Devoted in Prayer, Wise in Witness, Faithful in Calling.

If you want, you can turn in your Bibles to Colossians chapter 4. Today we are wrapping up our series in Colossians. We have been here for many, many weeks, which is so sad. Every time we go through a book of the Bible, I'm like, I feel like I can't stop. There's just so much. Even today, I'm like, this could have been five different sermons. But don't worry, it's not five sermons. It's only one. I'm going to be good. I'm going to try and stick to my notes here, but we'll see how this goes.

If you want to open your Bibles, Colossians chapter 4, starting in verse 2, is our text today:

Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. 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. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly as I should be. Be wise in the way you act towards outsiders. Make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. Tychicus will tell you all the news about me. He is a dear brother, a faithful minister, and a fellow servant in the Lord. I am sending him to you for the express purpose that you may know about our circumstances and that he may encourage your hearts. He is coming to you with Onesimus, our faithful and dear brother, who is one of you. They will tell you everything that is happening here. My fellow prisoner, Aristarchus, sends you his greetings, as does Mark, the cousin of Barnabas. You have received instructions about him. If he comes to you, welcome him. Jesus, who is called Justus, also sends greetings. These are the only Jews among my fellow workers for the kingdom of God, and they have proved a comfort to me. Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured. I vouch for him that he is working hard for you and for those in Laodicea and Hierapolis. Our dear friend Luke, the doctor, and Demas send greetings. Give my greetings to the brothers and sisters in Laodicea and to Nympha and the church in her house. After this letter has been read to you, see that it is also read in the church of the Laodiceans, and that you in turn read the letter from Laodicea. Tell Archippus, "See to it that you complete the work you have received in the Lord." I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand. Remember my chains. Grace be with you.

Colossians 4:2-18

Paul's writing here is sometimes just some of my favorite because he's so, like, I think it's funny at the end where he's like saying all these things. He's talking about all these good things. He's like, "Remember my chains." You're like, "Dun, dun, dun." He's like, "Oh, and grace be with you." Like it's this drastic shift where he's talking about all these good things, he's talking about all these brothers over here, all these brothers over there, and look at everything that's going on. He's like, "Remember my chains." You're like, "Whoa, okay."

But he was someone that is literally in prison writing this. He's literally in chains. So to me I'm like, "Whoa, that's a little crazy." But he's like, "This is just everyday life. Like some days you're in chains, some days you're not, and we keep going." But he's being a little dramatic here in what he's saying.

But I think there's so much intentionality and purpose in this. Paul, this is his kind of closing, wrapping up of this letter. If you've been with us, you know we've talked a lot about how Paul, when he wrote this, this was to people that he hasn't met before. So even imagine again, how that's coming across from like some dude you've never met. He's just like, "Remember my chains and grace be with you. Peace. Bye." That's what's happening here. He hasn't met these people, but he's writing them this letter. He's kind of leaving now. These are called the final instructions. He's almost saying like, "Hey, know these things. If there's nothing else that you catch, do this. This is my prayer for you. This is my invitation."

Be devoted in prayer, wise in witness, faithful in calling

Our so what is this: Be devoted in prayer, wise in witness, and faithful in calling. These are the final kind of instructions that Paul is giving them, that we would be people that the church in Colossians would be people that are devoted in prayer, wise in witness, faithful in calling. Now what do we do with that? We're going to unpack that today. But looking at what does it look like then for us to set rhythm and be intentional to be people that are devoted to prayer, right? Because it's easy to just be like, "Yeah, I'm going to devote myself to prayer."

But what does that actually look like for us to be people that do that? To be people that are practicing, living wisely, and that we're willing to continue to count the cost to say yes, remembering Paul's chains and remembering that invitation. So that's where we're going today.

Devote yourself to prayer

Devote yourself to prayer. This is what we're talking about first. "Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful."

The Greek word that Paul uses here is to persist, to cling, to refuse to give up. How he wants us to approach prayer. I don't know about you, but that changes it a little bit because sometimes I can think like devotion is just like, "Oh yeah, like I'm going to try and do something" or "I'm going to show up to something." But this is saying persist, cling, refuse to give up.

