Sent With A Plan (Colossians 4:2-6) Myles Holmes | Sept 21, 2025

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the Spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you have your Bibles, you can open them up to Colossians chapter 4.

Colossians 4 · chapter mention

You're gonna need a copy in front of you this morning.

So if you don't have one, the ushers are making their way to the front of the church, and you can flag one of them down.

They'd be glad to put one into your hands.

You can keep this as our gift to you.

Before we dive into the text this morning, it's uh it's a special morning for a number of reasons.

Uh, one is that we've been praying for a few families in our church.

Uh, specifically, one family is the locks, Dave and Sonia.

Uh, Dave serves as an elder here.

Dave and Sonia helped plant this church, and many of you know that they were in Arizona.

Um, Sonia was diagnosed with Lyme disease, and so they were seeking treatment there.

And they are back in Ontario.

Dave is with us this morning, and so we praise the Lord that he's back with us, and I'm sure you will connect with him after the service and hear of all that the Lord is doing through them.

And you, I know, I know you will be inspired by their faith through these last three seasons.

And and we're praying eager to see Sonia again return with us, hopefully soon.

Um, I see Miriam and Ali are back too, and they've been away for some time, again, because of sickness, and what a joy it is to be back together, family of God, who praise the Lord for them too.

I've been praying for both those families, so thankful this morning to see them back.

Um, because at the end of this service, we're gonna highlight some of the ways that the Lord is at work through a uh family of churches that we're a part of called the Great Commission Collective.

Um, this is actually GCC Canada Sunday, and so every church is uh doing this in Canada.

You're gonna feel like, you know, we invented this with how much it fits into what we're talking about this morning.

But we're gonna share a video with you and invite you to join in prayer for some exciting things that are happening beyond the walls of Redemption Church, which is very exciting.

The mission that we've been talking about over these last two weeks that we're talking about today is bigger than just this church.

It's bigger than us, and we're gonna see that in some really tangible ways.

For now, I want to take you back to my very first job.

The first job I ever had was at Zellers.

You remember Zellers?

I loved Zellers.

The Canadian pride, right?

It was Zellers lasted longer than Target did in Canada, so we got some pride in that.

Well, I worked at Zellers, and I'm ashamed to say this after having just mocked Target for how long they were in Canada.

I wasn't at Zellers for very long.

Part of that was because I was hired seasonally, and so I don't know if it was ever the plan, but I think a bigger part of that was I didn't really know what I was hired to do.

I was hired at the uh referral of a friend, and my first shift working, this friend trained me on a job which I would never work again.

I was scheduled for a completely different job every single shift, and so I walked around Zellers not knowing what to do at all for a whole season, and then was surprised when they didn't hire me on as a full-time employee.

Yet looking back on it, I'm not as surprised.

I knew I had a job.

I got a paycheck for that job, you know, sadly, probably for Zellers.

Maybe I guess no one's listening to this now from Zellers, you know, corporate.

I actually spent every single dollar I earned from Zellers.

Now remember, I was, you know, a child at this time, at Subway.

That has nothing to do with the story, but it's just an interesting statistic if you're ever doing trivia for my life, okay?

I knew I had a job, I didn't know how to do it.

Now I think as we have spent these last two weeks talking about evangelism, I wonder if that is maybe how some of us are feeling right now.

The first week that we were together, we were talking about the motivation for our evangelism, that we are not only saved by the gospel, but sent by the gospel.

And the Holy Spirit was working in us through his word to give us this understanding that our identity as Christians is as those who are sent.

Last week we saw in Acts 1 that we are sent to the world, that the scope is actually mind-blowingly big, and that we are sent as witnesses.

It's part of our identity, sent with urgency because of the Lord's return.

And so here we are on week three, having been convinced that you know evangelism is something that we should do because of who we are.

Evangelism is something that we should do with some urgency in light of the Lord's return.

And yet one of the most important things, questions still hanging in the air, is how do we actually do it?

Well, Paul in Colossians 4, verses 2 to 6, gets immensely practical.

Colossians 4:2–6

And what we're gonna see this morning is what we have in the gospel, what we have in the good news that Jesus Christ died for our sins, lived the perfect life we needed for our righteousness, and was raised with new life for us.

What we have is not only the mission given to us by Jesus, but the method.

As we see Jesus' method as the first missionary from heaven sent for us, we also see our method.

That's the good news of the gospel.

Not only that it tells us that we are sent, but it tells us how we're sent.

Let's see this together in Colossians chapter 4.

Colossians 4 · chapter mention

Would you stand with me as we read God's word?

