New Life

That's colossians chapter 4, starting to read at verse 2. Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful and 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 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. Let me pray as we begin. And then we'll then we'll get stuck in and pray.

Father, we, we thank you, once again that we can come and that we can, receive your words. Even even tonight, we we hear of a a country that, doesn't doesn't accept your gospel, doesn't have the the liberty or the freedom to meet together and to hear what you have to say, to them. And so we pray father that tonight, we will not take that for granted, but actually we will remember how blessed we are to have your words. And so as we come now, we pray that we'll be ready to listen and to apply, what you have to say to us tonight. And so I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.

I think it's safe to say, that there are very, very differing attitudes and very differing behaviors when it comes to that the jobs and the tasks that we sort of face in life. On 1 hand, you've kind of got some people who are, are really in 1 sense enslaved to their work. They're They're kind of so driven to achieve this is the kind of the the kind of person you see on the apprentice who says listen, I'll throw everyone under the bus. Just to say that I make it to the top. They're so driven.

They're they're they're they're completely motivated, and they don't stop working. In fact, I was looking up about this. I don't know if this is well, I've read this on the internet, so it might be not true, but it seems that people are addicted to working. They can't not work, and and you see that often with with with people where as it has a detrimental effect on the rest of their lives as they isolate, family members and, and their wife and their children. They're totally enslaved.

They're so driven to achieve that they totally isolate everyone else in their lives. And they don't care who they step on or chuck onto the bus as they like say, they're gonna get to the top. The problem is often when they get to the top, there's no security. There's no satisfaction and there's a lack of significance still in their lives. It's interesting if you read ecclesiastes, it always says this.

It says It's meaningless. Even that those people who are so into their work and to trying to get rich and to trying to get successful, they look on it and they don't have contentment. They don't have satisfaction. There's no significance. So that's kind of 1 hand.

You've got those kind of people. You might know some of them in your own in your own workplace. On the other hand, you've got the other type of person when it comes to tasks and jobs. It's kind of the person who really hates jobs and and work and and tasks. They they despise what they do.

And actually, really the 5 days of work that they've got to do is just to try and earn a little bit of money so they can go and enjoy the 2 ways of weekend. You I don't know if you've ever come across these people. But they are usually whinging for 5 days straight. And then, yes, the weekend. Come on guys.

And then Monday, they're feeling terrible because they've drunk a little bit too much alcohol. And there's they're again whinging about the 5 days of work that face them. There's no significance. There's no satisfaction. There's no real meaning.

It's it's a kind of a cycle that repeats over and over again 5 days winced 2 days party ridiculously hard. Don't remember anything, but, you know, it was surely it was great. 5 days again, winching. Or the you get other people who go from job to job to job, this is coming more prevalent in society. Go from 1 job to another job to another job.

Did it hardly ever hold a job down for more than 3 months it seems? Because I can't I'm not satisfied. I'm not getting any meaning here. No purpose. It's interesting.

I was I was reading an article, from the independent, and, I just thought I'd see satisfaction statistics in the UK with with employment. So here you have it. 1 in 4 employees are unhappy with their job, which is alright. Well, I mean, it's not as bad as last year when it was 1 and 3, so it's slightly better, but still not great. Right?

47 percent of you the UK workforce expect to be looking for a new job pretty soon. And 1 in 5 people are already saying I'm I'm I'm looking for a new job. There's no sat there's no satisfaction in the task that we have. There's no significance in the jobs that we have. And I think we know this is true as Christians And the reason there's no significance and there's no satisfaction and there's no contentment is because actually we know that All of this that we have now is just gonna pass away.

It's gonna be here 1 minute and the next minute's gone. Never to be remembered. Never to be right. There there's kind of a futility. Right?

You I mean, Okay. So the work that I do, I don't think in a hundred years, anybody is gonna be talking about the work of Rory Connect. To be honest, I don't think anyone's talking about it now anyway. So I mean, you've gotta be pretty special for someone to still be talking about you in a hundred years time. But let's face it in 200 years' time.

No 1 knows who you are. And, you know, there's a there's a futility there. But as Christians, it's different. For the Christian, it's so much better. It's so much greater because we're given a new task.

