Colossians 4:2-4
Textual introduction: Up to this point, by boldly and clearly proclaiming Christ’s person and work, Paul has encouraged a congregation facing a crisis of confidence. He gave the Colossians renewed faith in their Savior and in their salvation. Freed of the need to earn God’s favor on their own, a quest made impossible by the reality of sin, the Colossian believers were able to give themselves to becoming what God intended them to be, which included being ministers of God’s blessing to others. One aspect of this ministry is evangelism, the spreading of the gospel.
The closing words of the epistle address concerns regarding the spread of the Gospel. The Colossians have two opportunities to be involved in the spread of the good news. This morning we will talk about one of those opportunities, next time we’ll talk about the other.
********
Sermon introduction: Well, it’s that time of year again. Drive around the city, past some of our high schools, and you may see teams out on the practice fields doing calisthenics, running through drills, or even in the midst of a scrimmage. Given the heat and humidity of the past couple weeks, you may wonder how safe it is for the boys to be exerting themselves like that. But, hey, football is important.
None of the coaches, players, or fans believes it would be okay for the team to walk out onto the field for the season’s first game without preparation.
In Paul’s mind, no one could seriously expect to do the work of evangelism without preparation. Part of that preparation was prayer.
This is a crucial point because it reminds us that the exercise of consistent, thoughtful prayer allows any Christian to participate in the advance of the gospel.
We can participate in the advance of the gospel as we…
I
PRACTICE PERSISTENT PRAYER
Devote yourselves to prayer…
Paul begins with a statement which anticipates prayer being a regular feature of their lives. Williams renders the command as "You must persevere in prayer." (Williams) The original language is "cling closely to". In our idiom we might say, "Stick to praying".
It is right and proper to pray for ourselves. Paul himself made that clear when he wrote to the Philippians.
PHP 4:6-7 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
In those verses Paul tells the Philippians that they may bring specific needs to God, that they may approach him with whatever might be causing anxiety and dread.
The Colossians would have had the same privilege. Earlier in the letter Paul had encouraged the Colossians to keep praying for greater insight into what God was doing in the world and into what pleased him. Just as Paul prayed for the church concerning these matters, so the Colossians should pray for themselves.
In a world where spiritual lethargy is a real threat, a world in which there are competing world-views, a world in which there are many temptations to abandon the new way of living, Christians need to spend time in prayer for themselves.
But as true as this may be, Paul’s focus here seems to be the church at prayer for others. While there is nothing selfish about a church praying for itself, there is everything selfish about a church praying only for itself.
Years ago I visited a church in Lubbock, Texas, with some friends. It was not a Baptist church so I expected some aspects of the service to be a little different from what I was used to. Still, I was surprised when the pastor of the church, during a special prayer time, announced the name of another congregation in Lubbock, a congregation of another denomination, and led his congregation in prayer for the ministers and members of that church. It was surprising because, even though we don’t mind praying for other churches in Africa or Asia, we are just a little reluctant to pray for churches closer to home, especially when we see them as the competition.
More recently, this month in fact, the churches in Plain City are joining together in soliciting prayer requests. Then members of those churches have volunteered to spend seven days, twenty-four hours a day in prayer for those needs. It seems like a great exercise in Christian unity.
I’m not saying we should follow the example of that church in Lubbock or those churches in Plain City—such practices can be a mere formality. I am saying we need to be ready to look beyond ourselves in our prayers. Perhaps because of the doctrinal threat the Colossians had been facing they had begun to turn inward, to focus only on their needs and concerns. Through prayer they had the opportunity to break out of that pattern.
I freely admit that persistent prayer can be a challenge. It’s tough to pray in the face of so many distractions, so many things which might otherwise capture our attention. Perhaps this is why Paul called the Colossians to pray with “an alert mind and a thankful heart.” The Canadian writer Dermot McDonald comments, “Therefore the believer must not only stick at praying but must stay awake when he prays. For we ‘are apt to do drowsily whatever we do constantly.’”
This is why we need mutual encouragement from fellow-believers to keep praying, why we need reminders of the needs of others to keep praying.
At the same time we need to pray with hearts filled with thanksgiving. A spirit of gratitude makes prayer easier because we look forward to those opportunities to praise God for his unexpected goodness and for his answers to our earlier prayers. Prayer, according to the Bible, is not truly complete without thanksgiving. Maclaren wrote, "Thankfulness is the feather that wings the arrow of prayer--the height from which our souls rise most easily to the sky."
We can participate in the advance of the gospel as we…
II
PRACTICE PURPOSEFUL PRAYER
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.
Paul had a very specific purpose in mind when he asked the Colossians to pray for him. He might have asked them to pray for his release but he didn’t. He might have asked them to pray for more comfortable surroundings but he didn’t. He might have asked them to pray for the demise of his enemies but he didn’t. He asked them to pray that he and his team might be more effective in doing the work of evangelism.
Paul asks that a door might be open—not a door for escape from prison, but a door through which they might carry the gospel. A door is an opportunity to enter, a means of approach or access. Now, let me remind you that Paul saw opportunities in the strangest places. He assured the Philippians that prison had its positive side; he said, in essence: Yes, there’s a chain on my wrist and there’s a Roman guard on the other end of that chain, but as far as I’m concerned I’m not chained to him, he’s chained to me.
