"How to Buy Time" Colossians 4:2-6 Sunday Morning Worship Service

This morning we are looking at Colossians in chapter 4 as we approach the end of our study of this letter, and I'm going to read our text that we will study as we begin this morning.

It's Colossians chapter 4, beginning in verse 2.

Colossians 4 · chapter mention

So would you follow with me as I read from the Word of God?

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.

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, that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.

Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.

Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

This is the word of the Lord.

I would imagine that for many of us in our school years, or if you're a student, presently in your school years, you can remember many of the walls in your classrooms hanging upon those walls, timelines.

Even if you walk down the halls of this building, as you walk into any of the history rooms, you will find all kinds of timelines.

Many of them have the same kind of basic theme.

They're either national events or world events that put the kind of flow of history in perspective.

But many of them have a kind of shortcoming.

If you're looking at the timelines and you understand kind of the flow of history and how nations rose and nations fell, or different things happened in our own nation, you might ask the question, but how do I fit in there?

How do individual lives fit in there?

And so to supply that shortcoming in the timelines, which timelines go back very, very, very long way in the history of teaching.

It was in 1765 that a British educator named Joseph Priestley published the first biographical timeline chart to kind of fill what was lacking in the individual perspective of history.

And I actually have a picture of it that I would like to show you.

This was a new way of conceiving the flow of time.

What Priestley did was he took 2,000 names of what he considered to be the most famous individuals in history, statesmen and warriors and scientists and artists, and put them on this chart in a chronological flow.

Each of them has their name and a little graph that represents their birth and death.

And yet, even though this gives us something of an individual sense of the flow of history, it doesn't give my individual life a sense of where I fit into history.

And all of these timelines, I think, ask the basic question: what is it that would really give us a meaningful life?

What is it that would make your life really fit?

What is it that would make your life really meaningful in the course of history?

And actually, I think that's kind of the question that Paul's getting at in this text.

What is it that's going to make your life really meaningful?

Well, Paul's been teaching it to us for four chapters in the book of Colossians.

We've seen in this book that what Paul is trying to do is help us see something of the glory of Jesus Christ.

Jesus, the eternally begotten Son of God.

In him the fullness of God resides eternally.

And this Jesus has come into the world, lived a sinless life on your behalf, died for your sins, raised from the dead, and now offers not just to give you eternal life, not just to give you forgiveness of sins, but to unite you to his very self, to impart to you divine life, to share with you the love from the Father that he's been experiencing, radiating in full divine force from Father to Son.

He's offering to catch you up into that, to unite you to himself so that your life would be fully and forever identified with Christ.

To be a Christian is to be united to Christ.

And what gives your life meaning and purpose is living your life for Christ, which is from chapter three and following, as Paul got very practical in this letter.

He's been teaching us what gives your life meaning and purpose is living your life for Christ.

And in this passage, what Paul does is he gives us very simple, concise instructions for how to buy up the small, finite amount of time you have in this life for Christ.

This passage, you see the instruction in the middle of verse 5 to make the best use of the time is a passage that teaches us how to buy time.

You know, it is often said that when they put you six feet under, if they put a tombstone over your grave, they'll probably have your name and your date of birth and your date of death, and in between it'll be a little a little dash.

And what really matters is what you did with the dash.

What Paul is teaching us in this text is that dash has an endpoint.

And it's going to come really quick, and you don't know when it's going to come.

But there is a way that you can live in that dash that will matter forever when you seize every moment and you use it for Christ.

So this passage teaches us three ways to buy up the time to maximize our life for Christ.

The first is this pray devotedly.

Look at verse 2.

Paul says, continue steadfastly in prayer.

Or some English translations render this as, devote yourselves to prayer.

Both of those capture the idea of what Paul is doing.

He's commanding us to dedicate time and energy to pour ourselves out in prayer.

And in fact, in this letter, we get a couple examples of what that might look like.

Just look a couple verses down in the letter.

Look at verse 12.

In verse 12, Paul writes of Epaphras, who's one of you, that's he's a member of the Colossian church, the one who first explained the gospel to these Colossian believers, and he says that now that he's with Paul in Rome, he's a servant of Christ Jesus who sends you his greetings, and he's always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God.

