Kaleo San Diego Church

INTRODUCTION

What is the Bible all about? In other words, what is the main thrust or theme of the Bible?

There are essentially two ways to go about answering this question. Through history, these two ways have been the most common and most discussed in theological circles.

The one approach is the topical or systematic/theological approach. It is an assumption that the Bible is about a way to live. The topical approach comes to the Bible and asks specific questions on a variety of topics. For instance, it may ask, “What does the Bible say about sin?” or, “What does the Bible say about marriage or parenting?” or, “What does the Bible say about church or evangelism? About God, the Holy Spirit, the deity of Christ, our relationship to culture?” The Bible is then perceived as a sort of medicine chest or compendium of thoughts or topics—sort of like an encyclopedia of divine discussion.

Systematic theology attempts to answer questions under particular topics so that the Bible may be more easily distilled, understood and broken down into a dictionary in which we can find answers to questions quickly. It’s an attempt to synthesize most of our pressing questions within coherent topics. Because we believe that the Bible is coherent and non-contradictory, we should be able to go to it on any topic and receive consistent answers to our questions. I’m not dismissing this approach.

However, there is a danger in looking at the Bible purely in this way—in assuming that the Bible is best understood by topics. There is a danger in coming to the Bible with the lens of assumption that it is given to me and I should come to it to learn how I might live right, or to answer my questions. The reason this can be dangerous is that it unwittingly places the focus and the attention of the reader upon the reader. In other words, we can begin to assume that the Bible is primarily about me and my life.

There is a second way of looking at the Bible which draws us back a bit so that we view the Bible as an integrated and true story with a plotline. It views the Bible as a non-fiction work that has a steady drum beat which runs through it. Now, when you first began to read the Bible, it probably didn’t appear at first to be a unified whole. It can read at first like a bunch of thoughts and examples, stories and poems, principles and instruction, description and declaration, laws and rules on a variety of subjects. Some of you might still be in this stage of trying to figure out how to best study your Bible because when you come to it, it seems a bit disjointed and not as tidy and neat as you might like it to be. So, it becomes almost a natural response to read the Bible topically with the systematic/theological approach.

If we read the scriptures synchronically by trying to synthesize biblical thought into topics, we miss the bigger picture because we miss the plot line in the story. What we end up doing is missing the forest because we are looking at the trees; we end up missing the story. If we believe that the Bible is a true story, then we necessarily have to ask, “Then what is it about?”

When you ask that question you begin to back up and see that the Bible is more than particulars; it is a whole. If the Bible is read diachronically, then it is read as a true story with a plot line and that plot line is really the single theme of the Bible—God’s mission. Mission, then, becomes primary because it is what the Scriptures and history are all about. God loved and created man. Man turned his back on God and was lost. God promised to restore that relationship and sent His Son to this world to reclaim His children and to redeem creation. God loved us; we became lost; God is finding us and restoring this world. This is the point of Christ telling us that “the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).

The story of the Bible is a story of God’s love that is so rich, so deep, so profound and irresistible, that even when we flipped Him the finger and went about our own way towards destruction, He came after us and claimed us for Himself.

When we see the Bible as a true story of God’s mission, it changes the way we view it. We no longer look at the Bible as tips for good living, which would mean it is essentially about us. We now see it as a story about God, what He is doing and how He is doing it. God is the hero of story, He is the main actor, He gets top billing, and history is about His work to save mankind. Mission now becomes the primary action of God. When we look at the Bible as a book of advice, we miss that. The Bible is about God coming after His own and restoring the world. This places us at the very center of God’s activity and actions. This also causes us to no longer view mission as something out there in another country, but as the way of life for the Christian right here, right now. To become a Christian means to enter into the story of God’s drama and to become an actor in His play of history. If we are to remain faithful to the script and to the Author’s intent of the script (the plotline), we will act out our role as He has written it for us. If we attempt to revise the story, cross out crucial lines, or complain that you just can’t find your motivation, you are not faithful to God’s drama. Being a Christian means being on mission. If being on mission is not our primary activity, motivated by love, then we haven’t read the script correctly and our actions will be driven by our own script, written by our own imaginations, for our pride and glory.