Paul says this in Colossians chapter 4, beginning in verse 2.

Colossians 4 · chapter mention

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 time.

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

Let me pray.

Father, we bow before you.

And God, we declare in prayer what we just declared in song, Lord, that you are holy and exalted.

God, you are high above every other name.

And so, Lord, in this place we bow our hearts before your word and ask you, Lord, to speak with us to us.

God, would you fill us with faith?

Fill us with hope.

Fill us with a belief, Lord, that you are an extraordinary God who promises extraordinary power to an ordinary people.

God, help us to believe, Lord, that you desire to use us for eternal purposes to reach lost people.

It's not beyond our imagination, Lord.

We know that it was someone who shared the gospel with us.

And so, Lord, give us this bold confidence, knowing, Lord, that you could use us to share the gospel with others and to see lost people saved.

Not our work, Lord, but yours.

And so it's not our glory, it's yours, Lord.

All the glory goes to you.

And we pray this in the name of your son.

Amen.

Amen.

You can take your seat.

It's important to see some context here in this passage we just read.

Since Colossians chapter 2, verse 6, Paul has been showing the church that to receive Christ as Lord, if you believe in the Lordship of Christ, a byproduct of that is that you'll also walk in him.

Colossians 2:6

In fact, look at that with me.

Flip back to Colossians chapter 2, verse 6.

Colossians 2:6

We actually studied this text as a church a few short months ago.

There, Paul says, therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him.

Then what he does through Colossians chapter 2 and 3 is it really shows how in every sphere of life we as Christians are to walk in Christ.

Colossians 2 · chapter mention

He shows this in the home.

He shows this in the workplace, in our relationships.

And that makes sense, doesn't it?

If you have confessed that Jesus is the Lord of your life, then a byproduct of that confession, of believing that Jesus is the Lord, of whom not even a single speck of dust lands without his sovereign yes, then of course we should align our lives under his will.

If he's the powerful one, we should submit to him.

Paul fleshes that out, seeing how the lordship of Christ transforms our inner life, how it transforms our community life.

But then in verse 2, he actually pivots and he points his gaze outward.

And what he wants us to understand is this is that the lordship of Christ actually transforms our outward life.

It transforms our evangelism.

It doesn't just change us, it doesn't just change our relationships with other believers.

It sends us out into the world.

Now I want you to understand that in the DNA of our church, as we talk often about what it means to be a maturing disciple, that what Paul is getting at here is built in the very fabric of our church.

You remember what it means to be a maturing disciple?

We just did a series on it.

Three marks of a maturing disciple, that they abide in Christ, that they connect in the church, and that they reach the lost, right?

It's abiding, it's connecting, it's reaching.

And notice that as Paul fleshes out what it means to walk in Christ, he does it in that order.

Here's what it means to abide in Christ, here's what it means to connect in the church, and the overflow is that inevitably, if you are a maturing disciple, saved by the gospel, doing those things, the overflow of that will be to reach the lost.

In other words, it's not an optional add-on, it's the natural overflow of abiding and connecting is a growing heart for the lost.

And that's what turn Paul makes in Colossians 4.

He's dealt with abiding in Christ, he's dealt with connecting in the church, and now he looks outward.

How does the lordship of Christ affect the way that you seek to reach the lost?

If Christ is Lord, his lordship will not only show up in your vertical relationship with him, his lordship will not only show up in your internal relationship in the church, his lordship will show up in the world.

Now, this is the truth that I want you to see today, that the gospel not only gives us a mission, the gospel shows us how to live sent.

The gospel shows us how to live, as we saw last week, as witnesses.

Three actions, each required of us, that Paul gives us to pray, to walk, and to speak.

I want you to see these three things.

First, notice with me that we live sent when we pray.

Now, let me say this up front so that I don't concern some of you as you look at your watch.

We're gonna actually spend most of our time here.

Half the sermon this morning is gonna be dealt talking about prayer.

And that's intentional because really the foundation of our evangelism, the foundation of being those who have been not only saved but sent is prayer.

If we don't understand prayer, if we don't practice prayer, we won't live as those who are sent.

In other words, if you don't start here, you don't get anywhere.

And notice that Paul says this clearly in verses two to four.

First, he commands not that we just pray casually, but that we pray cons persistently.

You see what he says?

Put your eyes on the text and look at verse 2.

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

To continue steadfastly means that our lives are marked with a persistence in prayer.

It is a clinging to God, it is a daily dependence.

It is the kind of devotion that you see in those documentaries about athletes who have kind of devoted their entire life to one thing.

