October 16, 2005
Morning Worship
Text: Colossians 4:2-6
Subject: Witnessing
Title: Walking Through Open Doors
In the four years that we have been in this church much of my preaching ministry has been spent on the subject of the importance of witnessing. I’ve shared what the bible says about it, mainly with the emphasis on our need to be participants in sharing your faith.
One of the areas of the Christian life that I have focused on recently has been the comparison of the natural man and the spirit man. In his writings the apostle Paul often speaks of the great conflict between the spirit and the flesh. Even he, being the great man of God that he was, struggled with the flesh. There were times when said he didn’t do the things he knew he should and did the things he knew he shouldn’t. This conflict certainly spills over into evangelism.
Though there is a conflict between these two aspects of our humanity, there is also a wonderful reward to be had through the cooperation of the spirit and the flesh. That cooperation can be seen in two principles that are at work in our passage today. These two principles are 1) dependence, that we are dependent upon God to do his part in the witnessing process, and, 2) discipline, knowing that God is faithful to do His part, we in turn must be faithful to do our part. The principles of dependence and discipline are two of the main concepts in Paul’s writings.
This is the first sermon in a short series on evangelism. As I share the word of life with you I pray that it changes the way you think about sharing your faith.
“2Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. 3And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. 4Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. 5Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. 6Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”
Today I want to focus on verse 3. “And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains.”
I. ANSWERS THROUGH PRAYER. Paul asks the church in Colossae to pray for him. I want you to understand this. Though the passage is referring to Paul and his ministry the principle is not limited to him and his ministry. Every believer who desires to be a soul winner must begin in prayer. Now I confess that asking you to pray places a great burden on you, but it removes an even greater burden. You now are transferring your burden over to the Father and He bears it for you. I don’t understand why God designed the system the way He did, but I do know this much. He wants to work in our behalf, but we must initiate it by our prayers. Now where does this fit in with evangelism? Ezekiel 22:30-31, “I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none. So I will pour out my wrath on them and consume them with My fiery anger, bringing down on their own heads all they have done, declares the Sovereign Lord.” The holiness of God demands justice but the love of God seeks to be merciful. In this case, if God could have found one person to stand in the gap in prayer on behalf of Judah, He would have spared it. Do you see the cooperation (or lack of it) between the spirit realm and the natural realm? If Jerusalem could have done in the flesh what God was seeking in the Spirit, Judah would have been saved from captivity. James wrote in 5:16, “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” Or KJV, “the fervent effectual prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” In other words, what is going to be accomplished for the kingdom must have its origin in fervent prayer. The word translated as “fervent” in James 5 means a prayer that is 1) active, it is an ongoing process. We don’t cry out for a lost person one time and then quit. But I am convince that through our active prayer for a person or people that the Holy Spirit continues to work His work of conviction in them, 2) operative; this means that prayer is working. The design for prayer ordained by God is not ineffective, 3) effectual means much the same as operative. Fervent prayer is bringing about the desired effect, and 4) powerful because the formula for effective prayer works through the power of God and not through us. Fervent prayer also indicates a sense of urgency. Occasionally God lays on my heart that sense of urgency for the lost that time is growing short and many will be lost unless we can bring them into the kingdom quickly. Prayer is the beginning of the process.