That's an example of being dedicated to prayer, to actually expend time and labor and energy to pray to God, not just for yourself, but for others.

Paul himself is also an example of this.

If you'll flip to the beginning of the letter, in Colossians chapter 1 and verse 9, we looked at this a number of weeks ago.

Colossians 1 · chapter mention

Paul's prayer for the Colossians is kind of encapsulated in verse 9, where he says, From the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with all the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord.

That's what it looks like to devote yourself to prayer, to continue steadfastly in prayer is to be active in time and energy that you invest in praying, both of yourself and for others.

You know, actually the first time this word that's translated is either continue steadfastly or devote yourself to prayer.

The first time that word is used in reference to prayer is in Acts in chapter 1.

And you remember that passage is after Jesus has ascended back into heaven, the believers are gathered together in the upper room in Jerusalem and they don't know what to do, and so they devote themselves to prayer.

They continue steadfastly to prayer.

And it's in that activity that the Holy Spirit comes upon them.

You know, it's just a pattern in Scripture that what is going to make your life meaningful, what is going to connect you to the divine, what's going to connect you to Christ is prayer.

God gave you the organ of speech.

There's no other creature on earth that can speak.

You can.

And the chief reason that God made you able to speak is first so you can speak to Him.

This is the first command that Paul tells us we need to utilize in order to live a life that would maximize our time for Christ, is be devoted to prayer.

But he also adds this instruction.

Look at the middle of verse 2.

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it.

And that word being watchful is the idea of a night guard who's staying awake, who's being ever vigilant, and that's the way that we are to live our lives in prayer.

Usually, when this word is used in the New Testament, it's actually most frequently found on the lips of Jesus instructing us in just the general pattern that we're to live.

We're to live our lives in expectation, in watchfulness, in vigilance, expecting the return of the Lord.

He says, for example, in Matthew 24, verse 42, be watchful, for you do not know in what day your Lord is coming.

Matthew 24:42

So this attitude of watchfulness is to saturate our entire life.

It's to be the characteristic attitude of the way that we live and do everything in our life is watchfulness, expecting the Lord is going to return, living in light of that reality.

And Paul is telling us here, more practically, what is going to enable you to be watchful is to be praying.

You know, the times in your life in which you are not living in light of the return of the Lord are the times in which you suppress the truth and act as though this world were all there is.

But insofar as you are devoted to prayer and you're actually consciously thinking about the Lord and pleasing him in whatever you are doing, you are able to seize the moments and live them in the light of Christ.

Paul goes on at the end of verse 2 and gives us a further instruction as to the manner of our prayer.

We're devoted to it, we're continuing watchfully, and we do it with thanksgiving.

And we have seen in the letters of the Colossians that thankfulness is just a motif throughout the whole Christian life.

All of Christian life is to be replete with a con with an attitude of thankfulness.

We've also seen that thankfulness is not just a kind of formal religious piety, but it is a deep contentment.

Thankfulness is synonymous with happiness.

It's synonymous with contentment and joy.

And Paul says a Christian should be someone who lives his life with a vibrant sense of contentment, even in the midst of the real difficulties of life.

Why?

Because he has his mind on his heavenly father and his savior and his sp the Spirit of God who empowers him.

He has his mindset on the realities of the gospel.

He has his mindset on the realities that my life is united to Christ.

All that belongs to Christ has been gifted to me.

And I possess all of eternal for all of eternity, I possess an inheritance that belongs to the very Son of God.

God has already given me far more than I deserve.

And when your mind is set on that, and the way you set your mind on that is consciously devoting yourself to prayer, to walking closely and being vigilant and alert of the realities of who you are in Christ, you will have an attitude of contentment in your life.

Now, Paul says in verse 3 that this attitude of devoted, steadfast, watchful, thankful prayer isn't just supposed to be a kind of tunnel between you and the Lord, but it's supposed to saturate everything in your life, so that you're not just praying for yourself, though you certainly should, but you're also praying for others.

And Paul, in fact, in this text requests prayer, so we get a model for the kind of prayer that we should utter on the behalf of others.