Now, when when we're converted, when we become Christians, followers of the lord Jesus Christ, we get loads of new things, we get the new life that we looked at, a new father, a new family, a new hope, a new guides. In fact, as Christians, we get this whole new identity. And with this new identity, you get like a brand new task. A task. It it's a bit like, say, if I got a new job, I'd get a new uniform and I'd have a new work.

Right? So if I if I worked for a supermarket like Tesco, I'd have a Teska uniform and I would work for Tesco. I then find a new job. It's in waitrose. No, I'm living.

Waitrose got a new uniform. I've got new tasks. I'm working for a different employer. That's what it's like to be a Christian. No longer are you employed by that person?

You're now in god's family working for god with a new task. You don't go on and carry on with the old job that you had before you were a Christian. So we've got a brand new task and this task has purpose. This task has meaning. See, before we see we see the tasks and the jobs of this world, they're just they're of temporary worth.

They're of temporary significance. But as Christians, our task has eternal worth, eternal significance. And that's because our task is the same as that of Christ, the lord Jesus Christ. What was Jesus' task when he was here on Earth? Well, if you look at Mark chapter 1, and if you can flick on it, if you want, you're gonna have to.

But John the Baptist who's been pre preaching about the the kingdom of god that is to come, he goes into prison. What does Jesus do? Well, he takes up exactly the same job. He goes, he proclaims the kingdom of god, and he says repent and believe the good news. He's taking the good news about his kingdom to the people around him.

And that's our job. So what happens when Jesus dies? He rises again. And before he ascends to heaven, was he tell his followers, well, Matthew 28, he this is what he says to them verse 18 to 20. Then Jesus came to them and said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations but tithing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you and surely I am with you always to the very end of the age. What's our task is basically the same as the lord Jesus Christ. Is to go out and it's to make disciples of every nation. It's to proclaim the good news is to get people to tell people to repent, turn from your sin, turn from your lives, turn from the way that you're walking to hell and turn to the lord Jesus Christ and be saved. And that is the task of every single Christian.

We all have a role to play in that task. Now You might be thinking, no. I I don't I don't talk. I'm I'm not silent type, and I'm not I'm I'm not a talker. Well, actually, unfortunately for you, I'm sorry to say the Bible says here you're to be involved in telling people the gospel to people who do not know the lord Jesus.

And so hopefully as we kind of look at this passage, we're gonna be refreshed. We're gonna be reinvigorate reinvigorated to be involved in the greatest task there is in the universe. That task of soul winning. That task of soul winning. That task of evangelizing of telling people about the lord Jesus and what he's done for this world.

And so I want us to see 2 things about, evangelism. We're gonna look at the first thing, and then we're gonna we're gonna spend a little time on our tables praying for for some of these things. Then we're gonna go on to the second thing. So you get a break because I need you need a break because it's a very long sermon. It's not as sure.

First point about evangelism, is the indirect evangelism prayer. The indirect evangelism prayer. So if you look down with me at verse 2 to 4, devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful, and pray for us too that god may open the 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. So this is this is how Paul begins.

He begins by asking the church of of colossi or colossi. I don't know how to say it. He begins by saying pray with any task, with any job, you need to get the essentials right. Okay? The essentials of evangelism is prayer.

Okay? And he's saying, can you pray? Now I think we we often misunderstand what prayer is. We we tend to get it a little bit wrong because I think sometimes we we think prayers is a little bit too much about us. It's a little bit too much about it.

It's it's it's about my comfort and what I want and how I feel. And oh, I hope I feel a bit nice and and what do I have? And I think the reason why we pray like this often is because our culture is all about the individual, isn't it? Make yourself happy. Follow your dreams.

But actually, 1 of the primary things for prayer is is is actually for the battlefield. It's for the battlefield. I was, I was we're gonna hear about John Piper again. Sorry. I know if you hear this morning, we heard about John Piper, and I'm gonna talk about him now as well.

Apologies. But 1 of 1 of he had a really good analogy on this. We sometimes think of prayer as kind of like a domestic intercom. You know, you know when you're, I don't think many of us have. I definitely don't have this.

My domestic intercom is me just shouting it at Jerusalem. No. It's not. But, you know, when you press that button, you go, can you, please bring up an extra duvet? It's getting a little bit cold in this room.

