Colossians 3:15, and Colossians 3:17. And he now tells them to do so once again here in Colossians 4:2. You know, it kind of makes me think that thanksgiving might just be pretty important for us to practice. In fact, I think we can confidently say that thanksgiving should pervade our lives. Our thanksgiving to God should be proportionate to his grace toward us—and his grace is beyond what words can even express.

Not only that, in anticipation of what Paul’s about to write about seeking the advance of the gospel, I’d like to point out that this is where our motivation to share the gospel comes from. We’re motivated to share with people about how Jesus can save them from their sins because we’re so profoundly thankful for Jesus saving us from our sins.

The Bible teaches that we were once condemned in our sins and helpless to do anything about it. We stood guilty before God and deserved nothing but eternity in hell. But instead of giving us the punishment our sins deserved, God exhibited extraordinary grace toward us. God the Father sent his own Son Jesus into this world as one of us in order to bear our sins on the cross. When Jesus died on the cross, he was functioning as our substitute and suffering the punishment we deserved to suffer—not just the physical agony of crucifixion but the full measure of God’s wrath against sin. Jesus endured that wrath so we wouldn’t have to.

You know, it's been said that the measure of love is what it’s willing to give. Well, Jesus gave everything. He was then triumphantly raised from the dead as proof of his divine identity and as a demonstration of his victory over sin and death. As a result, Jesus now offers to save everyone who puts their trust in him alone to rescue them from their sins. This is a message we call the gospel.

And when we really begin to grasp the magnitude of God’s grace in the gospel and allow it to get ahold of our hearts, it produces within us the deepest and most profound gratitude. And it’s that gratitude that compels us to share with others about how they can be saved by Jesus just as we have.

Strangely enough, though, many Christians end up being motivated to share the gospel not by joyful gratitude but rather by a sense of guilt or obligation. Yet that’s not at all the way God would have it work. Think about the way grandparents love to talk about their grandchildren. They don’t talk about their grandchildren because they feel like they have to. They’re not thinking to themselves, “Alright, I guess I haven’t talked about my grandchildren enough this week. Let me see if I can find someone who wants to hear about my grandchildren.” Instead, they adore their grandchildren and are therefore quite eager to talk about their grandchildren with pretty much everyone they encounter. Their delight in their grandchildren naturally overflows into their conversations.

And that’s what should lead us to tell people about Jesus. Our heart should be so full of joy and gratitude and delight in Jesus that we naturally find ourselves talking about him with others. The joy and gratitude and delight within our hearts should naturally overflow into our conversations. So, that’s how the “thanksgiving” Paul mentions in verse 2 serves as a foundation for everything else we’re about to read.

Then, moving on to verses 3-4, Paul writes, ³ At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison— ⁴ that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. So, Paul’s writing this from a Roman prison cell but doesn’t seem to care, because he’s so preoccupied with telling people about Jesus. That’s what got him thrown into prison in the first place, and that’s what he planned to continue doing in prison. We might say he had a one-track mind.

And Paul asks his readers to pray for his gospel witness in two specific ways. He first asks them to pray “that God may open to us a door for the word.” Don’t miss the play on words there. The physical doors of the prison might be shut, but Paul requests prayer that the doors for the gospel might be opened. This includes open doors of opportunity for Paul to have gospel conversations, and it also includes open doors in people’s hearts so that they’re receptive to the gospel when they hear it.

After that, in verse 4, Paul also asks his readers to pray, with regard to the gospel, “that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.” Paul knows that he needs supernatural empowerment in order to make the gospel clear. This involves God giving him both the right words to say and the boldness to say them. Likewise, we also need God to show us what to say and give us sufficient boldness to say it.

You know, many Christians assume that they’re responsible for the outcome of their efforts at sharing the gospel—as if they could somehow guarantee a certain response if they’re simply winsome enough, clever enough, or persuasive enough. Yet even though we should certainly seek to be effective in our gospel witness, it’s ultimately God who has to “open…a door” for the gospel in people’s hearts. Our role is simply to do what Paul says here in verse 4 and make the gospel clear to people.

In that regard, we’re a lot like the mailman. The mailman has one job, and that is to deliver the mail. He doesn’t have to stay up at night worrying about whether people will read the mail or what they’ll think of the mail. And he certainly doesn’t try to alter the contents of the mail he’s delivering. Instead, he simply carries people’s mail to their houses and puts it in their mailbox. That’s his job—to deliver the mail. Likewise, that’s the role we’ve been given as well. God’s entrusted to us something of infinite value—the message of the gospel. And he expects us to be faithful in relaying to others that very same gospel message without altering it in any way.