They're kind of maniacal about it.

It's this devotion, and Paul's saying this.

Listen, if you're gonna be devoted to anything, be devoted to prayer.

Now, Paul's concern is not just that we pray continually, but it is how we pray.

Notice that he says our prayer is to be watchful with thanksgiving.

This term watchful means to be awake.

It means to be alert, it means to be on guard, it means to know what is happening at all times.

We understand this.

We love our security cameras.

We have a watch, an eye on our front door at all times.

It's watchfulness.

We know what's going on.

We're aware.

It's the same word that Jesus used in the garden when he said to his disciples, watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.

It carries this idea of being spiritually awake.

You're not drifting through life with your eyes, you know, closed, half asleep, unaware of what God might be doing in people's lives.

You are scanning the horizon, and the application for us is that we're constantly asking, who might God be at work in around us?

Who has God planted seeds of the gospel in that we need to come along and maybe water?

We are watchful in prayer.

Maybe we could picture this really well by thinking about the opposite of watchfulness.

What does the opposite of watchfulness look like?

Some of you guys, maybe the best way you could picture this is your dogs.

I've seen dogs before that are supposed to be security dogs, and I come in as a stranger, and what does that dog do?

Well, they sniff you like nothing's wrong.

And I always think, well, you know, this dog doesn't know me, doesn't know if I'm coming in to, you know, break into this place or steal a TV or judge the person for what kind of coffee they're serving.

This dog knows nothing.

And you know, what does the dog do?

It wags its tail, it's happy to see you.

And what used to be, you know, this terrifying watchdog security, you know, inducing thing becomes this sort of like teddy bear.

It's the opposite of watchfulness.

Imagine the biblical picture here.

Imagine a night watchman stationed at the gates of a city.

His job is to stay alert to threats, to sound the alarm when danger approaches.

But instead of watching, he just walks around in circles.

He just repeats the same routine.

It doesn't matter if nothing's happening at the city gates, it doesn't matter if all sorts of enemies are crawling over the wall.

He doesn't notice it.

He's not watchful.

Now that is what prayer becomes when we use the same old words at the same old time with no alertness and no awareness to the way that God might be working in the lives of those around us.

Paul, on the other hand, says, be watchful in prayer with thanksgiving.

And so the picture here is imagine the watchman who knows he has all the king's resources at his disposal, who knows that if he sees an enemy and calls the king, the king has positioned him in a place so that at a moment's notice all the king's resources will be funneled to that watchman.

That's what Paul means by watchfulness with thanksgiving.

It is a watchfulness with this thanksgiving that that when we pray to God, he acts.

That the people we pray for, God is hearing those prayers and acting according to them.

That the prayers of his children are instrumental in the salvation of the lost.

It's this watchfulness with thanksgiving, with this understanding of the things that I see when I pray about God hears me and he acts according to it.

Loved one, do you believe that about prayer?

You know, I can't I can I can think about just specific people that I've prayed for, you know, with with the people in this room after a church service for the salvation of different people who now the Lord is working in their lives.

Maybe they're safe, you know, maybe maybe the Lord is just drawing them.

And it's this reminder, God answers prayer.

It's this watchfulness, I know what's going on.

It's this thanksgiving, I know God will act.

Can't help but think that often our we are watchful, that we are aware of what's going on.

But instead of being watchful with thanksgiving, we might be watchful with this sort of anxiety.

Loved one, does that characterize you?

Yeah, I know what's going on in my life.

I know exactly who's not saved in my life.

I know exactly what things are leading, what circumstances are causing me to suffer in my life, but but instead of praying with thankfulness, uh, you we sort of toss up these prayers, hoping against hope, maybe God will answer them.

Maybe God will do something.

And Paul is is asking us to stop and say and reflect on our prayer and ask this question are we praying watchfully with thanksgiving?

Are our eyes open to the reality of the work that God is doing, to the reality that God is willing through prayer to work in the lives of those that we love the most?

And so we take this moment just to reflect on our own lives and ask, what kind of watchmen are we right now?

What kind of watchman does your prayer life prove you to be right now?

Are you the kind of watchman who sort of, you know, right now you're just kind of like half asleep?

I mean, you're there, but you're praying the same old things at the same old time, just going reciting through the list.

Are you the proud watchman who doesn't believe he needs the king's help, who doesn't need to call out, you know, I kind of got this on my own, and so I don't even need to call out for the king's resources.

Or are you the watchman that Paul envisions here?

