“Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving; 3 praying at the same time for us as well, that God will open up to us a door for the word, so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ, for which I have also been imprisoned; 4 that I may make it clear in the way I ought to speak. 5 Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity. 6 Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person.”
In this portion of the letter to the Colossians which we call ‘practical’, meaning he is giving admonition to the Christians there for the practical application in their daily lives of the doctrines he taught earlier, he has finished with his exhortations pertaining to individuals and the way they relate to one another in their various roles in life.
Now he is again addressing the church as a whole and beginning to close out his letter with some final words of wisdom. This portion of this letter contained in the verses of our text today could be lifted out and printed on post cards and mailed to every true follower of Christ anywhere in the world in any time in history.
Well, of course we could say that about any part of Scripture and it would be true, wouldn’t it?
But the reason I say that here and now is because these exhortations from the Apostle are so rich with Godly wisdom concerning the life of the believer that I dare say we could each take them and post them in a prominent place where we would be sure to see them each day, and each day as we seek to obey them, they would be a tremendous help to us and to the forward moving church of Jesus Christ.
Be reminded at this point, of the things Paul said to them earlier in this letter pertaining to their spiritual state. They have died, he tells them in verse 3 of chapter 3, and their life is hidden with Christ in God.
What he is teaching there is that they have a new life. This is not the old life, renovated. When he says they have died he means that they have died to sin, died to their old life and their old manner of walking. They have died to the world and the world’s way of thinking, which is diametrically opposite of God’s way of thinking.
So what we have before us in our text today is an exhortation from the Apostle to live according to this newness of life. Our conduct now must be the sort of conduct that marks the new man, again, diametrically opposite of the conducts that marked the old man.
You have been made radically brand new, he teaches, and now you must, with the Spirit’s empowering, conduct yourself as a radically new and different person than you were.
Friends, the Bible does not call for the haphazard, half-hearted effort that we usually tend to give toward living the life of the believer in Christ.
The Bible teaches us that to be in Christ is to be a new creation and the Bible calls us to act and live accordingly.
Once more I will point out to you that if you just let your eyes scan down through these verses we’re studying today and think about it, none of these things are anything you or I are likely to want to do in our own nature. Some of them, like prayer, are impossible for us in the old nature.
Therefore the very first thing we have to do if we are going to get any help from studying them at all, is to be conscious of this fact, that we cannot do them and in reality don’t even want to do them. It is only if we have the Holy Spirit in us that we are able to say, ‘Yes, it is true that my flesh rejects these things, but in the spirit I want to obey because this is Godly behavior and my Lord wants me to, and the Lord will help me’.
If we can say that, then we are ready to proceed.
So I am going to assume that you are ready, and let’s go take a look.
PRAYER
Paul calls them to prayer. That is not new or unusual, is it? None of this is new or unusual. But let’s spend some time on these descriptive words he uses in reference to prayer.
Devote
Devotion. To attend to continually. To adhere to steadfastly. To persevere and not grow weary. This is the essence of what he is calling them and us to. How devoted are any of us to prayer? How do we line up behind this word, ‘devote’?
That’s a rhetorical question. I don’t want you to answer me and I am most certainly not going to tell you how I line up. I probably should. We should probably stop the service right now and openly confess to one another exactly where we stand in this, for the sake of accountability and mutual agreement to seek the Lord’s help.
But I won’t ask. I’ll just say to you that the lives of most of us Christians today, and the life in most churches today pretty much tells the story.
The truth is, fellow devotees, we have entered into a time when the dangers to our country and our freedoms are looming larger and larger, and when a fall comes one of the very first institutions to be affected will be the church. We mustn’t deceive ourselves into thinking that when we are driven underground and when our lives are threatened we will suddenly become devoted pray-ers. If we haven’t been devoted and faithful in frequent prayer when all is well, we probably won’t be very powerful pray-ers when the need is upon us.
I’m not going to start quoting statistics to you and I haven’t done any recent research. But I remember an article from a few years back that quoted some surveys which revealed that among pastors the average daily prayer time by their own admission was about 8 seconds per day.
That being said, I remind you of some things we talked about in our last session concerning our belief that Jesus is present and involved in our life now, and I remind you of something I have said and heard said in the past.
What we truly believe will be demonstrated in behavior; our behavior will demonstrate to others what we truly believe.
Do we believe that God answers prayer and that He wants our prayer because He wants our fellowship and He wants to meet our concerns and because He wants to be glorified in our prayer? If so, then our belief will manifest in our behavior. We will devote ourselves to prayer. It really is that simple.
ALERT
Next he says ‘keeping alert in it’. There’s nothing amazing about that word, we all know what it means. It means to remain awake and watchful.
Remember the bumper sticker from a few years ago? It said:
BE ALERT! OUR COUNTRY NEEDS MORE LERTS.
That has nothing to do with anything, I just remembered the sticker.
When we attach the word ‘alert’ to the military scenario we think of the guard on post, or the soldier at night in his foxhole, listening for any sound that is out of place; the movement of any shadow; the silhouette against the moonlight that looks too symmetrical to be wild.