And if we’ll be faithful to do that and make the gospel “clear” to people, as Paul says, we’ll discover that the gospel itself has power to change people’s hearts. Now, it can certainly be helpful to read up on what’s often called Christian apologetics—basically different arguments for the truth of Christianity drawn from science and history and things like that. But don’t underestimate the power of the gospel itself to convince people of its own truth. Romans 1:16 says that the gospel is “the power of God for salvation.” Hebrews 4:12 states that “the Word of God is living and active.” So, treat it that way. Share the gospel with confidence that the Holy Spirit will use that message to do his work.

I love the illustration that the nineteenth-century preacher Charles Spurgeon uses. He compares the gospel to a lion. And he observes how silly it would be for a group of men to stand outside a lion’s cage and seek to defend that lion against someone who might attack it. Lions aren’t weak creatures. They’re more than able to defend themselves. So, Spurgeon recommends that, instead of trying to defend the lion, the people around the cage should simply stand back, open the door of the cage, and let the lion out. That would be the best way of defending him—just let him out of the cage so he can defend himself. And likewise, the best way of defending the gospel is simply to let it out of its cage by sharing it with people. We defend the gospel ultimately by sharing the gospel.

And of course, as we do this, we dare not neglect fervent and faithful prayer—which is precisely why Paul asks the Colossian Christians to pray for him. Like Paul, we need God to “open to us a door for the word” and enable us “make it clear.”

So, let me encourage you to make a list of people whom you’d like to see come to know Jesus and then start praying for them by name each day. Pray that God would open doors of opportunity for you to talk to them, that he’d open a door in their hearts to be receptive, and that he’d enable you to make the gospel clear.

After that, Paul tells his readers in verse 5, “Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.” To “walk in wisdom toward outsiders” means living in a distinctly Christian way that people find intriguing and attractive. The goal is for those who aren’t yet Christians to be so intrigued by our lives they’re willing to listen to what we say about Jesus.

And I think the early church is a great example of how powerful this can be for the advance of the gospel. In Acts 1, the entire church consisted of only 120 people. That’s all the Christians there were in the world. Yet by the year 300, there were somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 million Christians. So, how did the church grow so much in only 300 years? And remember, they were severely persecuted. So, that meant it was impossible for them to have nice church buildings or sizeable church budgets. These Christians had to meet in their homes and at the risk of their lives. Yet the number of Christians exploded in those first few centuries. How did it happen?

Well, that’s the question an Oxford historian named Michael Green asks and answers in a book entitled Evangelism in the Early Church. And Green conclusively demonstrates in over 400 pages of material that the secret to their explosive growth wasn’t any particular program or strategy but instead consisted in the kind of lives the early Christians lived.

For example, they loved people with a kind of love that you didn’t find anywhere else in society. In fact, they even loved the very people who were persecuting them. In addition, not only did they possess extraordinary love, they also possessed extraordinary joy—a joy that was even present in the midst of suffering. And they lived lives that were markedly distinct from the world in many other ways as well.

And it was the way they lived and the kind of character they exhibited that made such a powerful impact on the non-Christians around them. So, the secret to the early church’s explosive growth wasn’t any particular program or strategy but was instead related to the kind of lives the early Christians lived. And that’s what Paul means here in verse 5 when he talks about “walk[ing] in wisdom toward outsiders.”

He then adds in the second half of verse 5 that we should do this “making the best use of the time.” The fact is that we only have a limited amount of time to make an impact with the gospel. So, it’s imperative that we make the best possible use of that time by being passionately engaged in our gospel mission rather than wasting our lives on pursuits that have no eternal value. In John 9:4, Jesus says, “We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work.” The time’s coming when you’ll no longer have an opportunity to spread the gospel, so pour yourself out in the work of gospel ministry while there’s still time.

And very briefly, just to get super-practical, let me suggest a resource you can use to do that. It’s called The Word One to One. This is a resource you can use to walk through the Gospel of John with a non-Christian friend simply by having them read the biblical text on one side of the page and then you reading the short explanatory notes on the other side of the page. And it’s broken down into smaller episodes so that you can just cover one or two episodes per meeting.

This resource is incredibly easy to use and isn’t very difficult at all to get people to do with you—even people who aren’t yet Christians. I’ve used it myself and have found it to be amazing. The creators of this resource also offer a couple of helpful training videos to show you how to use the resource most effectively. So, if you’re interested in learning more about that, feel free to write The Word One to One on a Connection Card, and we’d be very happy to give you more information and supply you with everything you need to get started.

Also, as we consider Paul’s exhortation to “Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time,” I believe I’d be negligent if I didn’t mention the opportunity we have each Sunday morning to engage the guests that God brings to our church. If you think someone might be a guest, you can put what Paul says here into practice by introducing yourself to them, taking the time to get to know them a little, and helping them feel loved and welcomed at our church.

You know, it’s very easy to spend all of our time before and after the worship services on Sundays only talking to the people we know—the people we’re already friends with. But I’d really like to challenge you to prioritize talking with guests.