Look at verse 3.

Paul says, 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.

I think one of the first things that stands out in this text is at the end of verse 3, he's in prison, and he's asking for prayer, and he doesn't ask to be released from prison.

He asks for a door to be opened for the word.

Do you know?

Prayer always reveals your priorities.

When you are pouring your heart up before God, because that is indeed what prayer is.

If you want just a very simple definition, what is prayer?

Prayer is pouring out our hearts to God.

What comes out of your heart will reveal your priorities.

Now, Paul certainly in this text is not telling us or implying to us that it is unimportant to pray for earthly concerns.

In fact, it is necessary and commanded that we pray for earthly concerns.

In the Lord's Prayer, the Lord commands us to pray for our daily bread.

We should pray for earthly concerns.

God cares about your earthly life.

He cares about your body, he cares about your health.

He made your body.

We have a model for how to pray for that, for example, in 3 John in chapter 2.

Let me read this verse for you.

The apostle prays, Brother, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health.

So, Paul, for example, even in his own life, he prays for earthly concerns.

In the letter to Philemon, which at the end of Philemon and Colossians, we see that these letters were carried by the same people at the same time to the same church, were probably read back to back.

In the letter to Philemon, Paul indeed does ask Philemon to pray that Paul would be released and be delivered to come and visit him.

But in this letter, Paul is praying to the church, requesting from the church that they would pray for this chief priority, that the word of God would go forth.

That's his priority.

You see, in other words, the model is that Paul does indeed pray for all earthly concerns, everything that's on his heart, he pours out before his heavenly father, whom he knows cares for him.

But he doesn't stop there.

You see this even in the text I just read in 3 John chapter 1.

3 John 1 · chapter mention

There's only one chapter, but in verse 2, where the apostle, as I said, says, I pray that all may go well with you, and you may be in good health, but he does not stop there.

He continues on and says, as it goes well with your soul.

You know, I think that when we pray for earthly things, we are doing something good and necessary.

But if we stop there, there can be a sense in which we are engaging in a kind of small talk with God.

What I mean by that is when we are sharing our earthly concerns with the Lord, we're sharing things with the Lord that we would probably be willing to share with any random stranger that we were stuck in line with at the supermarket.

But when we go deeper than that, and we're sharing things about our soul, when we're sharing things about our deepest priorities and values and deepest concerns, what's going on in our souls, then we are engaging in a deeper level of talk with the Lord.

That's what Paul is encouraging us to do is to go that deep.

And as we lay out our entire heart, not just our superficial concerns, we're not taking off.

We will stay here.

Don't worry.

When we lay out our deepest concerns, when we lay our soul bare before the Lord, that's when the Lord, by his word, starts to do a work in our heart to realign our priorities to match with his.

And what is God's chief priority?

It is your health, but higher than that is your soul.

And that is what Paul is praying for here.

He does want to get out of prison.

He does request that, but he also requests that a door would be open, that the word would go forth.

And what does that mean for a door to be open?

It just means for him to have opportunities to be able to proclaim Christ.

He says this a number of times in 1 Corinthians chapter 16, for example, he tells the Corinthians, he's going to stay in Ephesus because a wide door for effective work has been opened to me, and there are many adversaries.

1 Corinthians 16 · chapter mention

So it's not either or.

There are difficulties and there are trials and there are even adversaries, but the chief priority is that I have an opportunity to glorify God by speaking the word.

That's his priority.

And he's praying that the Colossians would join him in making that the priority and would labor devotedly and watchfully in prayer for it.

Now, what does it mean to make the word clear?

Well, we see this in verse 4.

In verse 4, he says, Pray for me, that I would make it clear which is how I ought to speak.

Which, by the way, just as an aside, if you ever come to church one Sunday and you think, Man, I hope next Sunday the pastor preaches better, this is the answer for you.

Just pray for him.

You don't need to tell him all the ways that he could improve.

But you can talk to God about all the ways he can improve.

When you read verse 4, I wonder what goes through your mind when Paul says, Pray that I would make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.

And that word make it clear, I think there's a sense in which it's open to a certain kind of misunderstanding, and this is what I mean.