And then they bring over thing or or can you bring, a cup of tea? That'd be lovely. And and and and so we treat god like that. It's just off for our comfort. But it's not a domestic domestic intercom, actually.

Prairie is like a walkie talkie. Prairie is like a radio on the battlefield. I don't know I don't know if you've seen, any war films or any war 1 of my favorite war programs, and 1 of my favorite programs ever. Is a program called Band of Brothers. Now if you haven't seen it, you probably need to see it because it's fantastic.

There is a bloke there called Loz. Loz is the radio man. When when the the company come up against difficulty or come up against odds that that that might make it hard for them to proceed, what does Lewis do He gets on the radio and he phones in command that says, listen, we need an air strike now so that we can move forward and we can get the victory. So here you go. Can we get a air strike in?

Oh, yes. Lovely. I've I've been pretty sure no 1 talks like that on the radio, but that's fine in a battle. Zooms over, boom, and then they can move forward. And that's what prayers like.

It's as as we we're on a battlefields, a spiritual battlefield where we wanna see people come to know the lord Jesus. We wanna take the gospel forth. And there are times it'll be difficult. There'll be there'll be opposition. We we heard about in Somalia.

People hate the gospel in Somalia. So what do we do? Well, we need to pray. We need to go commander. Jesus, god.

We need an airstrike. We need a gospel air missile. To come in and blow up something so that we can go in with the gospel. It's not a domestic intercom. It's a walkie talkie, and we must use it for gospel proclamation.

It's crucial. It's essential for the work of the gospel to go forward. So that's prayer. Now, like any job, and any test we need to know how how to do it, what to do. So for instance, at the bottom of my garden right now, I'm trying to sort out a nice platform for a big shed.

Okay? May not I'm not the most practical, probably down the fact that my father is not a practical man and you can sort of have to make it up. But fortunately, we've got I've got people in my corner that can tell me what to do. When you've got Chris Tilley in your corner, he tells you exactly what you need to do, how to do it. He listen.

He's the expert in almost everything in life. Yeah. Don't wanna embarrass you. But we need to be told I need to be told of how do I dig? How do I then lay a platform?

What do I need to do? I need to smash up a load of rocks with a sledge hammer, and then we need to concrete it. Well, much like that, we need to be told how to pray and what to pray. So that's what we're gonna look at. How to pray firstly in verse 2.

Well, the first thing we we need to know about how to pray is to pray with devotion. Look down there. It says devote yourselves to prayer. In other words, we need to be persistent. We we talked a little bit about this last week, but we need to that I think the ESV says continue steadfastly.

See prayer is an isn't just something for now and then. Oh, I've prayed a little bit here. A little bit there. And then, you know, I'm good. It's not that.

No, prayer is a continuous line of communication between yourself and between god. And so therefore, we we shouldn't just switch off. The line of communication. It'll be it'll be a bit odd on that battlefield if you just on the radio just switched it off. You what what you're doing?

You need a communication to know what you're doing to go forward in the battle, to go back in the battle. So if I need a strike or not, do I get an answer? Why would you switch it off? You wouldn't. That's what prayer should be like.

Ephesians 6 18 says, always pray for all of the lord's people. Always pray for all the lord's people. See, it's not just a morning thing. It's not just an, you know, same of prayers in the morning or same of prayers before I go to bed. Thank you god for a good day.

Give me a good night's rest. It's not just that's not what prayer is. It's not just for meals. You know, do you do you have any final thank you for this food, are meant? There's more than that.

We should be praying continuously for gospel opportunities for gospel work. Is constantly talking to guards about the gospel work at hand. So we need to be devoted, but secondly, We need to be watchful. We need to pray watchfully. In other words, that that word kinda means vigilant You need to be alert.

Have a few coffees. Have a red ball if that's the way you're inclined. Be on your god. And why do we need to be on our god? Well, we need to be on our guard because the devil hates it when we pray.

He hates it. Absolutely can't stand it. He hates it when we pray that the gospel will will be preached to others. He hates it when we pray that we will see the gospel go forwards. And 1 of the reasons he hates it, I think, is because Satan knows that god loves to answer that prayer.