So what Paul is telling us here is that prayer is not supposed to just be like a momentary thing that we do occasionally. That prayer is not just when we come here and we sing songs together and somebody's praying from the front, but that this is to be a posture of our lives. That we would continue every single day of our lives as followers of Jesus to persist, to cling to, to never give up talking to God, being mindful and listening to what God may be saying in every moment of our days.

Prayer is not a moment, but it's a posture. It is our everyday oxygen. It is what we need to survive as followers of Jesus on this side of eternity. And that's why even as a church, you'll notice we have resources here. One of the things we have is our daily rhythms journal. We have one specifically for Colossians too, with all the reading plans.

But it's because as a church, like we don't want to be people that just say, "All right, like everybody, you should try and pray." But we want to be so devoted to prayer, to prayer rhythms in morning, midday, night. He's saying, "Devote yourself to this." And then he's saying, "Pray for what? Open doors."

Pray for open doors. This is the prayer that Paul has. This is what he's telling them to pray for. Paul, it's almost like this moment where he's like, "Okay, I got a few last words. So here's what I'm going to tell you to pray for." When he says, "Devote yourself to prayer, being watchful and thankful. Pray for us too, that God may open a door for our message, that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ for which I am in chains."

This is his prayer. This is the thing that he's asking when he has like one prayer request to the people. He's like, "Pray for us that God may open the door so I'm free from my chains and I now have a comfortable life. Open the door so I may never be in chains again." But that's not what he's asking. He's asking, "Open the door so the message of the gospel may advance."

This is the prayer that Paul is asking of the people. This is what he's using his last words in this letter to say. Paul was more concerned with the call to preach the gospel than he was his own comfort. He was more concerned with people knowing Jesus than him just living this simple, fun, happy life. And this should tell us something and give us insight on how we can pray too.

But what I want to touch on here is that I don't think you get to this place until you truly get to a place where you encounter the fullness of who Jesus is, until you spend that time with him day in and day out, and you let those scriptures wash over you and you grow in that intimacy so that you can say like, "I don't care whether I'm in chains or I'm set free because I know that I'm living for eternity. I know that what comes next is so much greater than this moment."

And so with every opportunity that I have, I'm not going to say, "Just set me free so life is easy," but I'm going to say, "Open the door and I'm going to walk through it no matter what, no matter where it leads me, because I know that Jesus is with me. Jesus is the head. Jesus is the source. Jesus is the fulfillment."

"That I may proclaim it clearly as I should." Clarity is important. If things are interpreted a little bit differently, it can completely change the message of something. Has anyone ever gotten a text from someone and you're like, "I think I know what you mean, but based on what you said, like, I don't think that's what you mean"? Okay.

When we are praying for clarity, sometimes we also need other people to bring correction into our lives to help us to continue to proclaim the gospel clearly. I had one of these massive typos about a year or two ago that all of you were actually almost a part of. So we do the big give every single year, and yeah, some people are already laughing because they know how bad it is and what I was about to do to this church. So we do the big give. And before we do the big give, I usually send to our leadership team a few of us will be praying about like, "What are the initiatives we want to give to?" All this kind of stuff. And so I send it kind of for proofreading. It's like, "All right, guys, this is what we're feeling before we, you know, blast it like everyone that's like ever shown up to the church is on our email list. Do you want to proofread it?"

And one of the things that we were raising funds for was a pantry project. And so we were asking for pantry donations to be brought to the church because we're going to open the pantry project. I emailed all of our leadership team and said, "We are going to raise funds for the panty project because I forgot the R." I said, "So we're going to be collecting panty donations and we want them to bring to church so that we can feed people. Bring all the panties, the panty items."

And so they were like, "Is this what you mean? You forgot the R, I think." I was like, "Oh, you are so correct." It's like so close, but that's communicating a very different message. Can you imagine like you're showing up hungry and you're like, "Yeah, they said there's gonna be food" and you're like, "Oh, I brought the wrong thing." And I really brought the wrong thing to this. It's like so close but not there. Clarity is important when we are proclaiming the messages that we are proclaiming. Correction and having people that you're walking alongside you to help you get that clarity is important. So you don't end up where I almost ended up two years ago here at the church.

