Jesus’ Mission and Yours
Colossians 4:2-6
Dr. Roger W. Thomas, Preaching Minister
First Christian Church, Vandalia, MO
Introduction: An old legend speculates about what might have happened when Jesus ascended to heaven after his crucifixion and resurrection. The angel Gabriel approached Him and said, "Master, you must have suffered terribly for humanity down there." "I did," He said. "And," continued Gabriel, "Do they know all about how you loved them and what you did for them?" "Some do. Most don’t, at least not yet," Jesus answered, "Right now only a handful of people know what I did and why."
Gabriel was perplexed. "What have you done to let everyone know about your love for them?” Jesus explained, "I’ve asked my followers to tell others about me. Those who are told will in turn tell others. My story will be spread to one person after another. Ultimately, all of humankind will hear about my life and what I have done."
Gabriel looked skeptical. "Yes," he countered, "but what if Peter and James and John grow weary? What if the people who come after them forget? What if way down through the centuries people just don’t tell others about you? What happens then? Have you made any other plans?" “No,” Jesus answered, "I have no other plans. I’m counting on them."
Jesus’ plan hasn’t changed. He said his mission was “to seek and to save that which was lost.” He said he came to “lay down his life as ransom for men’s sins.” Jesus said he was “the way, the truth, and the life.” He declared in no uncertain terms that he was the only way to heaven. That was his message and his mission.
Jesus said his mission is our mission. “As the father sent me, so send I you,” he told his followers. “Go make disciples of all nations,” were his parting words. The Bible insists that his plan is simple. Faithful people are to teach others about Jesus. These people then teach other faithful people who will in turn tell others. The message spreads one person, one family, one church at a time across the street, across the miles, and across the centuries.
You and I are products of that plan. A godly grandmother, loving Sunday school teachers, faithful preachers and evangelists, all passed their faith to me. Somebody told you about who Jesus was and what he did. It may have been parents, a next door neighbor, maybe even a total stranger. But somebody told you. Every one of us is part of a two thousand year chain reaction. Like generations before us, we receive and we pass it on. That was Jesus’ plan.
Today we consider the final of the five purposes for which we were made. I will say it again—we are using Rick Warren’s terms from his best selling book The Purpose Driven Life, but the Bible is our real source. The Purpose Driven Life is our roadmap; God’s Word is our destination.
Warren explains our God-given purposes like this. 1) We were planned for God’s pleasure. The Bible calls that worship—praising, honoring, and glorifying God with our talk and our walk. 2) We were formed for God’s family. God made us to belong to the fellowship of believers-the church. We need one another to function and grow in faith. 3) We were created for Christ-likeness. That’s what the Bible calls discipleship. A Christian is more than a church member or a religiously inclined person. A Christian is a person who has made the following of Jesus’ teaching and example his life’s goal. 4) We were shaped for God’s service. Life is not about us. It is about loving and serving other people. Finally, 5) we were made for God’s mission. That mission is to continue that chain reaction of faith into the next generation.
Our text outlines how to make that happen. These verses explain four simple steps that every follower of Jesus can take to make his mission our mission in this generation.
Actually, we can’t look at the four steps in our text without first noting a preliminary step that is not stated. Before you can pass faith on to someone else, you have to have it yourself. No one can give away what they don’t possess. If you don’t know who Jesus was, why Jesus died on the cross, and haven’t taken a stand for him, how can you influence someone else to do so?
Billy Graham tells of years ago visiting a city for one of his crusades. He spent one morning writing letters and then went for a walk to find a place to mail them. He had never been to that part of the city before so he didn’t know his way around. He walked around for quite a while looking for a mail box. Finally, he came across a young boy sitting on some steps. He asked the boy if he knew how to get to the post office. The boy gave Billy Graham the directions. Before walking away, Billy said to the boy, “Come on over to the arena tonight and I’ll tell you how to get to heaven.” The boy looked at him and replied, “How can you know how to get to heaven? You don’t even know the way to the post office!”
Our text could assume that the first readers knew what they needed to pass on the faith. Listen to how Colossians begins, “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven . . . “ (Colossians 1:21-23)
Can that be said of you? Have you heard and personally believed the message of Christ. Everything begins with that.
The next four steps come directly from our text. Our text says we must Pray Fervently. Praying is the starting point. Anyone can do that. Every believer must do that. Why do we pray? We pray for others to come to know Jesus because we care. We pray for others to accept Christ because we know that the challenge is bigger than ourselves. This mission is still God’s mission. Without his help and power, no life can be turned toward heaven.
How do we pray? We pray with devotion. We pray with effort and perseverance. Praying is not easy. Most people can do most anything easier than they can pray. To really pray, you have to work at it. We pray watchfully. Our eyes may be closed but not our spirits. We watch for needs. We watch for answers. We also watch for the interference of our adversary. We also pray thankfully. We are thankful that we can pray. Praying isn’t just asking. It is entering into the very presence of the Living God. We are thankful that God hears us and responds even before we see his answers.
The text tells us what to pray for. Of course, we are going to pray for ourselves and those close to us. But Paul the missionary didn’t want Christians limited to self-centered prayers. “Pray for us, too,” he asks. He makes it clear that the prayer he is asking for is not about him as much as it is “the mission.” Pray for an open door. Pray for clear preaching. That’s part of our mission.
Evangelists, missionaries, and church planters need our prayers even more than they need our money. One veteran missionary likened going to the mission field to descending into a deep dark mine shaft. “I’ll go down,” he told his church back home, “if you will hold the ropes.” That’s what we do when we pray for our missionaries!