Your eyes are scanning the horizon, your heart is awake to God's faithfulness, your lips are calling to the king.

God, do a work in their life.

God, I know you can save, I know you can act powerfully.

The prayer, Paul is saying here, is the posture of a watchful disciple.

How do you be watchful?

I cannot help but to think that there's any other way than to pray.

Now, in verse 3, Paul continues.

He says, look at verse 3, at the same time, pray also for us that God may open a door to us for the word to declare the mystery of Christ.

Now, notice here what Paul is asking for.

In prison, as he writes Colossians, he's not asking for comfort.

He's not asking for better prison food.

He's not even asking for release from prison.

The thing that Paul is praying for is that his mind, consumed with the mission, through his circumstance, Christ would be made known.

That's where the burden falls.

Paul prays, I mean, the burden, Paul is putting the burden on God.

Pray for us, Paul says, that God would open a door for us to preach the gospel.

For the word.

Now there's a profound insight for us.

This informs our theology about evangelism.

Paul assumes here that the evangelistic fruit in our lives is not ultimately a product of us, but of God.

When Paul looks at his situation in prison and wants to reach people, he asks that you would pray for God to open a door.

In other words, if a door is going to swing open to the human heart, God must unlock it.

If the mystery of Christ is going to be understood, God must reveal it.

Have you ever considered that every conversion, including your own, is a miracle of God's sovereignty.

Salvation is of the Lord.

Jonah says.

We read this in John 6 a few short months ago.

Jesus said in John 6, 44, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.

Paul says this in Romans chapter 9, verse 16.

Romans 9:16

So then it, speaking of salvation, so then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy.

Salvation is God's work.

Salvation is never a result of our clever words or our human effort.

It is always and only the sovereign mercy of God opening blind eyes and drawing hearts to Christ.

Now it's fascinating to me then that we read in this text that Paul is praying that God would open a door for the word.

That is God's sovereignty.

Yet he's also praying that he would make it clear.

That's human responsibility.

We find ourselves in this tension between God's sovereignty and human responsibility.

And it begs us to ask this question: if salvation is ultimately God's work, if salvation is of the Lord, if no one comes to the Father unless he is drawn to him by the Father, what purpose does prayer even have?

You ever thought about that?

Why does Paul, in other words, ask for prayer here if it is God who opens the door?

If it's God the Father who draws people to himself?

Now I would argue that it's actually harder to answer that question if you don't believe in the sovereign electing love of God.

If you believe that God has released everyone to their own free will to choose for themselves whether they follow or not, then my question to you would be this: what power does prayer have?

If God's sovereignty is not in the picture, why pray at all?

When we hold these truths together, like Paul does, when we are unwilling to let go of God's sovereignty and salvation while holding on to the human responsibility, that's where we find the power of prayer.

It's not merely sovereignty, it's not merely responsibility, it's both.

The Father draws, but what we understand is that the Father draws through means.

He uses things, he uses instruments in drawing people to himself.

That's what Paul says in Romans chapter 10.

Romans 10 · chapter mention

He says, How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed?

And how are they to believe in him on whom they have never heard?

And how are they to hear without someone preaching?

God ordains the ends, and he ordains the means.

God opens the heart, but he does it through the prayers and the witness of his people.

And so Paul says, pray for an open door.

That is his sovereignty.

But then he says, that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.

That's responsibility.

Both these truths held together, not in contradiction, but in a mysterious partnership.

Now I want you to see this morning that it is prayer that binds those two things together.

That if all you believe is God's sovereignty, which is an error throughout church history known as hyper-Calvinism, or all you believe is in human responsibility and freedom, I want you to understand that in both those extremes, prayer is not necessary.

It's when you hold the tension that Scripture gives us of both these things that prayer becomes the instrument that God uses to save.

Now we see this all throughout Scripture.

Think about Acts 18.

Paul is in Corinth.

Paul receives this vision where the Lord comes to him and says, Do not be afraid, but go on speaking, and do not be silent, for I am with you.

For, the Lord says, I have many in this city who are my people.

You see it there?

Acts chapter 18.

Acts 18 · chapter mention

The Lord has many in the city who are his people.

Therefore, Paul must go on speaking.

These people, though they are the Lord's, though God already knows who are his, they wouldn't be saved apart from hearing the gospel through the lips of Paul.

And so what does Paul do?

He stays in Corinth for a year and a half and he preaches the gospel, and many people believe through the preaching of Christ.

Loved one, that's why we pray.

That is why we speak.

Because God's sovereignty in our salvation, it doesn't make our mission pointless, it doesn't make our efforts fruitless.

