Focused on Impact

The whole song was about reaching out to our world. So let's discuss it, grab your message notes. Focused is the name of our summer series. And my name is René. I'm one of the pastors here at TLC. And I just want to welcome you. Welcome to anybody who is here supporting a Wharf to Wharf runner. Maybe you dropped them off and you're here right now. Welcome to everybody joining us live in the auditorium. Everybody who's going to be watching over there in the venue service. Everybody who is joining us right now on Facebook live. Everybody who is listening to simultaneous language Spanish translation. Everybody who's joining us. It is just great to have you here.

Right now we are in a verse by verse study of a little book of the Bible called Colossians. It's in the Bible. It's in the New Testament. And just to catch you up if you're just joining us, Colossians was actually a letter written by the Apostle Paul to some of the very first Roman Christians in a city named Colossae near the coast of what is now Turkey. And here's why he wrote this and why it's so relevant to us today. Little context for you. The Roman Empire is still unlike anything the world has ever seen. At its height it ruled from England almost to the shores of India. And it brought a unified language and unified government. And for the very first time there was a unified system of roads. And this meant travel was suddenly much easier. And that meant suddenly in every city you have a melting pot of ideas like there's never been before. And particularly you had all sorts of religions.

And scholars have a name for the kinds of religions that tended to be popular in the first century. They call them mystery religions. Because they taught that you need to learn mysteries, esoteric truths in the inner sanctums of their temples from enlightened masters. And these are mysteries known only to the initiated. And these mysteries mostly consisted of all kinds of extra things you had to do to earn the favor of the gods. Okay, what happened in Colossae was that the faith of the Colossian Christians was starting to sound exactly like these mystery religions. And so in his letter to Colossians Paul is getting them back on track.

In the first two chapters he talks about the sufficiency of Christ. We have all that we already need in Jesus Christ for free by grace. We don't have to enter into some secret society to learn how to do more. And then in chapters three and four he talks about grace-based transformation. Once I realize the riches that I already have in Jesus Christ, then I am going to be motivated to change not to earn God's blessing, but because I already have God's blessing. Now here's where we are today. Here's why I bring this up. There are two common extremes in religion and you can see this all throughout history.

On the one hand you can err on the side of what scholars call syncretism. And syncretism is a big word but basically what it means is cultural compromise. You sync up too much with your culture. So there's moral compromise, there's theological compromise like the Colossians. However, there's another error that Christians can get into when they realize, "Oh no, we are compromising too much with our culture. We got to get pure." They can go too far the other way and get into what you call sectarianism and that's a complete withdrawal from culture. And all throughout Christian history, Christians seem to swing on this pendulum from syncretism and compromise all the way over to sectarianism and withdrawal over and over back and forth and back and forth.

Just one example. When I was a youth pastor, the kids were watching things, MTV was new, and they were watching videos and maybe listening to music that probably wasn't the greatest influence on them. They were compromising with the culture. So what was our response as youth pastors? Well, instead of teaching kids, "Here's how to be a discerning consumer of your culture." There was a whole bunch of youth group curriculum that went completely the other direction into withdrawal. Like there was a VHS tape going around that a lot of youth groups were showing. It was very popular and it was called Hell's Bells. And it basically taught that if you listen to Steve Perry and Journey, and that was one of the examples they gave, you were going to end up on meth and maybe murder one of your parents. And I'm not even kidding.

I mean, Hell's Bells, you can find it on YouTube, it might entertain you. But what it taught was you just can't listen to anything in the world, you can't watch any movies, that's sectarianism. And you see this pendulum swing all through Christian history, unwise, compromised to complete withdrawal. Now, the only problem with those two options would be the Bible. Because the Bible tells us to be in the world, but not of the world. So there's apparently a middle way here. And that's what Paul is teaching, the Colossians. Because so far, the whole book, Paul's been critiquing their syncretism. But now in these verses that we're going to look at today, Paul's trying to stop that pendulum swing from going all the way over to the sectarian side.