He doesn't want us to pray until he wants to stop was doing that. It was interesting if you were here in the morning service when Anne praised you. It was fantastic. It was like it's it's great when someone when you're you're doing a sermon later on and someone says something or need to write that down. But she said in a prayer that the evil 1 will do everything in his power to stop Seoul's prophet crossing over from his kingdom to god's kingdom.

Everything. And so 1 of the ways he does that is to stop us praying. And so he sabotages our prayers He, he, and you might, might be aware of this. He fills your minds with so many things. He fills your minds with with the things of this world.

So you're there praying and then you're suddenly thinking about what you're gonna have for dinner that evening. What's that about? Or you you're there praying and you're thinking, oh, what happened in the, football today? And you're then thinking about sport. You're there.

You're there praying, and you and, you know, you're thinking about all these other things and you've stopped praying. Or, the class, I don't know if you've ever had this 1, but you're there praying and then you hear the ping and your phone's got off. There's the devil. Not well, it's not the devil texting. Well, I mean, I wouldn't say your friend's the devil.

Oh, I've got a text. Oh, lovely. What have you stopped? You've stopped praying? Oh, no.

I've got a text. Oh, and suddenly I've got an advert about traders. Oh, that's interesting. Oh, traders and oh, now I've bought a full suit. And now, oh, fan nice little clip on YouTube, off cats.

Oh, and now I've gone on to dogs, and now I've And now it's oh, it's time for work. Okay. Let's go. That's what satan does. He stopped you praying.

Great. Succeeded. It it lies to us. He tells that prayer doesn't work. I wonder if 1 of you you've had that where you've prayed, you've prayed for someone to be converted to time and time again.

And they haven't been converted. The state insane doesn't work. Give up. Give up lies to us or he loves us to sleep. This is a very good 1 that he does.

He loves us to sleep. I haven't really thought about this until I listened to it, to Piper preaching. And he says, Part of the battle is the night before. So 1 of Satan's tactics is to make you go to bed too late. That's his tactic.

Just as plain as that he can use anything. It's too too late. You get up in the morning. And you're absolutely cream cracker. And you're so tired that as you pray, you fallen asleep.

It's what he does. He hates it when we pray. So be alert. Be vigilant. Be in your guards.

Thirdly, we should be thankful in our praying. We should be thankful. See, there should be gratitude in our hearts. It it shouldn't just always be me asking. It shouldn't just be me.

Can I have this? Can we have that? Can we have that? Can we do this? Can you do that?

No. There should be thankfulness in our prayers. There should be joy, and there should be See, it's it's so easy for us. I think I I think we form this trap is we ask for things, and then we see our prayers answered. So doing the youth work, we'll pray father that we'll see more people come along to to youth group, and we see more people come along and then I don't say anything in the words of that of thanks.

What? Okay. I mean, that would be imagine doing that with your parent, that'll be very much bad manners with a pair. I think you might get a bit of a clip around the well, you would if you've got a Scottish mother. Can I have 10 pounds?

I'm just walking off. Can I have a car driving off? You know, can I can I have this and that? And then just not saying anything. No.

We should thank. So we've we've prayed for things. God answers pressed, then we should then then we should thank him for it. We should be thanking him in our prayers when we're thinking about gospel work. Thank you father that you always win the battle.

Never loses. Thank you father that you've actually brought people along to to youth group to church to to this evangelistic event to hear the gospel preached. Thank you father for saving the souls of the people in my life. That's how we should pray. That's how we should pray.

What should we pray? What should we pray in verse 3 to 4? Well, firstly, in verse 3, you should see he says pray for us. So in other words, firstly, we wanna pray for gospel workers. We wanna pray for gospel workers.

And actually there's loads in in in this book, in fact, in chapter 1, you get Timothy. If you look around this passage, you've got a bloke called Tichicus, great name. You've got Patphras, Aristarkis, Mark. You've got all these blokes, who are involved in gospel work. There's apostles, there's prophets, there's evangelists, there's pastors, there's teachers.

And they're all in this, this unique responsibility. They all have this unique responsibility of being gospel ministers. That's their job. And Paul saying we should pray for gospel workers. So right now, there's loads of gospel workers in our lives.