Paul is using this word in relation to prayer. Wow. That kind of makes prayer sound like a pretty exciting and important part of our spiritual armor – our readiness for warfare, doesn’t it?
Be devoted to constant, attentive prayer and be alert in it. People who do not expect trouble, who are not aware of danger, who feel safe and comfortable, are anything but alert.
But once they’ve been awakened to approaching danger, pending disaster, the possibility of being caught unaware and with their guard down, they become very alert. Their senses are heightened. They take on a less relaxed physical posture. They are ready.
Christians, danger is ever near us. There are false teachers who want to lead us astray for their own gain. There are people who want to see the church go away. There are people in the world who think their god has told them to kill us.
But there is even closer and more imminent danger than these. There are spiritual forces in the heavenly places who war against the Spirit in us and we are called to do all things to stand, to be alert to their wiles and be devoted to prayer.
Listen. When you are trained for combat your trainer will have you do the same motions over and over again. You will grow physically sore, you will grow tired of it, the repetition will become tedious, and you will want to stop long before your good teacher wants to stop.
Then when the time comes that the emergency is upon you and you don’t have time to think, do you know what you will automatically do? The same thing he made you do over and over until you were sick of it. You will do what you were trained to do without a moment’s pause to consider it.
Be devoted and alert in prayer now, Christians. You are in training.
THANKSGIVING
It might seem odd in this context that Paul adds the term ‘with thankfulness’, but think it through.
If we are being devoted to prayer and alert in it to the needs of ourselves and others, it makes sense to do so with an attitude of thankfulness toward the One to whom we pray.
Thankful for what? That we know He answers prayer and that He answers according to His goodness and our good.
What are we saying when we thank someone? We are confessing some degree of indebtedness to them. Now, that is not to say that the proper reason for giving a gift or doing a favor is to obligate someone to you.
Probably most of us have known someone like that, haven’t we? You loath to receive anything from them because there are always strings. You know when they give you something or do something for you that pretty soon they’re going to be asking something from you.
The giver or the doer of the favor, if their heart is right, is doing it simply out of the goodness and generosity of their heart. But from the side of the recipient, which we always are before God; we are always on the receiving end with Him; there should be gratitude and a certain sense of obligation to at least express that gratitude in words and if possible, in deeds.
My neighbor and I help one another out in that he is clueless when it comes to using his computer and I am clueless when it comes to fixing things around the house.
So when my sliding glass door was off track he was over getting it back in line, and when he clicked the wrong button and lost a file somewhere in the dark recesses of his computer he called me and I went next door and found it for him. When he fixed the back door so we didn’t have to hire a gorilla to open it we were so grateful we took turns standing at the door and opening and closing it just because it was so easy. And we blessed him.
When I found his lost file he spent five minutes extolling my wizard-like expertise with computers and sent me home with a plate of cookies. (Although my wizardry with computers is not half as amazing as his cluelessness about them)
When we understand that God has done something for us that we never could have done, that He has saved us from an eternal destiny over which we had absolutely no power, that He raised us up to Heavenly heights and made us heirs and joint-heirs with His Son, that He is with us and even in us now to help us live His eternal life now, thanksgiving from a grateful heart should bubble up within us, overflow from us, constantly! Wouldn’t you agree?
Paul encourages us to have this perpetual attitude of thankfulness because that is what ought to be the under girding of all of our prayer, no matter what we are praying about, no matter what we are praying for. We should be thankful simply that we are able to pray, and that we are praying to the One and only One who wants to hear them and is able to answer.
SPECIFIC INTERCESSORY PRAYER
There is a very important lesson for us to learn from verses 3 and 4. At first glance our reaction in reading this request of Paul’s might be that Paul is no longer in prison or in earthly ministry so while we have much to learn from the other verses in this passage, this was for that time and circumstance so we can just kind of skip over it.
Not so, of course. Because when we take a second look we realize that this really has three vitally important words for the church in any age.
1. Intercessory prayer.
Pray devotedly, alertly, with an attitude of thanksgiving, and pray also for us.
Who is ‘us’? Paul and those around him who were his partners in ministry. We know of at least Timothy, since Paul mentions him in the salutation. Then as he closes this letter he mentions some more. Let’s just take a side journey and read verses 7-14 of chapter 4.
“As to all my affairs, Tychicus, our beloved brother and faithful servant and fellow bond-servant in the Lord, will bring you information. 8 For I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know about our circumstances and that he may encourage your hearts; 9 and with him Onesimus, our faithful and beloved brother, who is one of your number. They will inform you about the whole situation here. 10 Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, sends you his greetings; and also Barnabas’s cousin Mark (about whom you received instructions; if he comes to you, welcome him); 11 and also Jesus who is called Justus; these are the only fellow workers for the kingdom of God who are from the circumcision, and they have proved to be an encouragement to me. 12 Epaphras, who is one of your number, a bondslave of Jesus Christ, sends you his greetings, always laboring earnestly for you in his prayers, that you may stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God. 13 For I testify for him that he has a deep concern for you and for those who are in Laodicea and Hierapolis. 14 Luke, the beloved physician, sends you his greetings, and also Demas.”