He says, "Guys, no, don't compromise, but don't withdraw either. Be engaged with your culture. Be an influencer." Okay, that sounds good, but how do I do that? Ever ask yourself, how can I make an impact on my world without being compromised by my world? Right? Maybe in your workplace or in your neighborhood or at school, you feel like you're one of the only believers in Jesus. And you've thought in a world that's growing more hostile to our faith. How do Christians share our faith? How can we communicate our faith and be an influence to family, to friends, to coworkers in a way that won't seem pushy or intolerant or judgmental? Right? I don't want to compromise, but I don't want to just withdraw from my culture. I want to influence it in a positive way. How do I do that?

Well, Paul gives three ways in today's verses, so let's dive in. And this is very, very simple. If you learn these three things, you are going to have so much impact with your life, and you're going to be surprised at how easy it is. So Jathiel is down in your notes. Number one, he says, "Pray expectantly." Pray expecting things to happen. Colossians 4 verse 2, he says, "Devote yourselves to prayer." Regularly pray. Being watchful and thankful. Watchful. He says, "Be watchful." Watchful for what? What am I supposed to watch for? Well, in context, I think he's talking about opportunities to share your faith, because that's what this whole bit of instruction is about.

Look at what he says next. "And pray for us too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ." Now, let me stop there for just a second, because do you see what he is doing? He's making kind of a little pun here by using this word, because unlike the mystery religions, he says our mystery is meant to be proclaimed. Our mystery is meant to be in the open. And what is the mystery of Christ? It's not a mystery in the sense that it's secret. It's a mystery in the sense that nobody could have thought of this, except for God. And now, this idea that God had is being proclaimed openly.

And here's the mystery. That in Christ, all people, white and black and Jew and Gentile and slave and free and Asian and Hispanic, all people are one in him. And this is not by our own effort, but by the grace of God, who himself came to earth in Jesus and removed the obstacle of sin between us and him by taking our penalty on the cross and then conquering death so that we could all have life. That's the mystery. And he says this is revolutionary. It really is revolutionary. It's threatening to the established order in the Roman days. And that's why he says, "For which I am in chains." Paul is writing this from prison. And he says, "Pray that I may proclaim it clearly as I should." So pray expectantly for an open door to share your faith.

I don't know about you, but my prayers can get into a rut. They tend to be prayers for help and healing, like help my friends and heal me or heal my friends and help me. And that's totally fine. But Paul says, "Also pray, God open doors and then be watchful because when you dare to pray this, amazing stuff happens. Weird stuff happens. Let me give you one example. A college professor and well-known speaker named Tony Campolo, he has a great story, true story about this. He says, "Several years ago, I was in my office, invited to speak at a small Pentecostal college in Philadelphia. He says before the chapel service where I was supposed to speak, several of the faculty members took me into a side room to pray for me.

They asked me to get down on my knees and then the six of them put their hands on my bald head and prayed for me. And he says, "I'm a Baptist, so I'm not used to this." And their prayer just went on and on and they leaned harder and harder on my head. And one of the faculty members prayed at length about a particular man he knew named Charlie Stoltzfus. And I thought to myself, "If you're going to lean on my head this hard, the least you can do is pray for me." But he prayed on and on for this guy who was about to abandon his wife and three kids. And I can still hear this guy calling out, "Lord, Lord, send an angel to bring that man back to his family. You know who I'm talking about, Lord, Charlie Stoltzfus. Charlie, that's the guy who lives down the road about a mile on the right-hand side in a silver trailer house." And I thought to myself, "God knows where he lives. Get on with it."

Well, following the chapel talk, I get into my car, head home, I'm getting out of the freeway when I see a young man hitchhiking. And for some reason I decide to pick him up. As we pulled back onto the highway, I said, "Hey, my name is Tony Campolo. What's your name?" And he says, "My name's Charlie Stoltzfus." I didn't say a word. I got off of the next exit, turned around and headed back. And he looked at me and said, "Where are you taking me?" And I said, "I'm taking you home because you just left your wife and three children." And he leaned against the passenger door the rest of the way, just staring at me, not saying a word. And I drove straight to his silver trailer house on the right-hand side of the road.

