Good morning and welcome to Christmas Eve x 6. Yes, today is Christmas Eve, Eve, Eve, Eve, Eve, Eve. All that to say that Christmas is one week from today. You know as a small kid this was by far the best time of the year. The week before Christmas was amazing. You were out of school, the weather was cold, everything was decorated, gifts were starting to pile up under the tree and many of them had your name on them. All was right with the world. Anticipation is a funny thing. The promise of whats to come can sometimes be better than the actual event.
This is not the topic for the day, but it is a relevant point. As an adult the promise of Earthly gifts doesn’t hold the importance it did as a kid, but what about the real gift of Christmas. I think differently about Christmas now. The real reason for Christmas. Unto us a Savior is born. Because of this day we have a Savior. Because of this day we can say that we have a home in Heaven. Because of this day we can know real anticipation. Think about it. This entire life here on this planet should be like the week before Christmas for a 9 year old. This entire life is nothing compared to what we have for us when these Earthly ‘tents’ expire. Heaven is our promise, our gift, and if you have called upon the name if the Lord as your Savior, this gift has your name on it. Oh, what a gift that will be, to be with the Lord and worship Him forever. Praise God for Christmas and the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
This morning I got up early and studied our chapter of the day, the last one in the book of Colossians, chapter 4. Paul wrote this from prison and I often wonder about the circumstances under which it was written. A damp, dark, dirty Roman prison cell was the home of this letter. Probably not much light and more than likely written on a dirty parchment with whatever ink he could get. It makes me think again about Christmas and how lowly and humble Jesus arrived into this world. This letter was the same. Written by a prisoner, his freedom denied, chained by man. But in the midst of that bondage, letters were written that would change the world. It seems that God is determined to use humble means to attain the extraordinary.
Let's look at verses 2-6 of chapter 4, where Paul deals with three areas of Christian conduct. Prayer, our public walk and speech.
“2 Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.3 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— 4 that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.5 Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.6 Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.”
We’ll start with verses 2-4, praying. Paul says to continue steadfastly in prayer. Notice the first word there, continue. He didn’t say to start, but continue. Paul was confident that they were already steeped in prayer and he is encouraging them to continue. Let’s look at the word steadfastly, not a word we use too much today. Steadfastly means to be firm, immoveable, resolute…steady. You could read this as continue to pray EVERY day, ALL the time. To be constant in prayer. (Romans 12:12)
Our prayer lives should be one where we are in constant contact with our Heavenly Father. Prayer is how we talk to God and we should talk to him often. Do you notice what happens when we lose contact with people in our lives? Take for instance High School. When you’re in High School you have friends that you think will be around forever. Friends that at that time seem like they will always be close. But then life happens. You move away, go to different colleges, you separate and communication dies. When the communication dies the relationship dies. If you hope to maintain a relationship there HAS to be communication. We are to be in constant prayer with our Heavenly Father. If you’re not praying, the relationship is moving in the wrong direction. It is becoming broken not better.
Now as we come to God in prayer, we need to be aware of our requests. We shouldn’t be coming to God with a laundry lists of requests for ourselves like He’s Santa and we’re giving Him our wish list. Praying for ourselves is important but not the only topic we should have with God. Notice Paul’s specific prayer request of the Colossians:
“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— 4 that I may make it clear.” Col 4:3-4
The advancement of the Gospel. That lost souls can be saved. That God opens doors, so the Good News can be heard by those that need to hear it. That as God does open these doors, that Paul doesn’t beat around the bush or dress it up the Gospel, but preaches it clearly. What a prayer request. In fact, one we should be praying today verbatim. Dear Heavenly Father, please open doors for Your Word to go out all over this world in a very clear, concise and accurate manner. Amen.
The next thing Paul addresses in Christian conduct is our public walk.
“Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.” Col 4:5
Walk in wisdom. Last Friday (Dec. 14th) we discussed wisdom and knowledge, their differences, similarities and how they relate to our walk with Christ. If you missed it, I think it’s a must read to better understand these two important words. You can find it at The5MC.com under the Colossians tab or use this link:
So back to walking in wisdom. We concluded in the lesson I just mentioned above, that knowledge comes from understanding God’s Word and wisdom is the application of that understanding in our lives. So therefore we could read this as “walk according to God’s Word.” Or you could also read it as “walk in the ways that I have instructed you.” It specifically says to “walk in wisdom to outsiders.” The child of God has a responsibility to the world today, walk in the ways of God’s Word, not in the ways of the world, don’t be foolish before others. Some call this the wordless sermon, its what you do, not what you say. No matter where you are or what your doing someone IS watching your walk. In fact, I can guarantee you are being watched closer than you can imagine. Your Christian life is a billboard for Christ, what does your billboard say to the world today?
Next Paul mentions, “making the best use of your time.” What does he mean? The Greek translation basically means to value the time God has given you and don’t take it for granted. In this verse it means to value every moment you have to use your walk as an opportunity to win others to Christ. Never underestimate the value that your Christian walk has.
The third comment on our Christian conduct is our speech. Others can see our walk but might not hear our speech. If I were to be walking around a busy mall this Christmas season and see a piece of trash on the floor and simply bend over, pick it up and toss it in the nearest trash can, someone can see this. This is my walk, but I did not speak to anyone. Paul is now going to talk about our speech.
“Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” Col 4:6
Let your speech be gracious. Gracious speech should always be kind, courteous and pleasant. Please be careful to notice that one qualifier buried in there…ALWAYS. If your going to walk as a Christian, it’s always. Not sometimes, not when we feel like it, not only when we’re in a good mood or things are going our way, but always. I think we can all easily say that ‘sometimes’ our speech is gracious. But how do we move that ‘sometimes’ needle over to the ‘always’ position? That should be our goal.
Seasoned with salt. I think this is an odd statement to be in here. Salt is commonly used in God’s Word but how do we season our speech with metaphorical salt? I read 6 different commentaries on this phrase and there’s a few different takes.
One is to take it literally. Salt makes bland food taste better. If we season our speech we can make our words taste better when we speak them to others. We’re familiar with the vernacular ‘to sugar coat’ your words, meaning to make them more palatable. Grace would be the sugar to make them sweet and salt would be to add a different flavor. That would fit here, in the context, “with Grace sweeten your words, and with salt season your words in order to make them palatable to each person’s taste you speak to.”
Another commentary explained that in the Greek society in 62AD, salt was associated with preservation. You would salt your food to avoid it spoiling or rotting quickly. If you salted your speech you would be keeping it from becoming rancid or rotten. This would mean to make sure that your speech stays pure and wholesome.
All of this seasoning is in an effort to make them appealing to different individuals. "so that you may know how to answer each person." All people are differnet and you should season your speech to best appeal to your audience.
What a great study today. As we go out onto this world today we have an obligation. An obligation to people. An obligation to people that we have never even met and might not ever meet again. To walk the walk and talk the talk. If your going to claim to be a Christian then you better be able to back it up. Whether you like it or not, someone today is looking up to you, make your example count.
God bless your personal time in His Word today, I pray He gives you an opportunity to speak of His grace to someone that needs that message today.
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