I have certainly understood this verse this way at times, is to look at this and to think, man, I really have to make it clear.

And I pray for me that I make it clear.

But there's a tendency, a natural human tendency, to put all of the weight and all of the burden on the human messenger and to make out all of the results of speaking of the Word of God contingent upon the clarity of the messenger.

And I think that is a misunderstanding of what Paul is doing.

The word that's rendered here, make clear, in other English translations, it's just rendered make it known.

That's a word that Paul uses all the time.

It's a word that just means to make something, just put it out there, just reveal it, to just let it be known.

For example, in Titus in chapter 1, Paul, in his introduction to the letter, says, Paul is writing this letter to you, Titus, in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began and at the proper time manifested.

I've underlined that because that's the same Greek word that's rendered here in Colossians 4 as make clear.

God has made clear eternal life.

Where is eternal life made clear?

In his word, through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God.

That's where eternal life is clear.

It's clear in the word of God.

So ultimately, the weight is on the word of God.

The duty of the preacher, the duty of the Christian who is sharing the Word of God, is to just open the Bible, explain the Bible, let the Bible be known.

Help people to know what is in the Bible.

What does the Bible say and what does it mean to just explain the Bible?

Ultimately, Paul gives us a good example of this in 1 Corinthians and chapter 2.

The weight is not on the articulate I hope it's not.

It's not contingent upon the articulate ability of the speaker, but it's contingent upon the power of the Word of God to change a human heart.

1 Corinthians chapter 2, Paul says in verse 2, I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified, so that verse 5, your faith would not rest in the persuasion of man, but in the power of God.

1 Corinthians 2 · chapter mention

If you are a Christian, you're a Christian ultimately, not because of the articulate ability or the persuasion or the oral power of the one who presented the gospel, whoever it was, a VBS teacher or a parent or a preacher or a friend or a coworker, when they explain the gospel, you probably barely even remember that presentation.

What you'd remember is not their incredible illustrations.

What you remember is beholding Christ.

And you're a Christian, not because you, wow, that person's really persuasive, but you're a Christian because you look in the Bible, you open the pages of Scripture, and you see in the scriptures Christ.

You see him there as your Savior, and you know that he is yours and you are his.

Your confidence, your faith rest not in the oral abilities of the one who was speaking to you, but in the power of God for salvation, which is in the Bible.

So our responsibility is not to be perfectly articulate.

Yes, we should strive to be as persuasive, clear, and winsome as we can be, but ultimately our responsibility is to make the Bible clear, because the Bible has the power for salvation.

That's what Paul's praying that the Colossians, excuse me, requesting the Colossians would pray for him.

Please pray that God would open a door that I could explain the Bible to people.

Because if the Bible is a lion, let it out of its cage and the Spirit will use it to do his work in the hearts of those around.

Now, Paul is going to go on and say that if we're devoted to prayer and we're praying for opportunities for the word to go forth, God's going to answer our prayers.

And so as we are walking in the world, waiting for God to answer our prayers, we need to walk wisely.

He says this in verse 5.

Look at verse 5 where Paul says, walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.

Now the word for outsiders is speaking of those who are outside of the covenant community.

That is, those who are outside of Christ, non-believers, non-Christians.

And the word for walk, of course, is just a common word in the scripture to speak of your daily life.

So this is, you live your life in the world in such a way that you encounter nonbelievers.

For most of us, that's just not an option.

We have family members and coworkers and neighbors, etc.

It's just part of life that you live in the world and there are people who are outsiders who don't know Christ.

How do you walk in the world in such a way that you would be used by Christ?

Well, you walk wisely, Paul says.

So what does that mean to walk wisely?

Well, I think you will agree with me if I say the Bible has a thing or two to say about wisdom.

But just for the purposes of this morning, let's just look at the ways that Paul uses the word wisdom in the book of Colossians.

Flip over to chapter 1 and verse 9, a text that we read just a moment ago.

Let's read it again.

You'll find the word wisdom is in that text.

In Colossians and chapter 1, verse 9, Paul says, From the day I heard of your faith, we've not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

So what does it look like to have the Holy Spirit giving you divine wisdom, verse 10, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him?