It makes our mission possible.

Prayer is the instrument.

I want you to see that at the heart of the first method we are given by Paul in regards to reaching the lost is the gospel.

We are to intercede for the lost.

And the reason we do this is because of what we're told in Hebrews chapter 7, verse 25.

Hebrews 7:25

You know what we're told there?

That it is Christ who intercedes for us.

That Christ intercedes for us.

Loved one, do you know that?

Do you know that right now the the ascended Son of God, Jesus Christ Himself, is interceding for you?

Love what Robert Murray McShane says.

He says, if you could hear Christ praying for you in the next room, what confidence, what courage would that give you in your life?

And yet he is.

He is.

He intercedes for you.

Now nothing displays the heart of our Savior more than when we intercede for others.

When we intercede for the lost, we are simply being a conduit of what Christ is already doing for us.

Christ prays boldly for us, so we pray boldly for others.

And so here's the question as we apply this text to our lives: do you pray?

Not just do you pray before meals, not just do you pray when life gets hard, do you pray for the mission?

Do you pray for open doors?

Do you pray for God by his Holy Spirit to give you boldness, clarity for God to save the lost?

I love what Mark read as he prayed this morning.

You know, what is Jesus' answer to the problem of evangelism in Matthew chapter 9?

Matthew 9 · chapter mention

Jesus says the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.

Therefore, what would you expect?

Well, get out there and start speaking.

Start planning some programs.

Read some more books.

That's not what Jesus says.

The harvest is plentiful, the laborers are few.

Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his field.

The harvest belongs to the Lord, so we pray.

He softens the soil, he raises the workers, he draws the hearts.

So I want you to understand right from the get-go: if our prayer life is weak, our evangelism will be powerless.

That the foundation of being sent is prayer.

We are calling on the king so that we are no longer fighting in our own strength.

We are watchful in prayer.

We are clinging to him.

We are quick to call for his power, to open doors that no amount of persuasion, no amount of cleverness could ever open.

And so I ask you, this very week in your life, who have you been praying for?

Who has who comes to mind that you're praying?

I mean, if we truly believed that God worked through prayer, our list would be filled with unbelievers that we are praying for by name and loved one.

This is where it starts.

Prayer is the work of evangelism.

It is the first work, it is the foundational work.

It is how ordinary people like you and me tap into the extraordinary power of God so that through us he reaches the lost.

Now, that's the most important thing I want you to see.

The foundation of evangelism is prayer.

And Paul here is calling us to three things, not three steps, really three requirements.

We hold them all in tension.

We pray, but our prayer moves us to something.

Secondly, I want you to see this: that we we must also walk.

Look at this in verse 5.

Paul says, walk in wisdom towards outsiders, making the best use of time.

Now, this word walk is actually one of Paul's favorite illustrations of what it means to live in Christ.

When Paul reaches for an illustration to try to help us understand by metaphor what he means to live what it means to live the Christian life, I would argue that his most popular one is walking.

In fact, in Ephesians, in two short chapters, he reaches for it five times.

Let me read these for you.

Ephesians 4.1.

Paul says, walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.

Ephesians 4.17.

You must no longer walk as the Gentiles do.

Ephesians 5.2, walk in love as Christ loved us.

Ephesians 5.8, walk as children of light.

Ephesians 5.15.

Therefore, look carefully then how you walk.

Not as unwise, but as wise.

There is a pattern here.

A walk describes your daily life.

It's not a sprint.

We're getting pretty profound here, aren't we?

You know, walking is not sprinting.

It's not a single leap of faith.

It is a steady rhythm of everyday lordship under Christ.

Now, here in Colossians 4, Paul is putting the spotlight on how we walk towards outsiders, those who do not yet know Christ.

And what Paul is saying here is that a part of your witness is the way that you live in front of people.

In other words, people are watching you.

I'm not talking about big brother here.

I'm not trying to creep you out or anything.

I'm saying your neighbors, your family, your coworkers are watching.

And they, most of them, will not read the Bible, but they will read your life and either see Jesus as an aroma of life or an aroma of death.

The principle we're pulling out of this is that your reaching, your ability to reach the lost, will never outpace your abiding in Christ.

The credibility of your witness, it flows from the consistency of your walk.

You cannot have one without the other.

You cannot preach Christ if you deny him with your life.

That's why Paul says we must walk in wisdom.

Wisdom is not this sort of ethereal strategy to life or cleverness in what to do.

Living is simply living in God's world, God's way.

Wisdom is living in God's world, God's way.