And when I pulled into the drive, he looked at me with astonishment and said, "How did you know I lived here?" And I said, "God told me." He says, "I believe God did tell me. And I told Charlie, 'I want to talk to you and your wife.'" And he ran into his mobile home ahead of me. I don't know what he said to his wife, but when I got in, her eyes were as wide as saucers. And during the next hour or so, I was able to lead both of them into a personal relationship with Jesus. And today, years later, Charlie is a pastor in the South. He says, "When you pray expectantly, there are all kinds of surprises in store for you. And I really want you to try this."

So I'll put a sample of the kind of prayer that you might want to pray in a box on page three of your message notes. Obviously, you don't have to pray these exact words. They're not magic, but this is an example, something like this. "Lord, help me bless someone today. There'll be somebody near me in my neighborhood or at work or in my classes sitting right next to me somewhere, someone searching or someone hurting. I found grace in my relationship with you and I'd love to share it. Help me plant the seed. Amen. I just want to dare you. I just want to challenge you just as an experiment. Pray this prayer every day this coming week and I guarantee you, you will be surprised at some of the open doors that you start seeing.

Now, some of you might be thinking, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. If I get an open door, then what do I do?" Well, that's number two. And number three, number two is act wisely. Act wisely. Verse five, "Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders." Again, he doesn't say, "Separate yourself from them outsiders." He says, "As you hang out with them, as you do life with them, be wise." In other words, be a good example. Don't do something that'll cause them or you to spiral down. Be uplifting. Be a good example, a good ambassador for your faith and make the most of every opportunity because if you pray for opportunities, they are going to happen.

Let me tell you another story. A few years ago, I prayed, "God, let me be a light to you. Give me an open door." Pray that occasionally. And later that week, I'm on a Southwest Airlines flight. Just to paint the picture, the guy across from me from my aisle was so drunk. I don't think I've ever seen somebody that drunk on an airplane before. He was leering at the flight attendants. He was talking to the woman next to him about sports. She wasn't the least bit interested. And I'll confess this to you. I'm not proud of this, but I was thinking judgmental thoughts about him. Head buried in the in-flight magazine, trying not to pay attention to him, getting annoyed.

And then he looks at me across the aisle and he blurts out, "Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!" And I've got my head buried. I'm trying not to pinch hit. Finally, I look around and he goes, he says, "I'm telling you this is exactly what he said." He goes, "So how do we know God exists anyway?" Just like that. I go, "God, are you kidding me?" And so I looked at him and I said, "Do you really want to know?" He goes, "Yes!" And so until we touched down in San Jose, the poor guy basically heard my whole sermon on why God exists, .1, .2, .3, .4. And you know what? All the other passengers all around us were just silent, just listening to this conversation.

And then finally as we're landing, he looks at me and he goes, "How do you know so much?" I said, "Well, I gotta admit, I'm a pastor." And he goes, "Oh, Lord!" And I don't think he was praying, right? Now, maybe God had that happen for him or maybe he had it happen for some of the people who were listening. Who knows? But what I'm saying is I guarantee you opportunities for you to be a blessing to somebody with words or with Christ-like deeds are going to happen if you are watchful and if you pray. So be ready.

And by the way, you know you can create opportunities. Did you know that? You can create opportunities. And that is one of the many reasons, many good reasons that we do things at TLC like work with Project Homeless Connect and work with the Second Harvest Food Bank. It creates opportunities to make these connections. So pray expectantly, act wisely, and then number three, speak strategically. Speak strategically. And this next verse is huge because let's be honest, to a lot of us, this whole idea of sharing my faith just creates all kinds of tension within us.

We don't want to offend anybody and so we never say anything. It scares us to death, the idea of sharing our faith. But to others, this idea just ignites the competitive streak in you. If you're the type who always wants to win, like whether you're playing monopoly with friends or you're playing Scrabble or a pickup basketball game, you just want to be the victor. Whether you're having a conversation, you want to win the conversation, you want to be the most clever person and you hear this, you just want to go out there and win arguments. And I'll say, I'm guilty. That's my nature.

