Sermon Tone Analysis

*Our Role as an Evangelist*

*Colossians 4:2-6*

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            Over the past couple of weeks we have been talking a great deal about prayer; how to pray and when to pray.

We’ve looked at passages that tell us that it is not only acceptable to pray any time of the day, but is necessary.

We’ve also spoken about what it means to have a church that is centered on Christ and doing the work that He has set out for us to do.

We’re still here, so we have some job that God wants us to do, right?

So we need to be in prayer and seek guidance for our church.

What exactly is it that God would have us do?  Are we to grow?

Are we to stay a 20 person or so church?

God has placed it on my heart to see the church grow in the community and be a 40 or more church.

We have the potential to do it!

Can you imagine 40 people in this room?

How about 50?

That would mean going to two services, and you know what?

This is all doable.

But each one of us needs to make the effort to make it happen.

We need to be in prayer, and then we need to take action.

Prayer for a flood of people is but only the first step, we need to follow that prayer with what the Lord tells us to do, and that is to get out there and go be fishers of men.

There were two farmers that were planning for the upcoming year.

They had been in a drought over the past couple of years and the crops didn’t do so well in the sweltering heat.

Both farmers called on God to help them.

They both said, “Lord, please bring the rain so that my crops can do well.”

The first farmer prayed every day, and waited for the rain to come.

The second farmer prayed every day, but he also went out and tilled the land.

Which farmer trusted that God would provide the rain?

In looking at our church, which farmer are we?

Do pray for a rain of people to flood our doors and stop there; or do we pray for rain then get out there and till the land by talking to those around us?

            Please turn with me to Colossians chapter 4 and verses 2 through 6.  Colossians 4:2-6.

Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving; praying at the same time for us as well, that God will open up to us a door for the word, so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ, for which I have also been imprisoned; that I may make it clear in the way I ought to speak.

Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity.

Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person.

Paul tells us several things in this passage, so let’s take a couple of minutes and dissect it.

First, we need to devote ourselves to prayer.

If we fail to continuously be in prayer, we will stray from God’s path and follow our own.

To fall away from prayer becomes a wedge in the door and Satan will use to attack you.

Does this mean that you must spend every waking moment in prayer?

No because then you aren’t going out there like God has commanded us.

But you do need to pray each and every day, and the more the better because you will grow closer to God and He will be your strength.

Look at the second part of that verse; we need to pray that God will open the door for the Word so that we can present the Gospel to others.

Now, if we were to be like the first farmer and pray but do nothing, why would Paul have told us to ask the door to be open to share the Gospel?

Well, he is simply following what Jesus told us to do.

Matthew 28:19 and following puts forth the Great Commission:

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

Then Paul makes a statement that he is imprisoned for the mystery of Christ.

At the time of this letter, Paul was in Roman captivity.

He had been arrested for preaching the Gospel.

And why?  “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”

(Romans 1:6) Paul was not afraid to be imprisoned because he knew that it was his duty to go out and preach the Word.

It is our duty to do the same; to go out and preach the Word or to witness.

We are to conduct our selves with wisdom to outsiders and make the most of our time with them.

We need to make sure that we are living the Gospel, not just on Sundays, but each and every day of our lives.

The day you accepted Christ, people began to watch you because there was a change in your life; and you began to proclaim the name of Jesus with excitement.

They are waiting for you to make a mistake, so Paul warns us to conduct ourselves with wisdom.

Then he warns us to speak with grace.

There are many Christians that get this attitude that they personally are to rid the world of sin by condemning all who sin.

They are more worried about the speck in someone else’s eye than the log coming out of there own, as Jesus tells us.

(Matthew 7:4-5)  My wife’s grandmother was one of those people for the longest time.

She would come to visit and the first words out of her mouth when the door was opened were, “you are sinners and heathens.”

Did that drive my wife’s family to Christ?  Nope.

I did drive them somewhere.

It drove my wife to want nothing to do with religion and her parents to staunch atheism.

It wasn’t until a year after we were married and we had moved from California to Oregon that my wife accepted Christ.

Her parents to this day will not speak to her as they have been so blinded by their atheistic beliefs; they believe that she dishonored them by accepting Christ and answering to God.

We need to make sure that when we speak about God to others that we don’t bash them with words of condemnation, but give them words of grace.

Does this mean that we should preach the social gospel as some do?

Joel Osteen has a huge ministry, but he never talks about sin.

He teaches that we all have a God shaped hole in our hearts that only God can fill, and if you come to Jesus, your life will be perfect.

Is any of that true?

The truth is that we have a sin problem and only the blood of the Lamb can heal that wound that would otherwise take our life and condemn us.

Jesus tells us that our lives will be full of persecution for His namesake, not full of perfect bliss.

So how do we go about sharing this very difficult, but very important message?

There are many styles that people have adopted to witness to others.

Some prefer a friendship style where you become a friend to a person, and after time has passed, you share the Gospel.

I am not one for this method and to illustrate why, let me tell you a little story:

A man walks in to a doctor’s office around lunch time.

He has been having lunch with his friend Dr. Jones for sometime now.

As he approaches the receptionist who is a fellow believer, he asks her to page Dr. Jones so they can have lunch.

He says, “Dr.

Jones and I have become great friends over the past two years, and I think that I can finally explain my faith in Jesus to him because he has been getting somewhat interested lately.

It is so exciting; I’ve been waiting all this time, but I was afraid that I would scare him off until now.

Oh, wouldn’t that be great if he came to know Jesus today?”

Just then the receptionist broke into tears.

“What’s wrong Judy?”

She stopped crying just long enough to say, “Bob, I wish you would have done this sooner.

You see, Dr. Jones was in a fatal car accident this morning on the way to work.”  Bob walked out of the office in tears knowing that in the two years that they had been friends, and the dozens of opportunities that he had to share the Gospel with Dr.

Jones, he had failed to do so and now it is too late.

Another method is a direct approach.

It isn’t the bash them over the head approach, but is more like a physician explaining the seriousness of a disease.

You go  to see the doctor and he told you that you had Crohn’s disease.

Here’s a cure, but you have to take it twice daily and no less than 11 hours but no more than 13 hours apart.

Have a nice day.

Would you take the doctor’s word about the disease and the cure?

I wouldn’t.

Now picture this.

You go into the doctor’s office and the doctor tells you to sit down.

He explains that you have Crohn’s disease and shows you book after book about the nature of the disease.

He tells you that you can die from the disease if it goes untreated.

Now he says there is a treatment but you have to take it twice daily and no less than 11 hours but no more than 13 hours apart.

Now that you know what the disease is and the seriousness of the disease, you are more likely to follow the doctor’s instructions.

We can use the same method with witnessing.