It's applying God's truth to real life.

And so Paul says a powerful part of your witness is that in the everyday stuff of life, you are submitted to Christ's Lordship.

And one of the most powerful things that will happen as you seek to be a witness of Jesus Christ is people will see in the way that you interact with your family, in the way that you work with integrity.

In a myriad of ways, they will see the life of Christ in you.

I think of a woman who was just recently baptized in our church, who came to church in the first place because a friend had invited her, and part of her testimony was this realization that in her her friend she saw what she described as a light.

It was like a joy.

She just could not explain.

What was it that attracted her to the gospel?

It was not, in the first place, the words, it was the light, the radiant glory of Jesus shining through this woman.

That's what walking in wisdom does.

Walking in wisdom, it really is the beginning of what causes people to hear your words.

And so we just press this in so practically.

Has the gospel made a difference in your life?

I mean, this is what we believe theologically, that by faith we are a new transformation.

That new life should be visible.

Is it?

Is it visible at home?

Do your kids see that transformed life?

Does your spouse look at you and see the likeness of Christ in you?

Because I want you to know you just cannot have any powerful witness in your home if your life does not follow.

What about your neighbors?

I mean, do they see you reacting differently to what's going on in our world?

Do they see you treating your family any differently than the world?

Do they see in your marriage a love that it's just qualitatively different than they see anywhere else?

What about in your work?

Is there an integrity in your work?

What about online, you know, in the in the way that you interact with other people online and the things that you post?

Are you different?

Is the new transformation displaying itself radiantly through those areas of your life?

Again, I want you to see here, we walk with wisdom towards outsiders, but it's it's the gospel that informs our mission, our method.

It is Jesus who first walked with wisdom towards us.

We were the first outsiders.

You know that?

That's why we walk with wisdom towards outsiders, because the reality is that if we are in Christ, this room is filled with outsiders who, through the mercy and redemption that is in Jesus Christ and in his blood, have been brought into the family of God.

That's why Paul says in Ephesians chapter 5, verse 2 walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself for us.

Ephesians 5:2

Our walk is modeled after his.

Now I can't help but to connect what we're talking about here in point two back to point one.

Walking by its very nature brings you places.

Again, we're getting deep, pretty deep here, aren't we?

You know, if you walk somewhere, you'll end up somewhere.

It's profound, isn't it?

And yet it's it's simple.

And you know, one of the things I love about uh this church is that we're all here right now together, but at the end of this service, you know, we're gonna say, you are loved, and you're gonna go, and everyone's gonna walk a different direction.

Everyone will encounter different people.

And I, you know, I would love just to see the statistics of the amount of unbelievers that are reached by a small group of people that gather together here on a Sunday morning.

Our walks and different paths in life take us into different neighborhoods, into different workplaces, into different schools, into different gyms, into different coffee shops.

I just want you to understand that is the most powerful evangelistic program a church can have.

It's the most powerful program a church can have.

Disciples who are fired up about reaching the people that God has put into their sphere of influence.

You cannot program an outreach outreach ministry that reaches as many people as that.

That's the heart of our of our church, that our worship overflows into a witness for Christ.

The beauty of walking is it.

As you go the various places in your life, you will see various things that you need to pray for.

You'll you'll walk with wisdom when you're placed in front of that coworker who's just been diagnosed with cancer who needs your prayer.

You'll walk with wisdom when you find yourself in front of that neighbor who's just gone through a divorce and needs to hear the hope of Christ.

And you bump into that old classmate who's filled with anxiety, or their life's a wreck, and you can point them to the love and compassion of Jesus Christ.

We walk wisely.

God sets the appointments with who we will meet.

We see them.

We don't just walk, we pray for them.

Once you do that, you're ready for what Paul says next.

Not just that we pray, not just that we walk, but that we speak.

Notice thirdly, that when we live sent, we speak.

We speak.

Look at verse 6.

Put your eyes on the text with me.

Look what he says.

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

Now, what Paul is saying here is that crucial to our witness is the reality that it's not enough to pray.

It's not enough just to walk.

At the end of the day, the gospel, which is good news, it must be spoken.

Must be.

Now, praying prepares the heart.

Walking gives credibility.

But there's only one way to communicate the message that saves.

And that's with words.

Now, I truly believe that one of the most destructive and damaging ideas that we've inherited as a church is summed up in that old quote that you've likely heard: preach the gospel at all times and if necessary, use words.

You heard that before?

I get the heart of what it's getting at.

It's getting at this hypocrisy that often is alive in the church, where you know you preach, but your life just shows something entirely different.

