Sermon 9 - Making The Message Clear Series

Introduction:

A. In the Scripture reading that was just read for us, the Apostle Paul was concluding his letter to the Colossians and he asked them to pray for two things.

1. First, He asked them to pray that God would open doors for the message of the gospel.

2. Second, He asked them to pray that he might proclaim the message clearly.

3. Those are very good things to be praying for, wouldn’t you agree?

B. Today I’m praying that all of us feel that we have some good news to share with others and that we desperately desire to share it.

1. I like the story told about mom and dad who were very concerned about their little boy, because they could not get him to utter a single word.

a. His parents took him to a specialist and after a thorough evaluation it was determined that the boy had nothing wrong with him physiologically that was keeping him from talking.

b. So, the doctor grasped him firmly by the shoulders and looked at the boy with a serious expression and asked: “Why won’t you say something?”

c. The little boy defiantly replied, “Cause I ain’t got nothin’ to say!”

2. Hopefully that’s not the way we feel about our faith – “I ain’t got nothin’ to say.”

3. In truth, those of us who are Christians have some great news to share and we should want to tell others about it. Right?

4. There’s another story told about a preacher who loved to go golfing.

a. Unfortunately, it had rained every weekend for a month and the preacher was dying to play a round of golf.

b. The first sunny day in weeks came along and it ended up being a Sunday.

c. So, the preacher called some of the leaders of his congregation and told them that he had been called away to an emergency and that they would have to do services without him.

d. Realizing that he could not play on a local golf course, he drove two counties away and teed up on a course that sunny Sunday morning.

e. Meanwhile, God was watching all this from heaven above.

f. God called one of his angels and said: “I’ve got a preacher down there who skipped church to play golf and I need you to go and administer an appropriate punishment.”

g. So, the angel went down and as the preacher teed off on a par 3, the angel caused the preacher to hit the best shot of his life and the ball went right in the cup for a hole-in-one.

h. Seeing this, God asked to the angel, “I told you to punish him and yet you gave him a hole-in-one? What kind of punishment is that?”

i. The angel replied, “Yes, I gave him a hole-in-one, but think about it…Who can he share that good news with? Afterall, it happened when he was skipping church!”

C. Yes, we have some great news to tell and there is no reason for us to keep it to ourselves; we have nothing to hide – like that church-skipping preacher.

1. We need to pray for open doors and opportunities for sharing the good news.

2. And we need to pray for the ability to clearly communicate the good news.

D. This is probably where most of us feel the most inadequate, myself included.

1. What should we say? How should we say it? Where do we begin?

2. Bill Hybels tells a great story in his book on evangelism called Becoming a Contagious Christian.

a. Bill Hybels likes to sail, and one day after day of sailing, he and his wife were invited to board a neighboring sailboat.

b. So, he anchored his boat and he and his wife motored over in the dinghy to the neighboring yacht.

c. After a nice evening of visiting, Bill and his wife were in the process of leaving and that’s when the moment came.

d. Lynne, his wife, had already climbed down the ladder into the dinghy and Bill was halfway down himself when the question came.

e. Some people call this “the doorknob question” - often as you are about to leave after a visit, a person will finally bring up the subject they wanted to talk about, but hadn’t mustered the courage to bring up before that moment.

f. One of the people who had invited them aboard said, “Say, Bill, before you leave can you answer a question? I’ve always wanted to ask a Christian what it means to become one. Could you tell all of us?”

g. There was Hybels, one foot in the dinghy and one hand on their boat’s railing, looking up at a group of people waiting to hear what he would say.