We've got our our church leaders. We should be praying for them. We should be praying for Pete. We should be praying for Tom, for for Dino, for all those work in the church. We should be praying for missionaries We should be praying for Taras and Julia for for Les and Jean as they go back.

We should be praying for those who are seeking to reach the unreached thinking of the tuck, the the the tuckers who are involved in bible translations to get the gospel out to those who don't have the gospel in their language. We should be praying for gospel workers. But secondly, we should be praying for open doors for gospel opportunities. Do you see that in verse 3 that god may open a door for our message so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ for which I'm chains. So Paul wants doors to be opened.

It's interesting. We we look to ax a few few a few weeks back, Tom took us through acts chapter 16. And it seems like a door's closed for him, but then another door's open for for him to go and do what? To preach the gospel. To preach the gospel.

And so we should wanna pray that doors are open for the gospel workers so that they can have opportunities to share the good news about the lord Jesus Christ. We should wanna pray for our church that they get more and more opportunities to spread the the good news of Christ. We wanna pray for countries like North Korea and Somalia. And Sudan, where they're so opposed to the gospel, O'man, Yemen, who hate the gospel. Wanna pray that doors are opened.

We wanna pray that god sends some sort of missile, not a real missile, but a spiritual 1 that blows open a door so that Gospel workers can flood through and that they can spread the good news of the lord jesus Christ. We wanna pray for insight. There's schools in insight that don't have that the school in Kinks is they don't have insight coming in. They don't have nothing. We wanna pray for insight that they'll be able to get open doors to go into schools to share this news about the lord Jesus Christ.

And then thirdly, we wanna pray that the mystery of Christ is proclaimed clearly. See that at the end of verse 3 and, verse 4. So that's that's basically what evangelism is. That's what evangelism is. It's making a mystery clear.

Just making a mystery clear. And what is the mystery of Christ Well, it it's kind of all that he is and all that he does. Yes. It's about his, coming from heaven and and becoming man and and then living the perfect life and dying for our sins and then being risen from the dead. Yes, it is all of that.

But more specifically, the mystery, if you look through the new testament, is is that the gospel brings people from all nations Not just the Jewish nations that used to be, but all nations into god's family. That's the mystery. See, before Christ came, no 1 would've would've would've thought the Jews the non Jews would be accepted into family of gods. No 1 would have thought it. That's why it was a mystery.

It's a little secret. That's what mystery is. A little secret. It's not being revealed yet, but when Christ comes, he'll whisper it and everyone know. This is the mystery that you, that the 1 who has never heard the gospel that has has never understood the good news of the of the lord jesus Christ that whoever you are, whatever, tribe Tonga Nation, you're from, whether you're from the the Middle East or you're from the west or whatever country you're from, whether whatever race you're from, whatever family you're from, The mystery of the gospel is that whoever you are, you can be brought into the family of god.

That's the mystery. Doesn't matter who you are. Doesn't matter what you've done. You could be brought into the family of god. 1 family.

And I wondered tonight, do you know that? Do you know that? That Christ was willing to die so that you can be in his family. See, Paul wants to convey this mystery clearly. He wants people to get it.

He was people. So may it is a bit mind blowing, isn't it? That god would want wretched people. Like, I don't sorry. I didn't mean to look at you when I said wretched.

But wretched people sinners. And he would say I want you to be in my family, and that's what Paul was to clearly convey. To non Christians. This is what we should be praying for gospel ministers. And that's what we're gonna do now.

Okay? So on our tables, I know we've already pre we're gonna pray again. We're gonna turn in our tables, and we're gonna pray for the this sort of stuff here. We wanna pray for ourselves that we will get our prayer right. So we so lack in this, but we wanna be devoted, watchful, thankful, and then we wanna pray for gospel ministers, gospel workers.

Okay? So we think about that are church leaders, missionaries, Tallas, and Julia, pray for insight. Okay. So let's turn tables 5 minutes and then and then we'll come back. Okay?

Let's draw that to close. Okay. There we've got in indirect evangelism. Now I guess it'd be nice for all of us if it just ended there because that kind of means and pray, and then we don't have to do anything else. Right?

But unfortunately for us, well, actually it's good. Poor goes on. So we've got direct evangelist secondly word and deed. Direct evangelism word and deeds. So Paul doesn't let us off and actually as we pray those things for gospel workers, we should be also praying those things for ourselves.