And that's the problem.

I mean, we've really addressed that problem in our second point that we must walk with wisdom.

And yet I want you to see that it's an overreaction.

The gospel at its very heart is good news.

And good news shouldn't be acted out.

When you have good news in your life, you shouldn't do charades.

You know, there's a reason.

Very practically, you know, when Amber and I were pregnant, we announced that we're pregnant.

I did not charade what it was what it's like to be a pregnant woman, hoping that you'd guessed who what was going on.

You know, and I love Chick-fil-A, and I tell you, you need to go to Chick-fil-A tomorrow because they're closed today.

I don't charade that good news.

I tell you with my words.

I'm excited about it.

I want you to know.

So much more so with the gospel.

It requires speaking, it requires that we say it.

We saw this in Acts 1 last week, that we are witnesses.

Part of our identity is that Jesus has made us into witnesses.

And you understand this in the courtroom.

A witness doesn't just stand as a witness and sort of just stand there.

No, they speak.

It's incredibly important.

They swear an oath.

Their words are important.

They're giving witness, testimony to something that has happened.

And Paul's saying this about our speech, that we we must speak the gospel, but not only that we must speak it, there's a certain way we must speak.

Notice what he says: let your speech be gracious.

It means two things.

One, it means that our speech should announce the undeserved kindness of God as it has been displayed in Jesus Christ.

Our speech is filled with grace, grace that is found in Jesus Christ alone.

Also speaks to the way that we speak.

Our speak is to be gracious.

Our tone should be gracious.

We speak with the same kindness that God has shown us in the gospel.

We're not pushy, we're not arrogant.

Our speech is gracious.

Now it doesn't mean that we water down the gospel so that's always acceptable and palatable for people.

It does mean that if an offense comes at what we're sharing, loved one, make it your aim to let the offense be the message and not the messenger.

Let the gospel offend.

But loved one, let it not be our lives that offend.

Let it be the gospel that is the stumbling block.

Look with me again at verse 6.

Not only is our speech to be gracious, Paul says, it's to be seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer each person.

Our speech is gracious, our speech is seasoned with salt.

Well, salt in the ancient world had two purposes.

One was the preservation of food.

Life without fridges meant salt was essential to everyday life.

The other was flavor.

And so salt kept food from decaying and it made bland food enjoyable.

So Paul then says that our words should be seasoned with salt.

He's saying that our speech should preserve truth and it should make the gospel compelling.

That doesn't mean that we water it down, but it means that we communicate it in a way that actually helps people taste its goodness.

You know, as you read through the Gospels, you see that Jesus speaks with words that are seasoned with salt.

To the Samaritan woman, he is incredibly patient, revealing her sin.

He is incredibly compassionate, offering his healing to the Pharisees.

He is angry.

What Jesus understood is that situationally every person needed to hear the gospel and be presented with the gospel in a different way, that it spoke to every situation.

And so Jesus made the good news sound like good news when it was coming out of his mouth, which Paul goes to elaborate on even further.

Notice what he says next.

He says that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

Each person.

Paul doesn't say all people.

It's not like we have one answer that serves all people.

What Paul understands is that each person is an individual with real stories, with different life paths, who have real questions, and we must answer them all differently.

And so I want you to understand there's really no one script fits all method to sharing the gospel.

It really happens relationally.

You may run into someone who's a skeptic.

And with that person, you need to patiently untangle their objections and ask them questions that cause them to think.

You may run into someone who is broken and you won't carry that same method with them.

You won't make arguments, instead, you offer compassion to them.

You meet someone who's religious and you might need to confront the emptiness of their self-righteousness.

You need to confront their religion.

It's always the same message, it's always the same Christ.

But what Paul is saying here is be prepared to meet these people where they are.

Peter said it the same way in 1 Peter 3.15.

He says, always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness in respect.

Paul's immensely practical for us.

Speech is to be gracious, filled with the kindness of Christ.

Our speech is to be seasoned with salt, compelling.

It's alive, it's not stale, it's offering hope and life change.

It's to be personal, answering every person in a way that fits their stories.

Prayer prepares the soil.

Walking wisely makes the life of Christ visible.

But at some point, the gospel must be spoken.

Loved one, it's the gospel that not only gives us a mission, it gives us a method.

We are sent when we pray, when we walk, and when we speak.

And nothing, loved one, this is why evangelism is so important.

Nothing models the heart of Christ more, who intercedes for us, who walked this earth for us, and who came, we're told in Matthew 5, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, so that we now believing in his words can have eternal life.