In this story we see our God as a missional God. The Father sent Jesus on mission into this world to accomplish His plan. Jesus came and was fully obedient to His Father’s script. He died, rose again and sat at the right hand of the Father, and both the Father and the Son sent the Holy Spirit on mission. The Holy Spirit indwells us and now the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit send us into this world as missionaries to continue this world changing drama. Evangelism and mission are not a topic in our life; they are our main activity. God saved us to be part of His mission to redeem the world for His glory.

If we come to a text like this morning’s and miss this truth, we wrongfully assume it is about practical living and nothing more.

God’s plan to save you is to call you to the corporate, communal mission. It isn’t to be saved, only to receive your personal “get out of jail free” card. God saved you into His story, and that story is about His mission; therefore, He saved you for mission. The world is to be radically redeemed through this mission, and our part in this story is an important part. This script is not written to include a bunch of extras that have little value and no lines. We all have parts written for us by God and each role is significant. Every actor is important.

Let’s look at how Paul closes this letter and see what Paul is telling these Christians in Colossae about mission.

STUDY

I. Missional Prayer

Communication with God

Verse 2- Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving;

How we are to communicate with God:

• Devoted prayer

The word Paul uses for “devote” is the Greek word proskartereō which is a compound word that means “to hold fast and not let go.” Paul is calling believers to be strongly persistent in prayer. They are to pray at all times, without ceasing. This means more than just verbalizing words to God. It means having a God-consciousness that relates every experience in life to Him. Prayer is the most important communication a child of God can utter. Through prayer we confess our sins, offer praise to God, call on Jesus who is our sympathetic High Priest and intercede for one another. Prayer is to be directed by God, it is to be consistent with the mind and will of the Holy Spirit, in the name of Christ and for the glory of the Father.

Prayer is “an offering up of our desires unto God for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of sins and thankful acknowledgement of his mercies” (Westminster Catechism). Prayer is the revealer of the heart. What we pray for shows our condition. Prayer is the measure of a man, spiritually, in a way that nothing else is. How we pray is as important a question as any that we can ever face. It reveals the desire of our hearts, which reveals what our treasure truly is.

• Alert prayer

True prayer means keeping alert. It means literally to stay awake and not fall asleep during prayer. Paul’s thought is broader than just physical alertness. He means that believers should look for those things which they should be praying for. Often we pray vague, general prayers that are not very effectual because they are so broad. These types of prayers don’t really ask anything specific. To be devoted and alert means to have a heart and mind for something specific that is agreeable to God’s will (1 John 5:14). We should be concerned with specific needs which call us to pray specifically, and not only be alert to them, but to be alert to their answer from God.

• Grateful prayer

This is the fifth time Paul has mentioned gratitude in this letter. Believers are to be grateful and thankful for salvation (God’s mission came to them), for growth, for fellowship with Christ and His Church, for the opportunity to serve and for the guarantee that God will answer prayer in accordance to His purpose. If we pray with a heart filled with thanksgiving, it changes our entire attitude and outlook on life. The attitude of devoted and alert prayer is one of thanksgiving to God for His goodness in our life.

Paul then asks that they make the prayer personal for him and those with him. But what is the first specific thing that Paul wants them to pray for? His health, his wealth, his freedom, his comfort? Let’s see.

Communicating the Gospel

Verse 3-4 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; 4 that I may make it clear in the way I ought to speak.

What we are to communicate to God:

• Pray for those who proclaim the Gospel

Paul turns from prayer, which is communication directed toward God, to the proclamation and communication of the Gospel, which is directed toward people.