To complete our part in Jesus’ mission we must believe personally and pray fervently. But there is more. We must also live consistently. That’s step three. Verse 5 says, “Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders.” Ultimately our lives pave the way for our words. We’ve all heard the statement, “What you are speaks so loudly, I can’t hear what you’re saying.” Evangelist D. L. Moody often said, “Every Bible should be bound in shoe-leather.”
The old poem catches the importance of a consistent life. “You are writing a gospel, a chapter each day / By the things that you do and the words that you say, / Men read what you write, whether faithless or true, Say, what is the gospel according to you? Do men read His truth and His love in your life, Or has yours been too full of malice and strife? / Does your life speak of evil, or does it ring true? Say, what is the gospel according to you?” (Arthur McPhee)
Let’s be honest. Inconsistent living is not just about big sins. If those who know you well know you as a negative, critical, mean-spirited gossip, few will believe you know anything about the gracious, loving Lord of heaven. Angry, unforgiving people seldom convince others that God loves them. No one is influenced for Jesus by selfish, greedy folk. Who really believes that a pessimistic, discouraging, defeated soul has anything to offer about faith, hope, and love? If you want those who know you to know your Savior, your life must back up your faith! We must live consistently.
Step four, we must act urgently. Our text says, “Make the most of every opportunity.” Sometimes you don’t get a second chance. That’s true of our mission to spread our faith. Doors open and they close. Friends and neighbors have tender moments when God has been working on them. They are looking for answers. They know they need something. They realize there has got to be more to life. Sometimes those opportunities come and go, never to appear again.
We only go around once. We may never have another opportunity to point a friend toward Jesus. Life is short, both ours and the lives of those around us. People who tell themselves they will always have another chance to consider the destiny of their souls or share their faith with a friend are only kidding themselves. No one is guaranteed tomorrow. Our mission is urgent.
Completing our part in Jesus’ mission requires believing personally, praying fervently, living consistently, and acting urgently. The text cites one other step—speaking wisely. “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” Words matter. How you live counts, but without a word of explanation no one will ever understand that the reason you believe what you believe and live the way you do is because of what Jesus did for you. Those who know you deserve to know the truth. The need to know it’s not about you. It’s about Jesus.
Our text describes ‘wise speaking” with two different terms. Helpful words are “gracious words.” Our words need to be honest. We don’t do anyone any favors by soft pedaling sin and playing loose with the truth of God. But a condemning, critical, judgmental tone never convinced anyone to give Jesus a second look. People need to hear that no matter how far gone they think they are, they are not out of reach of God’s love.
“Words seasoned with salt” carries a different idea today than it did in Bible times. For us, salty talk implies dirty, profane talk. We all know people can make a sailor blush. Even folk who never darken the church doors know that those kinds of words don’t represent the spirit of Jesus. The Bible says, “Don’t you know that dirty water and clean water don’t come from the same spring” (James 3:11) This call for salty speech offers no encouragement to foul mouthed believers. Just a chapter earlier, Colossians says, “But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips” (3:8).
For the ancients, salty words meant witty words, interesting talk, speech that was appropriate and made people want to hear more. The final phrase clarifies the idea, “so that you may know how to answer everyone.” Speaking wisely means listening well enough to understand and then responding in a way that moves the other person closer to Jesus. Scripture says much the same thing in another place. “But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15).
Conclusion: This is your mission, the mission you were made for! You can point others to Christ. Your mission involves five steps: believing personally, praying fervently, living consistently, acting urgently, and speaking wisely. This is not mission impossible. You can do it. You are not on your own. It’s is Christ’s mission first. He only asks that you partner with him.
You were made for this mission!
Let’s get very practical as we close our look at this fifth purpose. We are made for God’s mission. How can we do that? Let me break it down into bite size pieces? Here are some suggestions.
1. Influencing people for Christ starts with getting to know them. First, just be a friend. People seldom care how much you know until they know how much you care. All of us are already well along that path with lots of people. We need to be open to others that the Lord may bring our way.
2. Next, we can pray for those we want to see come closer to Christ. You can begin today to pray by name for those around you whose lives seem headed in the wrong direction. Pray for them. Pray for opportunities to influence them.
3. Next, when opportunities arise, we can let those around us know that we are Christ-followers. This is more than just letting people know we are church people. They need hear that we are also Christ’s people. I am not talking about being pushy or overbearing. I’m just talking about making sure that those around us know we are Christians. What’s in our heart should come out our lips on occasion.
4. Next, we can invite others to Christian activities and events. Of course, our Sunday services are always open to anyone. Special concerts or other programs often present good excuses to invite people who don’t normally go to church to join us. Anyone can do that. Of course, they can say “NO.” We can simply say, “Maybe another time.”
5. Over time, we can look for opportunities to tell our story. Most people are interested in other people’s experiences. We can tell our friends about how we first heard about Christ, a time when God did something really special in our lives, or a spiritual truth or Bible lesson that God taught us. I am not talking about preaching. I am simply talking about telling your story.
6. Of course, when the time is right, we want to tell them Jesus’ story. We can tell them that God’s loves them. That sin separates them from God and the good he wants for us. We can explain that Jesus came to pay the price for our sins. We can assure them that no matter who they are or what they have done, they can begin a whole new way of life by accepting and following Jesus. They need to know that heaven and hell are in the balance.
7. The final thing we can do, once our friend has heard of all of this, is to flat out invite them to claim Christ for their very own. We know they can. They need to know they can and should. They need to hear us tell them they can.
***Dr. Roger W. Thomas is the preaching minister at First Christian Church, 205 W. Park St., Vandalia, MO 63382 and an adjunct professor of Bible and Preaching at Central Christian College of the Bible, 911 E. Urbandale, Moberly, MO. He is a graduate of Lincoln Christian College (BA) and Lincoln Christian Seminary (MA, MDiv), and Northern Baptist Theological Seminary (DMin).