I remember as a very young youth pastor in San Diego going out with one of the other very aggressive young guys in the youth group and we said, let's go witnessing. And we were armed with pamphlets and our Bibles like we were armed for battle and we were going to go door to door witnessing. But before we got to that, almost instantly we saw two other people from, I'll just say, another well-known religious group also going door to door. And we looked at each other. We said, let's go get them. And we literally chased them down and they were trying frantically to get on their 10 speeds and get away from it. But we caught up and we deliberately pictified because we had memorized weaknesses in their theology and we're waving our Bibles around, opening up to passages, trying to knock them into a corner.

Can you imagine what a spectacle that was to people like peering through their windows, four door to door evangelists yelling at each other, each of us pointing to our pamphlets? You know, I'm sure many people were drawn to the love of Jesus that day. I know all of us when we're young do things that make us cringe later, but that's one for me. But my point is some of us just clam up. I can't share my faith. Others are like, bring it on because I want to win an argument because I know I can. Problem with both of those. Again, the Bible, because look at what Paul says here in the next verse. Let your conversation always be full of what? Grace.

Let's just circle that full of grace and talk about that for a second, not full of anger or full of judgment, full of grace. Be gracious, be kind, be polite, loving, gentle. And in your words to be full of grace, don't be full of legalism or be full of rules. Know what your faith is actually about. It's not about you better behave so that God will bless you. It's about God's free gift of grace and make it seasoned with salt. Now for thousands of years, there's been debate about exactly what Paul means here. And there's some opinions, but here's what I think.

Here is a salt shaker. And I put a picture of one in the slides on screen too. When you just sprinkle a little bit of salt into something, it can give it an amazing taste, right? Like a sea salt caramel ice cream or something like that. Or one of my favorite personal examples, lint chocolate bars. This one is called a touch of a sea salt. How many of you have had the pleasure of eating one of these chocolate bars? This is one of my favorite food groups. It's just behind apricot pie. The four basic food groups for me are apricot pie, lint sea salt, dark chocolate, and grains and vegetables. That's it right there. But this is delicious. How many of you would love to have this right now? Can I see a show of hands? All right, you know, I'm going to give this to you, catch, because there you go. You're very, very welcome.

Now here's another question. This is a glass full of salt, and I'm going to put a tablespoon in it. And here is a tablespoon full of salt. How many of you would love to have this tablespoon of salt right now? Not one single person right in the room. Here's what Paul is saying. When you have a conversation about your faith, make it more like lint touch of sea salt, dark chocolate, than a spoonful of salt, right? Season your conversations. Who wants to ingest a spoonful of salt? Let your faith season the things that you say and have confidence that the Holy Spirit is going to use that.

Jesus said the exact same thing with a different metaphor when he said, "So seed." A seed is not the whole grown plant that you are transplanting. It's just a hint of what's to come. He said, "Just scatter little seeds everywhere and see what happens." How do you do that? How do you sprinkle with salt? How do you sow little seeds? Well, maybe drop into a conversation that one of the things you look forward to on the weekends is going to church. Just let that tiny seed drop. Just season the conversation with that. One day somebody might respond and say, "What church? I've been looking for a church." This exact thing happened to Lori and I when we were out to dinner this week.

Or if a neighbor is going through a tough time at some point, you might just drop a little seed. "Can I pray for you?" Just sprinkle it on and see what happens because stuff will happen. And then finally Paul says, "So that you may know how to answer everyone." Not so that you may bombard people with your unsolicited opinion, but when people ask you have an answer. One of my favorite verses is 1 Peter 3:15–16 where Peter says the same exact thing. He says, "Always be prepared to give an answer when people ask you for the reason for your hope. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience so that those who speak maliciously against your behavior in Christ might be ashamed of their slander." I love that concept.

Now again, a lot of you might say, "Well, that's a deal breaker for me because I have no idea how to answer tough questions about my faith that people have. Questions like, 'What about all the other religions? What about all the suffering in the world? How can a loving God allow that? Doesn't science disprove the Bible? I don't know how to answer these questions so I can't share my faith." Okay, but what you can say in all humility is, "I'm not sure about the question." Or probably you could say with honesty, "You know, I've always had that same question myself. And there are all these great books where super smart people take a stab at those questions. Can I lend you one? Let's read it together and let's discuss the answers they come up with." And at the end of your notes there on page three, I put some of the books that I recommend.