And our evangelism is done.

And the method of the way that Jesus reached us, the gospel.

It's only fitting that we do the same for others.

That's our call.

We're sent with the gospel.

Now, right now, we get to see the joy of how that mission is expanding beyond the walls of our church.

We're going to watch a short video as we celebrate some work that the Lord is doing in the GCC and get a sense of what the GCC is.

So go ahead and turn your attention to the screen.

Every movement starts with a single step, a single calling, a single church.

But no church is played at a lot of it.

God is building something greater than any one of us.

A collective of churches.

And part of my personal mission has really come from a personal experience I've had in a GCC church where the Lord really grew my wife and I in incredible ways.

And we saw for the first time what it means to be a gospel-centered community.

And it sort of lit this fire in us to see that happen other places.

And we praise the Lord that the Lord that He is doing it here.

And it's one of the greatest blessings of this church to be part of something bigger.

The GCC exists to plant churches and to strengthen leaders.

It exists to do something that is almost impossible to do alone as a single church.

It's all really part of a larger vision that we've been talking about over these past few weeks.

Inevitably, as the church reaches the lost, as mature disciples are used by God to see lost people saved, saved people matured, and mature people multiplied, the need then is more healthy churches.

The need is that there are more healthy churches that are filled with maturing disciples.

And the more churches there are filled with maturing disciples, the more people will be reached with the hope of Jesus Christ.

It truly is the power of multiplication.

We love multiplication as a church.

We don't love division, you know, church splits, we're not about that.

We don't love subtraction.

We don't like losing people.

Addition's okay, we'll take that, but nothing is as powerful as multiplication.

Now, the reason we're talking about the GCC this week is because we're very excited about the work that the Lord is doing in three plants specifically, and those are gonna come up on the screen.

We're just gonna kind of cycle through them here so that you see the planting families as well as some details around the church plants.

These churches are planting in Hamilton, in Simcoe, and in Welland.

And this is something that we can praise the Lord for.

This truly is a work of the Lord.

It is a miracle when gospel communities are birthed where more people can hear the gospel.

It's a miracle when one person is saved, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4.

And so, what an astounding work we get to celebrate.

That God is establishing these communities where people will gather to worship, to grow, and to hear the good news of Jesus Christ many for the first time.

And so we tell you this because we want you to be excited, but we also want you to pray for these churches, many of which are planting in the next few weeks.

We're gonna pray together now, so let's turn to the Lord in prayer.

Father, we thank you that the gospel is not only good news for us, but it is good news that you make us witnesses of, that it's good news that flows through us, through the ways that we pray, through a walk that is a living testimony of your grace, and through speech, gracious speech that is seasoned with salt and declares the mystery of Christ to hearts that have been opened by you.

God, we thank you that your mission and your reach is so much farther than just this church.

We are astounded at the influence that we have in this small room.

And yet, Lord, you open our eyes to the reality, God, that you are reaching lost people in our city, in our country, and in our world.

We give you all the praise.

And we lift up these three churches now, Lord, that are launching in in Welland and Hamilton and Simcoe.

Father, we pray for their families, for the planters and their families.

God, we pray that you would protect them.

We know the target that is placed on their backs when they commit to doing a work that is so ambitious for the kingdom of Christ as planting churches.

Lord, we know that those who are on these planting teams will be heavily targeted in spiritual warfare.

We pray, Lord, for your protection.

Strengthen them, guard them by your grace.

May the hardship that they face, Lord, not cause the enemy to succeed in victory, but cause them to be strengthened in the only refuge they have that is you.

God, we pray for their launch teams.

Lord, we pray for a boldness, we pray for an eagerness, we pray for a unity as they do something so difficult as plant a church.

We pray for these cities.

God, filled with so many that are lost, and yet, Lord, we know that in these cities, like was true in Corinth, Lord, there are many who you have known by name and called, who need to hear the gospel through the lives and witness of these people.

And so we lift them up to you.

And God, we pray as we consider the work that is happening in these launches and in these plants, Lord, that you would stir up our hearts with an ambition here at Redemption Church to be used, Lord, to see over the years to come many churches planted for your glory, not for our name, but for yours, Lord.

That the gospel would go beyond our influence, beyond our sphere of influence, Lord, to the cities around us, to the nations around us.

Lord, use us.

We pray.

We pray that you would do that in a way that you get all the glory.

God, that's what we want.

All the glory goes to you.

You are so good.

And we praise your name.

Pray this all in the name of your son.

Amen.

Would you stand and sing with me as we close in response?