So wisdom, according to Paul, is a knowledge of God's will, so that you will walk in a manner pleasing to the Lord.

That's what wisdom is.

Where do you find that wisdom?

Well, Paul uses the word wisdom again in chapter 2 and verse 3.

So just look down in your Bibles at chapter 2 and verse 3, where he says, It's in Christ that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden.

It's Christ, in knowing who Christ is and all that Christ is, all of his person and his glory and his attributes and his character, what Jesus is like, and knowing all that Jesus has done for you and will do in the future, knowing that enables you by the power of the Spirit to walk in a way that's pleasing to the Jesus whom you love.

That's what wisdom is: is growing in your knowledge of who Jesus is, what he's done, and what he wants you to do.

And then walking in a manner obediently, empowered by the Spirit to do His will.

Practically, where do you discover who Jesus is, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge?

Well, Paul uses the word wisdom one more time in Colossians.

Flip over one chapter, chapter three, and verse sixteen.

And in chapter three, verse sixteen, we get this little nugget, uh verse sixteen, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom.

Where is wisdom found?

Very practically, it's found in the Bible.

In the scriptures, where Christ is revealed, where Christ is displayed for us, where he's made known, made clear to us.

The eyes of our heart perceive who Christ is, what he has done, and the Spirit works in our heart to love him and desire to obey him, and the Scripture reveals the ways that we can please him in our speaking and our thinking and our acting.

So to walk in the world in wisdom is to walk in the world according to the Bible, to grow in your love of Jesus, and your knowledge of Jesus, and to walk in ways that please him.

But I think Paul has a specific aspect of wisdom in mind here and back to chapter 4 and verse 5, where he says, walk in wisdom towards outsiders, making the best use of the time.

Or that last phrase, making the best use of the time, and other English versions is rendered as redeeming the time, buying up the time.

I think that's the best way to render that verse.

That's the way this verb is rendered in its other occurrences in the New Testament.

So for example, Galatians chapter 3, verse 13, the same Greek verb is used to say, Christ redeemed us, he bought us out of the curse of the law.

Galatians 3:13

Christ spent his own blood to buy us out of the curse of the law.

In a parallel passage in Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 16, Paul says the same thing to redeem the time because the days are evil.

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

And I think that's the way to understand this text.

Buy up the time.

What would it mean to buy time?

Well, I think Ephesians chapter 5, verse 16 is very helpful to fill out the concept here.

Ephesians 5:16

Paul says in that verse, redeem.

The time, buy up the time because the days are evil.

Paul's understanding of the way that the course of history works is that time is just flowing by, moment by moment, year by year, season by season, age by age, and the default of human nature, the default of your heart, is that time is just going to get eaten up and used, and it's going to go to waste, and none of it will be used for the glory of God.

The only way to live in this world is to live actively, to seize the day, to seize the moment.

And as time is going by, to buy it up.

Whatever cost is necessary of forfeiting your own desire for laziness or sin or sluggishness, to seize every moment and buy it up for the glory of Christ.

To it grab every moment and invest it in eternity.

You know, time, if you think about it for just a moment, transparently, is the most precious of all human resources.

It is the most scarce and it is the only non-recoverable human resource.

Many other resources can be bought back.

Even money itself can be regained.

For example, the American government says that in the year 2023 there were 452,990 bankruptcy filings.

And in a recent study published by Ohio State University, excuse me, the Ohio State University.

Now, if you're a buckeye, you won't be happy because I'm about to mention you in the context of bankruptcy, so forgive me.

This Ohio State University study found that of Americans who file bankruptcy, most of them recover.

It just takes them 10 to 20 years to do so.

Many resources in this world can be recovered.

Time can never be recovered.

Every single moment is presented to you, and you use it or it passes you by, and you will never get it back.

Every single successive moment through your life comes by and you choose whether you will invest it in the fields of eternity or you will let it just be eaten up by the evil days.

I want you to imagine just for a moment this hypothetical situation in which you wake up in the morning and you find that there are$1,440 deposited in your checking account, and you have a note from this invisible investor who has said, I have a deal.