These are just some of so many I could have put in here. And the ones with asterisks by them are the books that we have right now. We have a book cart out there in the middle of the lobby. If you're watching on venue, you can come into the lobby, you can see the book cart out there, and we make these available super cheap, and they're on a donation basis anyway, so that you can build your library. Listen, there have never in human history been more resources for learning about the faith. So take advantage of them. And remember, it's not about winning an argument, it's about building a relationship.

Now watch this. What does Jesus himself say about this topic of sharing your faith? Fascinating little verse, Matthew 10:16, where he says, "Look, I'm sending you out as sheep among wolves." In other words, the culture can become hostile to you because you're a believer. So he says, "Be shrewd as snakes and harmless as doves." I love that. Don't be idiots. Be shrewd, but be harmless. What he's saying is, you can be intelligent without being unkind. You can be sharp without being sarcastic. You could be strategic without being manipulative.

Now, do we need to hear this today in our culture, in our current cultural climate? It seems like a lot of people from all over the political spectrum, from all over the religious spectrum act like the Bible might say, "Be shrewd as snakes and as vicious as a mongoose or something." Or let your conversation always be full of volume and seasoned with sarcasm. But the Bible says, "No, make it full of grace and seasoned with salt." What's this look like? A while back, the famous magician Penn Gillette, he's part of the famous Penn and Teller magic show, he's a well-known atheist, but he posted on his daily video blog that he just shoots on his phone about a brief conversation that he had after his magic show in Vegas.

Now, some of you might have seen this already, but watch again how precisely this relates to what we've been saying today. I want to talk to you about this. I get home from the show and at the end of the show, as I've mentioned before, we go out and we talk to folks and sign an occasional autograph and shake hands and so on. There was one guy waiting over to the side in what I call the hover position after I was all done, big guy, probably about my age. He walked over to me and he said, "I was here last night at the show and I saw the show and I liked it. I wanted to hear it." He was very complimentary about my use of language and complimentary about, you know, honesty and stuff. He said, "Nice stuff." No reason to go into it, but he said, "Nice stuff."

And then he said, "I brought this for you." And he handed me a Gideon pocket edition of the book. I thought it was from the New Testament, but I also thought it was Psalms from the New Testament. Psalms from the New Testament, just part of the New Testament. A little book about this big, this thick. He said, "I wrote in the front of it and I wanted you to have this. I'm kind of proselytizing." I mean, he said, "I'm a businessman. I'm saying I'm not crazy." But he looked me right in the eye and did all of this. And it was really wonderful. I believe he knew that I was an atheist. But he was not defensive and he looked me right in the eyes. And he was truly complimentary. It wasn't in any way, it didn't seem like empty flattery. He was really kind and nice and sane and looked me in the eyes and talked to me and then gave me this Bible.

And I've always said, you know, that I don't respect people who don't proselytize. How much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that? I mean, if I believed, to be honest, shadow of a doubt, that a truck was coming at you and you didn't believe it, that truck was buried down on you, there's a certain point where I tackle you. And this is more important than that. And I've always thought that and I've written about that. I've thought of it conceptually. This guy was a really good guy. He was polite and honest and sane. And he cared enough about me to proselytize and give me a Bible, which had written in it a little note to me. Not very personal, but just, you know, like to show and so on. And then like five phone numbers for him in an email address, if I wanted to get in touch, he was a very, very, very good man. And that's really important. And with that kind of goodness, it's okay to have that deep of a disagreement.

I still think that religion does a lot of bad stuff, but man, that was a good man who gave you that book. That's all I wanted to say. Man, there's so much that's just fascinating in that conversation. Right. But, but let me ask you this, just shout it out. What are some of the ways he described that guy who talked to him? What are some of the things he kept saying? He's a good man. He was nice. What else? He was sane. Right. He didn't seem like just, he was weird. He was polite. Man, that is just so good. So rich. You know, it's so much of it is, it's not just about your content when you're talking to people. It's about your tone. Right. Do you have the tone of Jesus when you're talking with your, when you're being kind to people? It seems to me like the guy who met knew what this passage was all about.