We are to pray for those who preach, teach and assist in the forward progress of the Gospel. Who should this be? Everybody. Not everybody will be a preacher, but everyone who sees their role in God’s drama as significant and who assist in the unfolding of this drama are those who are helping it. Are you helping or hurting the progress of the Gospel? Is life about you or about God? This is an important question to ask. We must come face to face with this in our time because every person’s participation is crucial if we are to see real progress in our day. There are no little people in God’s Kingdom.

• Pray for open doors for the Gospel (the mystery of Christ)

A door means an opportunity. We are to pray for open doors because it is God who opens them. When we come to God in prayer, we are recognizing that only He can answer it. Our posture in prayer should be the same in daily living—humble, reverent, dependent upon God.

The mystery of Christ is the secret of Christ. It is the now public proclamation that Jesus is King, Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah, Jesus is the one that all of creation held its breath in anticipation for. The exhale of history came when Christ arrived in His creation. It is now unveiled and all the world is invited to be saved through Him. We are to be constantly in prayer for doors to be opened for us to speak the mystery of Christ, the good news of God’s story. This is what Paul was in prison for.

• Pray for clarity of speech

Paul wanted believes to pray for clarity in how Paul “ought to speak.” He is asking that God would give him an understanding of how to communicate the Gospel. He wanted them to pray that he would speak as God wanted him to speak. This should be our prayer daily: “God how can I speak the Gospel to those I love?” This is missional thinking and missional praying.

Paul moves from missional praying to missional living. He moves from speech and communication to God for people, to living communication to people for God.

II. Missional Living

Communication through action

Verse 5- Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity.

"What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

How to communicate with unbelievers in our lives:

• Walk with wisdom towards unbelievers

Conduct means literally “to walk.” This is the conversation of our lives. And it is so important that we are to walk in a way of wisdom for the benefit of unbelievers. Legalism, moralism and every other kind of foolish “ism” have no place in the life of the follower of Jesus because they distort the truth of the Gospel and make no sense to the unbeliever. We should not assume that an unbeliever understands what it means to be a Christian. We are not inviting them into a moral code of living. We are inviting them to Christ—who has lived the life they should have lived but didn’t, and died the death they should have died but didn’t—so that Christ’s righteousness is given to them as He takes their unrighteousness upon Himself. Most people really don’t understand this.

If we are to walk with wisdom, this means we are not to walk or live foolishly. There should be a wisdom in our daily walk that is apparent to unbelievers. It is only through walking in wisdom that our words will actually mean anything. The early church didn’t have advertising, TV, radio, books, tracts, magazines or bumper stickers. But they lived out the truth of the Gospel in their personal and communal lives; they turned their world upside own. Will that be said of us at Kaleo?

• Use every opportunity for the Gospel (urgency in redeeming time)

Opportunity is fleeting, life is short and every day more people die without Christ. Night is coming when no man can work, says Christ. Our Lord may return at any moment. We should use our opportunities which God gives us each day for His gospel to be spread.

Communication through speech

Verse 6- Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person.

How to communicate with unbelievers in speech:

• Speak with grace

To speak with grace means to say what is fitting for the Gospel. It is to be in reference to God’s grace and favor upon us.

• Season our speech with salt

It is not only that we speak with grace and are gracious, but also that we have an effect. Salt adds flavor, and the speech of the redeemed of God should have charm and wit. It should be seasoned with the flavoring effect of God’s joy upon it.

• Know how to respond to each person

We must know how to say the right things at the right time. Our speech is vitally important. We see ourselves as God’s children who have been given the charge of learning about each person so that we might impart to them the grace of God found only in the Gospel. We should learn how to speak to our friends, co-workers, neighbors, family and associates. We should learn about them even when it is difficult.

Since we have tasted grace and it has been so very good, and since Christ spoke in all ways fitting to the Father and lived in all ways obedient to Him, as we place our faith in what Christ has done, we are freed to pray, live and speak for His glory.

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