II. ACCESS THROUGH OPEN DOORS. “that God may open a door for our message…” What happens when you pray? God begins to work on your behalf. The open doors Paul is speaking of here are doors that have been opened or will be opened for evangelism because of prayer. I have to admit that in my earlier preaching on evangelism I have told you that we just have to go out and do it. That is true. We have to be willing to respond in the flesh to what the Spirit is doing in the supernatural. But the most effective way to share the gospel is to pray and then wait for open doors. Then when the door is opened we can expect spiritual wisdom to recognize the open door, spiritual guidance to seize the opportunity, and spiritual love to speak with sensitivity and grace the words of life. One of the biggest hindrances to seeing the doors open is that people give up praying too quickly. Another hindrance is that we try to create our own open doors. It is not wrong to try to build relationships so that, at the right time, the Holy Spirit will open the door. Here is one statement that holds true in the spirit realm and in the natural world. If you try to go through a door that is not opened, you will do a lot of unnecessary damage. In spite of our willingness to be faithful to the Great Commission we must become reliant on the Holy Spirit to prepare the way for us. Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would, “convict the world concerning sin, righteousness and judgment.” We wait for open doors because when God has opened the door, the Holy Spirit has already done His work. How do we know when that happens? Paul saw the vision of the man from Macedonia and went to Philippi only to find some women having a prayer meeting down by the riverside. Now in that society a group of women would be the last place where you would look to start a church. But Paul, seeing who it was who opened the door, shared with her and she and her whole household were saved and baptized. Acts 16:14 says, “The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.” An open door is likely occurring when you find yourself in a one on one situation that would not normally occur. For instance, you go to Hardees at what would normally be the busiest time of the day and there is only one other person there. The normal thing to do would be to go and sit in your own little corner but this situation demands something different. You strike up a conversation and you find someone who is struggling and needs the hope that a life in Christ offers. Our dependence on God to open doors is punctuated also by our dependence on Him to open hearts. I went through a class called “Evangelism Explosion” which teaches you to give a compelling and persuasive presentation of the gospel message. It is thorough and is a great tool to have. But I also have come to realize that the Lord has to open hearts. Paul said he came to the church in Corinth to “Preach the gospel – not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.” He knew the way to present the gospel would require understanding of the individual and dependence on the Holy Spirit.
III. APPLICATON THROUGH ACTION. The last part of verse 3, “so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ…” We discipline ourselves to pray for the lost. We are dependent on the Holy Spirit’s work in both believers and unbelievers. Now we return to discipline. After God has opened doors we have to do something with it. That is part of our discipline. Lieghton Ford, Good News is for Sharing, 1977, David C. Cook Publishing Co., Page 15. In preparing for this book, I have talked to a lot of people, and the fear issue comes up front again and again. What makes people hesitate to share their faith? Here are some of the fears that have been mentioned to me:
- "I am afraid I might do more harm than good."
- "I don’t know what to say."
- "I may not be able to give snappy answers to tricky questions."
- "I may seem bigoted."
- "I may invade someone’s privacy."
- "I am afraid I might fail."
- "I am afraid I might be a hypocrite."
Perhaps the most common fear, however, is that of being rejected. A survey was given to those attending training sessions for the Billy Graham crusade in Detroit. One question asked, "What is your greatest hindrance to witnessing?" Nine percent said they were too busy to remember to do it. Twenty-eight percent felt the lack of real information to share. None said they didn’t really care. Twelve percent said their own lives were not speaking as they should. But by far the largest group were the 51 percent whose biggest problem was the fear of how the other person would react! None of us likes to be rejected, ridiculed, or regarded as an oddball.
That response does two things. One, it places the onus on you to know exactly the right words to say at all times. Two, it denies the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of unbelievers as well as the one witnessing. Paul wrote that one sows, one waters, but God sees the increase. You want to have the right words to say in order to see people saved? Good luck! Because without the Holy Spirit, even the most convincing words will not win hearts. And the importance lies on your obedience and not on their response. The lack of response does not mean the Holy Spirit is not active. I’ve told you about how I recently was in a situation with a Catholic “in-law” where God had obviously opened a door for sharing. The response was ugly but I could see in his face that the Holy Spirit was working. I could tell in his speech because he couldn’t attack to the words I was speaking, nor defend his own words. So it ended with the word of truth being spoken into his life. That has to be good enough for now, till God sees the increase.
We are called to be witnesses. It is a command from Jesus. We are empowered to do what we are called to do. Now the true test comes down to whether we are willing to be totally dependent on the Holy Spirit to open doors and to show us those open doors. Or do we try to do it our own way or maybe not at all? And when the door does open we must be willing to go into action.
Sign seen in a textile mill, "When your thread becomes tangled, call the foreman." A young woman was new on the job. Her thread became tangled and she thought, "I’ll just straighten this out myself." She tried, but the situation only worsened. Finally she called the foreman. "I did the best I could," she said. "No you didn’t. To do the best, you should have called me."
Our dependence on God needs to be like that.