Studies tell us that most first-time guests actually make at least a preliminary decision about whether or not they’ll come back within the first few minutes of their arrival at a church. Amazingly, that’s often before the Worship Gathering even begins and before they’ve heard the sermon. And guess what the primary factor is that they take into consideration? More than anything else, it’s how friendly and welcoming the people of the church seem to be.

So, I’d like to challenge you—even if you’re not a huge extrovert—to step out of your comfort zone and introduce yourself to people you think might be guests here and take a genuine interest in their lives. That’s a wonderful way we can put into practice what Paul tells us to do here in verse 5 and “Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.” We may not have another opportunity to interact with some of the guests who come here, so let’s make the “best use of the time” we have with them.

Then, finally, in verse 6, Paul says, “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” As Christians, our speech should be “gracious”—that is, it should be kind, sensitive, gentle, patient, humble, respectful, thoughtful, compassionate, restrained, and edifying. And yes, that includes the things we say online as well. You might be very passionate about the issues that are often debated in our society—and your passion might be entirely appropriate. But there’s never a justification for you to speak to or about those who disagree with you in a way that’s not “gracious”—because I can guarantee that the Bible’s just as clear about the qualities that should mark our speech as it is about whatever issue in society that you’re concerned about.

Paul then goes on to say that our speech should be “seasoned with salt,” which means it should be tasteful and have a preserving effect. He then adds, “so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” This involves saying the right thing at the right time in the right way. And again, the purpose of all of this is for the sake of the gospel. Paul’s point in verse 6 is that we should speak in our everyday conversations in a way that supports our gospel witness.

So, what is the focus of your life? Is your life oriented around the cares and concerns of this world or around the mission we’ve been given of spreading the gospel?

I recently read a story about a Scottish pastor from the early 1900’s named John Harper. After coming to know Jesus at age 14, Harper started preaching on street corners at age 17, earnestly pleading with people to turn from their sins and look to Christ for rescue. After several years, a Baptist minister offered Harper a job working for the church. This allowed him to devote his energy full-time to the work of sharing the gospel that he was clearly so passionate about. He’d later start a church in London.

Then, one day, Moody Church in Chicago asked him to preach a series of meetings for them. So, Harper—along with his 6-year-old daughter, Nana—boarded a ship headed for America. The two of them were particularly excited since the ship was a very nice one and since this was the ship’s maiden voyage.

But a few days into their journey—as Nana would later recount as an adult—her father woke her up in the middle of the night and told her that their ship had hit an iceberg and suffered significant damage. So, he put her on a lifeboat and had a chance to get on the lifeboat himself—since he was her sole guardian.

But since there weren’t enough lifeboats to go around, Harper voluntarily gave up his spot on the lifeboat so that someone who wasn’t a Christian and who therefore wasn’t ready to die could have his spot. He was heard calling out in the midst of all the confusion, “Women, children, and the unsaved into the lifeboats!” By now, you may have figured out that Harper wouldn’t end up living through the night—because the ship they were on was the Titanic.

Several years later, a young man stood up at a church prayer meeting in the Canadian province of Ontario and shared the story of how he came to know Jesus. He said, “I am a survivor of the Titanic. When I was drifting alone on a [piece of wreckage] that awful night, the tide brought Mr. John Harper of Glasgow, also on a piece of wreck[age], near me. ‘Man,’ he said, ‘Are you saved?’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘I am not.’ He replied, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.’ The waves bore him away; but, strange to say brought him back a little later, and he said, ‘Are you saved now?’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘I cannot honestly say that I am.’ He said again, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,’ and shortly after he [lost his hold on the wood and sank] down [into the icy waters]; and there, alone in the night, and with two miles of water under me, I believed. I am John Harper’s last convert.”

You see, John Harper understood that life is short and that eternity is long and therefore that nothing else in this life matters as much as reaching people with the gospel. That’s why he was willing to give up his place on the lifeboat and share the gospel with others in those icy waters literally until his final breath. He knew that all around him people were perishing and would spend eternity apart from God unless they put their faith in Jesus. So, he gave his life in order to tell them about Jesus for as long as he had the ability to speak.

And friends, the people we encounter in our everyday lives might not be drowning in the frigid waters of the Atlantic, but they need the gospel just as desperately. All around us, people are headed toward a Christless eternity. And that will indeed be their destiny unless someone shares the gospel with them and they embrace it.

Does that not create a burning sense of urgency within you to tell them about Jesus before it’s too late? Does that not motivate you to do as Paul says in verse 5 of our main passage and “[make] the best use of the time”? John Harper made the best use of the time. What about you? Don’t allow the possibility of a slightly awkward conversation keep you from sharing with someone the message they so desperately need to hear.

So, my encouragement is to choose one person with whom you’d like to share the gospel this week and do so, either in the normal course of a conversation or perhaps by using the Word One to One. Seek to be faithful to the mission Jesus has given us and see how he gives you the right words to say and the boldness to say them.