So what are we getting a picture of here? Paul is in prison and we picture him chained to a Roman soldier and writing, and if we remember chapter one verse one we might picture Timothy over in the corner, praying or reading, or going in and out to fetch writing supplies for Paul or witnessing to someone at the door or otherwise engaged in some form of ministry…
… but look at this list!
Paul is asking for prayer for ‘us’, and he has a whole association of people in mind, who are with Him in ministry and need the prayer support of the churches.
2. We’re not alone in this.
Christians, we do not exist as a little island here. We are very significantly, think of the Holy Spirit here, we are very significantly connected to a large organism that is alive and buzzing with activity. There are warriors out in the battle, there are workers out in the field, there are homemakers, so to speak, who keep the home fires burning and the latch string out, and we all are supposed to be devoted to alert and thankful prayer for each one, for the sake of the ministry of the Word of the Lord.
Before we pass on from here let’s be sure to consider this request of Paul’s in full. He covets the prayers of the church, not so he can get out of prison, not so he can have a bigger following, not for some physical comfort. His primary concern, even in his present circumstances, is that he will have the unction of the Holy Spirit in his speaking so that his message will be clear.
When he says in verse 4, “…in order that I may make it clear”, the ‘it’ implied is the Gospel.
3. We need clarity and sincerity in our witness.
This should be a word of wisdom for every preacher and every teacher, and every sincere Christian who looks for opportunities to tell the good news to anyone. This is the great preacher, the Apostle Paul, and he is asking the church to pray that as he speaks he will have the right words so that his message will be clear.
Folks, this is God’s Gospel. This is His Good News. This message is given life by God’s Holy Spirit, apart from Whom it is only words, just like any other message. In fact, the whole thing sounds pretty silly until the Spirit awakens the heart and mind to understand and believe. If we go without prayer we cannot expect that we will be going in any strength but our own, and no matter how clear our words sound to our educated ears, to others we may as well be speaking Martian…if there is such a language.
CONDUCT BEFITTING THE NEW MAN
Well, I’ll remind you once more that the New Testament expectation of the believer in Christ is that he will continue to grow and conduct himself as a new creation, putting off the old man, putting on the new, and manifesting this newness in his life.
So as Paul continues in verse 5, I’d like you to observe the close relation of his words to what he said in verses 3 and 4.
He is, in essence, saying, I need your prayers for help in seizing opportunities for the ministry of the Word, and for clarity, which is another way of saying ‘knowing how to approach each one I speak to’.
So it is not unfair of him, having made that request for intercessory prayer for these purposes, to go on and say ‘and by the way, this is the way you also ought to conduct yourself; looking for opportunities to hold out the Word of Life in Godly wisdom and in graceful and truthful speech’.
Where do I get this? Listen.
Vs 6 “Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person.”
I see here the idea of preservation and edification.
This isn’t the first time we find this in the New Testament, is it? Jesus taught this in what we call the Sermon on the Mount.
In Matthew 5:13-15 Jesus said of those who were His disciples that they were the salt of the earth and the light of the world.
Salt does two things. It enhances flavor and it preserves. Light edifies. Light illuminates and shows the way.
Paul is not deviating from this teaching here in his letter to the Colossians.
And we live in a world where people’s speech to one another is often seasoned with anything but grace, don’t we?
In most office situations when you walk in the door you’re more likely to hear grumbling and backbiting than a friendly greeting. Go to your gym or aquatic center or wherever you go to lose weight or get in shape, or your shop or warehouse or building site; wherever, and most of the conversations you’ll hear will not be for Sunday School by any means, and even those who keep their language clean are bemoaning the state of the country or exchanging stories about their various ailments. At best, the conversation is worldly and not of the sort that will edify or lead to eternal life for anyone.
Christians, you are of the new creation. You are, generically speaking, the new ‘man’ in Christ. It is His right and in His power to call you to conduct that is befitting the Divine Nature.
The people of the early church understood this. The Apostles understood and they, in the Power of the Holy Spirit, conveyed it successfully to new believers.
If you read through the book of the Acts of the Apostles you will witness over and over again, people’s lives being radically changed when they first believed, and new behaviors coming from them. They praised God!
They met frequently together to hear the Word taught and to partake of the Lord’s Supper and mutually support one another as family.
Acts 2:43-47 lets us see the drastic change that was brought about by the coming of the Spirit and the preaching of the Scriptures.
“Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. 44 And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; 45 and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. 46 Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.”
Now I’m not advocating that at this time we pool all of our property and resources and share it all, they were in different circumstances that we are presently in. But we should pay close attention to the rest of it and ask ourselves if we were truly and totally sold out to Jesus Christ, how might it change our conduct and how might it change the way our society views us.
We who are true believers in Christ are the new man, the new creation. Do we really understand that? Do we dare to take the chance of having our lives turned upside down by sincerely asking the Lord’s help in conducting ourselves according to the Divine Nature?
This is not a game, friends. It is a reality that most of us have never faced; never seriously considered. Paul defines in our text verses, the conduct of the new man. Where do we line up? Where do you line up?