I'm going to invest$1,440 in your checking account every single day.

And you do with it whatever you want, but it's a use it or lose it deal.

At the end of each day, whatever is left in your checking account will disappear.

What would you do with it?

If you were a Christian in this arrangement, you would want to take every dollar that's given to you and invest it in eternity.

Use it for spending and use it for investments in this world in ways that will matter for the advance of the gospel and for the kingdom of God.

You would seize every single dollar and you would invest it for the kingdom, right?

Well, I think you know where this illustration is going.

Most of us don't have invisible donors making deposits in our checking account, but you do have every single day of your life 1,440 minutes given to you.

But they don't come as a lump sum at the beginning of the morning.

They come as a succession, as an ever flowing stream, minute by minute by minute by minute.

Each minute is offered to you in whatever circumstance or season of life you're in.

Each minute is offered to you.

You can seize this minute and you can invest it in eternity, or you can let it fly by, never to be regained again.

That's your entire life.

What Paul is saying is the way to live the Christian life is never passive.

The way to live a life for eternity, for Christ, the way to live a life that really matters is to be active in seizing every minute and thinking and speaking and doing things that will matter eternally for Christ.

Buy up the time because it's fleeting and precious.

But there's a specific way that I think Paul is even talking about redeeming the time in this text.

In verse 5, he says, making the best use of the time, or some translations render that word time as opportunities, because a specific Greek word he uses for time can be used for the flow of time, and it does certainly, the principle entails the flow of time and seizing every moment.

But in this verse, I think Paul is speaking specifically of particular times when you have special opportunities, particularly with regard to outsiders.

Be watchful in prayer, devoted to prayer, walking wisely in the world, seizing every moment, and ready when you have special, divinely appointed opportunities to seize hold of for speaking the gospel of Christ.

And that's where he goes in his third step here, to live eternally.

Let me skip on to the third step here.

Speak graciously.

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.

Now the word that's translated here as speech is just the word logos.

It's the common Greek word for word.

It's the same word that is used in verse 3, where Paul prays that there would be a door open for the word.

And by using the same word in each instance, I think Paul here is specifically talking about a specific kind of speech that should be seasoned with salt.

Certainly, all of our daily speech should be seasoned with salt, should be gracious.

But Paul here, I think, is speaking specifically of a particular kind of speech, namely speaking of the word, speech about God's word.

Look for opportunities and seize upon them to be able to speak truth into someone's life that would do them gracious spiritual good.

And when you seize those opportunities, let your speech be gracious, seasoned with salt.

So what does that mean?

Salt in the ancient world had two primary, many, many uses, but two primary uses, preservative and flavor.

So most interpreters look at this text and say, Paul is here commending graciousness and we could say winsomeness in our speech.

We should speak in a winsome way so that our speech is flavorful.

It leaves people wanting more.

And I think that's a good interpretation.

Certainly, our speech should be truthful, but never a kind of, I'm just going to be honest and I don't really care what you think, I don't really care about you.

I'm just going to say the truth.

That's not an attitude that is becoming of Christ, because that's not Christ's attitude.

Christ's attitude is, well, look at it in chapter 3 and verse 12.

The kind of attitude that should characterize our speech is compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, bearing with one another, and if anyone has a complaint against another, forgiving each other.

As the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive.

And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

That should be the kind of attributes that characterize a Christian's heart, and out of the fullness of his heart he speaks.

And what comes out is graciousness.

What comes out is purity.

What comes out is love.

What comes out is patience and gentleness and kindness and goodness.

That's the kind of speech that should come out of our mouths when we testify about Christ.

It's the kind of things that should come out of our mouths every hour of the day.

Paul says in Ephesians chapter 4, rather, in verse 29, let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth, but only such as is good for building up as suits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

That's the kind of speech that should characterize a Christian.

So I think winsomeness indeed is a good way to understand gracious speech seasoned with salt.

But I also want to avoid an opposite air here.

And I think there's a kind of ethos in our world wherein Christians are told you need to be winsome, you need to be winsome, you need to win people to Jesus.

And there is a natural human tendency to focus so much on people's responses that you orient everything that you do in all of your speech towards getting the right response from people so that people will always think well of you.