Make the most of every opportunity

"Be wise in the way you act towards outsiders. Make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone."

We start to sense here like this urgency in Paul when he's saying, "Pray for the open doors, pray for clarity, pray for other believers." And then he moves on to this where he's saying, "Make the most of every opportunity. Every opportunity."

It's that recognition of we're not all gonna be like Paul where we're traveling around the world and we're finding ourselves arrested for the gospel almost every other day. Like that's not going to be everyone's story. Maybe some of your stories. I know that there's some of you here that you feel a call and are moving towards like global missions work. Like that's going to be some people's story. But every single one of us, we have a place that the Lord has us every single day.

Whether that's at home with your family, being a parent, being a mom, being a dad, whether that's in your classrooms, teaching or as a student or in your workplace, like we have opportunities every single day. Paul recognized, "I need support in this. Like on my own, like I'm not strong enough to make the most of every opportunity." And so he's saying, "Can you come and can you pray for me in this?" And then this wisdom in watching how you act, that prayer too, of recognizing that we need Holy Spirit wisdom.

That's one of the things I think I pray most for in my life is saying, "God, give me the strategy. I need Holy Spirit wisdom because there's a whole lot that I don't know how to do in life. Most things I don't know how to do. I don't know how to approach." We need the wisdom. Full of grace, seasoned with salt.

"Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone." I want to talk about salt here for a second. Salt in the Bible was incredibly significant. So recognizing, again, whenever we open the text, that it wasn't written like directly to us, but God uses it today to continue to speak to us, to continue to draw us closer to him, to transform our lives. But the people there, they would have known.

Salt is more than just something that you use to season your food. It was used as seasoning. Salt was used then to enhance the flavor of things, just like salt does now. Salt was used to help bind things together, just like it does now. But it was also used as a way to preserve things. It was also used as a way to purify things.

And so what he's saying to them is, "Let your conversations that you have be enhancing, uplifting. Like you leave people feeling better. Let your conversations bring healing. Let your conversations preserve and protect people." This is what he's inviting them into. Live in this way by letting their conversations allow their conversations to be full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that they know how to answer everyone.

We are not alone

And then he continues to go on here where he's talking about the community of believers that are surrounding him in this work. And this is the reminder for us today is like we are not alone on this journey. And we may feel like it. And maybe even right now like you are in some spaces feeling like loneliness, or you feel like you're not where you're at in connectedness and relationships that you want, but I'm here to remind you, you are not alone in this journey.

Even looking around this room today and seeing other people that are here saying, "I'm hungry for God. I want to know more of Jesus. I want to proclaim the good news." Like not just anyone shows up to this church on Sunday. You can be anywhere, but we're here together in this moment, whether we know each other really well or just a little bit or not at all.

And it's a reminder to us that we're not alone. Paul was not alone. He needed so many people to come around him and to play different roles and making sure this message was advancing. We need each other as we follow Jesus. We need each other as we proclaim the gospel.

As we step through doors that may lead us to places we never thought that we would go. Because that's so much of saying yes. When we're saying yes to those open doors is oftentimes the door we're saying yes to leads us in a completely different direction than we ever thought that we would go. And that's so much the story of like my life when I talk about when people are like, "Oh, why did you come to Madison? How long have you been here?"

I'm like, "I thought I was coming for a year. And here we are almost 10 years later. And I never thought I would be doing what I'm doing now in so many different ways. This was never what I thought I would be doing. This is never where I thought that I would be. I didn't really know that what happened in Wisconsin other than that's where a bunch of cheese heads were. That's all I knew. And now this is a place that I call home. This is a place that I look at. I'm like, wow, God, there's so much purpose and there's so much intention of why I'm here at this time and in this moment."