And so that we in verse 6 might make the most of every opportunity. So as Christians living now, we should make the most of every opportunity. That that word actually there in the original is redeem the time. Or or buy the time back. In other words, it's kind of every hour you live Every hour that you have is an opportunity for gospel ministry.

Every moment, every second, every every passing time is a possibility for you to act or for you to speak. That's what it is by the time. It's as it goes past, as that time goes there, by it. Take it. There's a sale going past.

Yeah. There's a it says it's it's a sale. There's a time there. Buy it. Take it for for a gospel opportunity.

It's a bit like, well, you know, when Jesus says, don't store up treasures here. Store up treasures in in heaven. That's kind of what the storing up the treasures is. It's doing something of eternal worth. It's saying I'm gonna buy this here, buy this opportunity, and I'm gonna use it to work the gospel.

And that's storing up heavenly treasures. It's eternal worth. So how do we do that? Well, firstly, is through wise behavior in verse 5 Be wise in the way you act towards outsiders. Now wisdom, is a funny word, I suppose, but 1 of the best ways of of explaining what wisdom is is is is knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.

Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad. That's wisdom. It's it's using their knowledge and putting it into practice. So wisdom is is in the knowledge of of the word of god. I know what god's what god says.

I know who god is. I know his character and his commands. And in the light of that, I can live. So his word might not tell you exactly what you have to do. You might not say you should, talk and act this way to this person.

Why not say that. It would well, in fact, it doesn't usually say that. But because I know him, and I know his commands, and I know his character, and I know what type of god he is, I can live in a wise way. I can live in a way that says he's number 1. Because wisdom is about fearing gods as well.

He's the number 1 person in my life. And so this this sentence here is you're to act wisely towards unbelievers. The word is walk towards unbelievers in wisdom. So there there should be something about you. There should be something about each 1 of us as Christians.

That means we live in a way too outside as 2 non Christians that says something of the god we follow that says something and shows something of how amazing the lord Jesus is. It could be anything. It could be the way you treat jobs and tasks and work. So in your workplace, in the light of someone who's totally enslaved by the work, you can say, I'm not enslaved by my work. I'm free.

And so I work hard for the glory of god, but I home at a reasonable time and I spent time with my family. Wow. You're not enslaved by your work. Or on the flip side, You see the person who doesn't wanna work at all, and you say, I work hard even though the job's not great because I wanna make god look great. Wow.

That's There's there's significance, there's satisfaction there. Why? The way you view alcohol, you know, we talked about the 5 day a week and the 2 2 2 day weekend person who's absolutely getting blotowed on on alcohol. As a Christian, how do we act in those situations? What's the wise thing to do?

Okay. I'm not gonna drink more than 2 drinks, maybe. Oh, you don't drink as much as me. That's because I'm not mastered by wine or beer. It's a wise way to act.

Because, actually, we wanna follow the lord Jesus. We believe what he says is better. We believe what he commands is better, and we wanna honor him in the way we live our lives. See, Paul says I became all things to all men. That's what he did.

He got on their level. He was with them. He understood how they lived, but he didn't compromise holiness. He didn't say, well, I'll do exactly what they do. No.

He still remained a holy, godly Christian. And the importance of behavior It's it's huge because if you're then gonna speak and your behavior doesn't match up, who's gonna listen to you? Your behavior needs to be totally right so that people will then listen to And so that's what he goes on to speak about. Secondly, you get salty speech, salty speech, verse 6, let your conversation be always full of grace seasoned with salt So firstly, it should be full of grace. So the way that you talk to people shouldn't be putting down or judgmental or condemning in any way.

No. You should be gracious and gentle. That doesn't mean you you back down from people, but you you don't you're not trying to be an absolute idiot, really, just for the sake of it. And you're not trying to just win arguments for the sake of winning arguments. You wanna be winsome in the way you talk.

But then you wanna be salty. Now I think what he's trying to say here is you don't wanna be insipid in other words weak or or boring or dull. When you're talking about the gospel, we shouldn't be boring, should we? Now we we wanna be exciting. We wanna be We wanna be, alive with passion.