Now, I just want to wrap this up, but let me just address two groups of people that are here today that I want to address. And first, maybe you're here and you're not sure you really even believe Christianity. You're just here to check it out. And what I've been talking about today is actually precisely part of your problem with Christians because they're always going around trying to convert people. Right. Well, Penn addressed this in his video, but let me just add this. What's it mean to convert somebody conversion? That word just means change. And all of us are always changing. We are always in the process of being converted. I mean, every day of our lives. And specifically, I would say we're always in the process of being converted to some point of view.

Every song you listen to has a point of view. Every TV channel you watch, every podcast, everybody you follow on Twitter, they all have a point of view about life. And they're all in some way trying to convert you to convince you every commercial, every ad. The only question is, what will you allow yourself to be converted to? Some sales pitch for materialism, or fear, or anger, or are you looking to allow yourself to be converted to being a person who lives in love, in the service of God through Jesus Christ? I know what I want. I know what direction I want to continually be changed. And I hope I've also shown you that this whole idea of narrow-minded, preachy, shrill, pushy evangelists is definitely not what the Bible tells us Christians to be like.

Okay, second group of people I want to address, of course, are the Christians that are here. And I am concerned that if you don't hear this last thing that I want to tell you, you'll still get the wrong idea about all of this stuff. Because we need to keep these verses in context with the whole rest of the book of Colossians, which is all about staying focused on who? On Jesus. The key to sharing my faith is the same thing. It's keeping Jesus central. Now let me explain what I mean by this. Having Jesus as your closest friend. In fact, look up here for just a minute as we close. This is so important because I do pray for and look for opportunities to share my faith in Jesus Christ and be in the world and not of the world.

But you know that grows out of the fact that Jesus is my life. He's my life. It's not like, oh, here's one more thing I'm supposed to do. Jesus is the one who has held me up in his hands through good times and through bad times. Losing a father and losing a stepfather and more recently losing my mom. I don't know how you go through that without Jesus. And Jesus is the one who has walked me through all of that. Jesus is the one who took me through those years of just abject poverty when in childhood. And he is the one who's central to my life right now. Jesus is the one who creates every molecule of oxygen that I take in. He's responsible for my existence.

And whoever I talk to, Jesus loves that person infinitely and unconditionally. More than I ever could. And Jesus is the most relevant reality in that person's life already, whether they know it or not. So when I come to sharing my faith, that's where it stems from. And I think this is really important because a lot of books, a lot of sermons will talk about techniques for sharing your faith and how to be clever. I think the discussion about sharing your faith has got to start a lot further back than technique. It has to start with how enthralled are you by Jesus? How is your imagination captured by Jesus Christ? How central is he in your heart?

Because when Jesus is that real to you, when you know Jesus is the person who has transformed your life, you're going to want to share, you're going to want to look for opportunities, and it's going to break your heart when they're not there. And you're always going to be looking for ways you can sprinkle it in here and plant a little seed there, not because you want to win an argument, because you want these people to know how much they are loved by God, and how much their lives can just be rocked when they meet the real Jesus Christ who is so relevant to every moment of their day. And when Jesus is that central to you, when you stay focused on Jesus, not on strategy or technique, that is when it's all going to fall into place. And that's when you're going to have real impact as you keep following him all the way into the world that he loves so much.

Let's pray together. Would you bow your heads with me? Lord, we do pray for open doors and help us to follow you all the way into the world, as the song said, and to be in the world, but not of the world. I don't want to be a syncretistic compromiser, but I don't want to be some kind of a weird fortress Christian either and withdraw from everything. I want to be in the mix, but to be an influencer. But most of all, Lord, I pray that we all just become so enthralled, so in love with Jesus, that our faith just flows out naturally and lovingly and compassionately. And Father, I just want to pray for anybody here who's not certain that they have placed their faith in Christ, that this could be the moment for them to pray something like this.

Lord, I'm attracted to Jesus. I'm not sure I understand all of this, but I do want to follow Jesus. I don't know what all that means, but I want to take the first step this morning and I place my trust, my full trust in him right now today, help me to keep growing as I follow him into the world. And it's in his beautiful name we pray. Amen.