But my yes to come here was not to plant a church and to pastor. My yes was not to be here almost 10 years later. My yes was to the open door that was right in front of me. And then continuing to obey no matter the cost, continuing to endure no matter what came. And recognizing that the purpose that we all have is to continue to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ wherever we're at, wherever he has us.

But that takes us continuing to say yes to those open doors, continuing to invite other people alongside us so that we can clearly proclaim the gospel, that we can be open to correction, that we can recognize that it has nothing to do with us and that this life is so temporary, but we're living for something beyond ourselves.

"After this letter has been read to you, see that it is also read to the church of the Laodiceans and that you in turn read the letter from Laodicea." So I love this even then. He's kind of making these church connections where he's like, "Hey, go share what I just told you. And then now I want them to share it with you as well." He's like reminding them even there too like we're a part of something greater. Like we're not the only church in Madison. We're not the only church in the country, in the world, right? Like we are one piece of the greater body. There's so many ways that the Lord is moving and we get to play a part and we get to share what our role has been and we get to receive from other people.

Complete the call and count the cost

"See to it that you complete the work you have received in the Lord. I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand. Remember my chains. Grace be with you."

These last two things that we see from Paul. Complete the call and count the cost. You know, the more that I read that last verse, I see that in Paul where it's like, "I want you to say yes to this. Like following Jesus is so worth it. I don't think you would do what Paul did unless you really believe that." And he's telling us to count the cost. He's kind of giving us that reality check where he's like, "Before he says, grace be with you," he's saying, "But remember. Remember my chains. Remember, it's not always going to be easy. Remember that you're going to need all of those brothers and sisters in the faith and the other churches coming alongside you in order to continue to this call. But continue. Keep going. Keep walking it out."

This is the invitation that Paul is leaving us with. Is to remember the chains, but knowing that it's worth it.

Closing prayer

There is just such a recognition of life can be so painful and life can be so hard. And I know that I get to sit with a lot of you and hear your stories, but I don't even know the half of it. But I know that as we continue to show up and as we continue to walk closer to Jesus, that there's pain that we have to endure with that.

And the good news that we have is that because of Jesus' death and resurrection, we know that he overcame. We know that he's coming back again. We know that his resurrection power is alive and real, and we have access to that today. Yet it's hard and there's no way around that.

I always go back to Psalm 23 and how in the Psalms, specifically Psalm 23, it's just such a beautiful imagery that though there will be these dark valleys, the Lord is with us. And we know that on this side of the resurrection that Jesus left with us his Holy Spirit to continue to be that comfort.

But I love how Psalm 23, in my favorite translation, it says, "The Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing." That there's nothing that we lack, that we're full. We have access to the fullness through Jesus. But sometimes like we have to remind ourselves of that. I have to remind myself of that every single day. The Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing.

But even in that, we know like that there are times when it feels like we lack something, when it feels like we don't have enough, but the reality is we lack nothing. And then that next verse says, he makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

When the Lord is our shepherd, when we submit to Jesus as our Lord, he leads us and he guides us. He's with us. We're not left alone. He brings people alongside us to continue to support us and to encourage us and to be the voice of healing, be the voice of protection, be the voice that enhances who you are.

He guides me in the paths of righteousness. And catch it when verse 3 says, "For his name's sake." Everything is for his kingdom. Everything is for his glory. And the more that we surrender to that, the more I believe that we're going to start to live like Paul where we can easily just be like, "Hey, it's not about me and my comfort. It doesn't matter how long I'm in this dark valley. I'm in these chains, but like I trust in what the Lord's gonna do."

So Holy Spirit, we just welcome you in this place. We thank you for the gift of community. God, we thank you that we're not alone in this. God, we thank you for your devotion to us that you endlessly, endlessly, endlessly pursue us, chase us down to the point of you gave your life for us, Jesus.

And so Lord, you know, you know our stories. You know what we came in here holding. And I just pray that these words would speak life. So God, would you speak in prophetic ways? God, would you give us pictures? Would you just have words of encouragement come to our mind as we pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ today?

So Holy Spirit, we just welcome your presence in this place. We thank you that you see us, that you know us, and we just ask that you would multiply these prayers today. In Jesus' name.