We wanna be people who have a mouth watering message. See, but how will that be? How will we be or how can we give a mouth watering message? Well, the only way you can give a mouth watering message is if the message is making your own mouth water. Right?

The only way you can get someone excited about the gospel message is by being excited about it yourself. So if I'm not excited that the lord Jesus has forgiven me on the cross, I'm not gonna be that excited about telling other people. That's why it's so important to remind ourselves daily of what the lord Jesus has done. It was great this morning. Psalm 32.

David is reminds us that the lord Jesus covers over our sins. And then how does the how does David end? He's not like, oh, it's alright. He's rejoicing. He's happy.

So if we wanna be it's it's a bit like I hope I'm not 1 of these teachers. Remember when you were at school, you you kind of have 2 kind of teachers. You got 1 teacher that you re the ones you remember and loved were those people that usually made this subject what? Exciting. They they love the subject.

They were like, this is great. Look, with with me, it was history because I'm a bit of a boring git. Look at this, William the conqueror, you know, guns. They shot Harold in the eye, fantastic. Great.

But then you get the other type of teacher. Incredibly dull and boring. Who would be like? And, the grammatical sentence of this is Right? It has a comp.

You're not gonna be enthused about that person. Are you? It's the same with the gospel. If I'm just there, go, yeah, well, you know, Jesus can forgive you. Who's gonna be excited about that?

But if I'm saying, look, the lord Jesus, died for you. We wanna be excited about this, and so we need to keep on coming back to the word, so that we taste and see that the lord is good. You can't recommend a drink. Oh, I think that drink's look that drink's lovely. Well, have you had it?

No. Hey, you need you need to taste it. Right? That's what we need to do. We need to taste and see that he is good and then share what we've tasted.

And then lastly, we wanna answer everyone at the end of verse 6 so that you may know how to answer everyone. I think in the ESP and other versions, it's each person. I think we were talking about that before, and it's quite nice. Each person is a lot more personal. Right?

So every person is different. Every situation is different. We can't go in with a formula. You can't go in. Well, if I say a and b, then that will equal c.

Cause people don't work like that. They're not formulaic beings. They're people. They're complex. They're they've got emotions.

And so we need to work hard at reading people. And we need to work hard at reading context and culture and the situations they're in. I mean, Paul was a bit of a master of this, wasn't he? When Paul went to 1 place, he'd go into a synagogue. He'd go, I know what they know already, and I'll preach the gospel and convict them.

When he went to another place, and they've no knowledge of god whatsoever. He went and goes, oh, well, they worship these types of idols, and they've got 1 about an unknown god. Let's go with that, and he reaches the gospel with them with that. Jesus, another 1. And when Jesus was trying to be trapped by the pharisees, he knew what to say.

He read the situation. He was strong with them when he comes across a vulnerable woman who's been abused by many blokes. Is gentle, he's loving. There's differences. We need to read.

Sometimes we need to go in and we need to go full on with the gospel. Sometimes we need to just do a little bit of digging. Well, why do you think that? How did you come to think about that that way? Can I share with you what I know about the about about love?

We need to be reading people and we need to read their situations. See, this is our identity now. We are now in Christ. There's no opt out. You might be sitting there going, oh, okay.

Well, that sounds great, but I don't that's not for me. I'm a Christian, but I don't really wanna don't really wanna, tell people about Jesus. That's a bit uncomfortable. There's no opt out. If you're a Christian, that means your identity isn't him.

We're in Christ, and this is who he is. The lord Jesus is a gospel proclaimer. And so, therefore, if that's who he is, that's who I've gotta be as well. So we as Christians need to pray for those in gospel ministry, and we need to pray for ourselves as we seek to take this glorious precious message to a lost world. And the best news about all of this is that if we do this, if we pray and if we take the word of god people, he will save people.

There's a reason we're praying to god because it's he who saves people. He will do that. He will save people. So that's what we're gonna do again now. We're gonna pray for ourselves.

So what I want you to do in your tables pray for specific people. There's people in our lives. You've got co workers, family. Pray for, ministries in church, pray for ministries you're involved with, maybe pray, for camps that people are on contagious. It'd be great that we have gospel opportunities ourselves to share the glorious news of the lord Jesus Christ.

And then Daryl will air closes. Thanks.