Paul’s specific desire was that the Colossians pray for him to have the opportunity to bring the gospel message to all who needed to hear its promise of grace and salvation. When Paul wrote the Romans, he told them that his great desire was to carry the gospel to places where Christ was not known (Romans 15:20). He is telling the Colossians that he wants to take that gospel through doors it has never been through before.
It’s an important matter he wants the Colossians to be praying about. By calling his message “the mystery of Christ” he is reminding his readers of its source and its subject: Christ. It isn’t a message thought up by human ingenuity or wisdom; it is a message which has its source in God. It is a message focusing on a heaven-sent Redeemer.
At the same time, when he reminds the Colossians that preaching the gospel is the reason he is “in chains” he is reminding them that the message is so important that it must be spread despite possible pain and suffering. It is a message which will not necessarily be received with joy and enthusiasm. Paul knew, as the Colossians were beginning to discover, some respond to the gospel with hostility. Still, the message was too important to neglect, too important to be altered into something more palatable.
By asking them to pray for those open doors he is inviting the Colossians to become his partners in spreading that divine message, the message worth suffering for. His request captures both the responsibility of the church and the wonder of being partners in doing God’s work. One commentator writes:
The community…should pray that God may clear an unimpeded path for the apostolic word. No matter what the circumstances may be, this word must be preached. And the community should be conscious of the fact that it is co-responsible for the success of this apostolic commission. (Lohse)
Here’s the amazing truth, through our prayers we are partners with those carrying the gospel to new places, partners with those preaching to men and women who have never heard the name of Christ.
Keep in mind Paul’s readers and keep in mind some of the people you know. As you do, remember that not everyone can go to proclaim the gospel, nor is this always God’s will. Not everyone has the opportunity to go—the wives, children, and slaves to whom Paul just wrote did not have the freedom to go. Yet, through their prayers they could help open doors for those who did have the freedom to go.
This is why it is so important for us to pray with persistence and purpose.
Yet Paul words imply something further. We can participate in the advance of the gospel as we…
III
PRACTICE PERCEPTIVE PRAYER
… pray…that God may open a door for our message… the mystery of Christ…
that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should.
Paul’s request for himself and his team was really twofold. He asked for prayer concerning opportunity and clarity as he proclaimed the gospel.
He acknowledged God as the door-opener; he and his team simply looked for those open doors. But an opportunity to preach would do no good without the ability to communicate.
As a Jew moving into the Gentile world, Paul faced economic, cultural, language, religious, and ethnic barriers. These are ageless concerns of every person wishing to share the gospel, so they are agelessly proper as matters for prayer. Only with God's help can they be overcome.
The further Paul moved from a culture rooted in the OT vision of God and his purposes, to more he needed to be able to speak with clarity. In the same way, because our culture has lost the once-assumed familiarity with the Christian world-view and even the notion of absolute truth, the more we need clarity in our presentation of Christ’s claims.
If we need insight to know how to pray for ourselves and if we need insight to know how to pray for others, we surely need insight to know how to pray for the unique situations in which the gospel needs to be carried in our day. Consider just two examples.
Who, raised in the freedom of the West, can appreciate the magnitude of the task faced by our “last frontier” missionaries who risk their lives to bring the gospel to lands closed to Christianity and to unrestricted ministry? May God give us insight and wisdom as we pray for them.
Who, raised with the Christian world-view's notion of absolute truth, can easily appreciate the challenge faced by those involved in the task of reaching out to today's students? May God give us insight and wisdom as we pray for them.
May God give us what we need to pray with perception.
Some Specific Suggestions
If we pray with our eyes open, what are some appropriate matters about which ought to find ourselves praying?
1. It’s appropriate to pray for an increase in those willing to do the work of spreading the gospel. (Mt. 9:37-38)
2. It’s appropriate to pray for Christian workers to be delivered from those who would do them harm or hinder the work of evangelism. (2 Thess 3:1-2. Ro 15:30-32)
3. It’s appropriate to pray with and for churches facing persecution. (Acts 4:24-31)
4. It’s appropriate to pray for those specialists who are seeking new ways to carry the gospel into new situations. (cf. I Cor. 9:19f)
5. It’s appropriate to pray for those who use means other than the spoken word to share the gospel. (Acts 27:9 where there is some evidence of “medical” mission work)
I suppose the list could go on but the important thing is that we accept the challenge to pray with open eyes for the world around us.
CONCLUSION
It’s almost a cliché to say to those who claim they have no talents for spreading the gospel that they can always pray. It’s also misleading.
It’s misleading, in part, because it implies praying may somehow exempt us from further responsibility for doing the work of evangelism. It doesn’t, as we will see.
It’s also misleading because it implies that prayer is somehow less important than preaching and teaching the gospel. The truth is, the gospel couldn’t be effectively preached or taught if someone weren’t praying for the preachers and the teachers.
You may have never heard the gospel if someone hadn’t been praying.