But Jesus says in Luke 6, woe to you when all men think well of you.

If there's anyone who characterizes gracious speech in this world, would it not be Jesus?

For example, in Luke chapter 4, this is actually the kind of nearest grammatical parallel to speech that's flavored with grace.

Luke 4 · chapter mention

Luke chapter 4, verse 22 says of Crowd's reaction to Jesus, everyone spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth.

Luke 4:22

Luke chapter 4 is that account in Jesus' life where he goes to his hometown of Nazareth, goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, sits down in the synagogue, and they ask him to read the scripture.

Luke 4 · chapter mention

So he reads from the scroll of Isaiah, he reads a prophecy of the coming Savior, and then says, This scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

And this is the response.

Everyone in his hometown who knew him growing up spoke well of him, marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth.

Now, if the story just ended there, we would say, Wow, we have to speak in such a way so that everyone thinks well of us all the time.

But Jesus just kept talking.

And the next thing he said was, But you don't believe in me, and so you're under judgment.

And then their response was very different.

The text says in Luke 4, verse 30, that they were filled with rage.

Luke 4:30

They took hold of him, stripped him out of the synagogue, and tried to throw him off the cliff.

Of course, Jesus passed through their midst and continued his ministry until the appointed time when he would be this ultimate sacrifice for sin.

But the point is very simple, I think.

Jesus is love incarnate.

God is love.

Christ is love.

And God is truth.

Jesus always permanently spoke graciously.

That is, he spoke lovingly and truthfully.

It's hard to ride that horse, isn't it?

Some of us are prone to fall off the side of, we will speak truth and we don't really care about you.

But Jesus never did that.

Jesus always loved.

But it's also easy to fall off on the other side and to be so concerned about people's responses that we fail to boldly share the truth that God can actually use to do them spiritual good.

Jesus is the model, and Jesus is the model of holding firmly both grace and truth, both love and boldness.

Now, what is going to enable us to do that?

I think that if you just look at this text, we are devoting ourselves to prayer.

So we're pouring out our whole heart to God, asking him to reorient our priorities.

We're walking in wisdom, that is, walking in light of all that Christ is, growing in our knowledge and our love for him, and desiring other people to know him too, and then seizing every moment to be able to speak about Jesus.

What's going to enable us to do that is the whole Bible.

We need the whole of Scripture.

Our problem is always ever, we need more of the Word of God residing in us, dwelling in us richly, and compelling us to speak and think and act in ways that please the Lord.

He describes his ministry like this, saying, Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what was written, it's a quote from the Psalms, I believed and so I spoke.

We also believe, and so we also speak.

That's what characterizes Christian ministry.

Convictions about who Christ is, standing on the truths of who Christ is as love and truth, and it just coming out of our mouths.

Knowing, Paul says, that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.

Maybe we could just say a lot of our problem is that we don't believe in the resurrection enough.

If we kind of go back to where we started with the Joseph Priestley's big biographical timeline and all of those little dashes that stood for all these individual lives, or maybe we think about our own future little dash on our own tombstone.

What matters in our life is what we do with the dash.

But if we believe in the resurrection, then you can rip the year of death right off that tombstone, and your life is just going to keep going on and on and on.

And when you are devoted to prayer and walking wisely and speaking graciously, you are living in light of reality.

You're living in light of reality that your death is really just a door into the eternal kingdom, and you are investing every moment, actively seizing every opportunity to sow into the fields of eternity in the kingdom of God, of which there will be no end.

This is the way that you live a life that really matters when you live it for Christ.

Father, we do pray that you would give us wisdom.

Open the eyes of our hearts wider and wider to behold Christ, who's worthy of our love and our service.

And we do pray that you would give us a zeal to serve you.

We pray that you would give us eyes for eternity to help us see past the shadows into the solid realities that are to come.

We pray, Lord, that you would give us graciousness, wisdom, winsomeness in the way that we speak, that you would give us boldness and freedom.

For you have not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and self-control.

So let us be those who are evidently in love with you, bold to share and to speak your words and truth.

We pray this in the name of Christ.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to TMS.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.