Encounter the Truth

Jonathan Griffiths: We want the gospel to go out. We want men and women and boys and girls to hear the good news and to have an opportunity to respond to the good news. We've only got a limited period of time. We don't know how long, but it will end. Make the best use of the time, says Paul.

And so we therefore watch our step. We walk in wisdom toward outsiders. That sounds great. What does that mean?

Steve Hiller: Welcome to Encounter the Truth with Jonathan Griffiths. I'm Steve Hiller. I'm glad that you asked that last question there, Jonathan, because I was going to ask you that last question.

Jonathan Griffiths: We hear all that, but what does it actually mean?

Jonathan Griffiths: Well, it's interesting how Paul takes that instruction and continues on and says, "Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time." And I love that because Paul has always got the return of Christ in view. The end of this age. And he says, "The clock is ticking. How can you make the best use of the time that you've got with the people in your life: your loved ones, your friends, your neighbors, your work colleagues?"

In order to point them to Christ because we want them to be in the kingdom with us and to be rejoicing in the gospel with us. How do we make the best use of each opportunity? And that's such a challenging question, isn't it? And such a helpful perspective for us.

Steve Hiller: And that's the question that we're going to look at today, the perspective that we're going to see as we open up our Bibles to Colossians chapter 4 and continue a message called Walking Prayerfully and Wisely. Here is Jonathan.

Jonathan Griffiths: Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it, but there's something else in this instruction. Every word counts. Did you notice it? With thanksgiving.

With thanksgiving. We've got to be watchful. The battle is on. The stakes are high, but fear ultimately is not the thing that is driving us. Fear is not the engine here. No, the engine is actually thanksgiving. And here's why.

The battle has been won. Salvation has been achieved. Pardon has been purchased. The blood of Christ has been shed for me and for you. The doors of heaven have been opened to us. The future has been secured for us. I have been ransomed, redeemed, restored and forgiven. And so everything, all that I bring to God in prayer, it is driven, it is shaped by thanksgiving, true thanksgiving, surrounded with thanksgiving.

But you know how slow we are to give thanks, isn't that the truth? How easily we forget the benefits and the blessings of God and instead come to him only with concern or worse complaint. You may remember how in Luke 17, we don't need to turn there, I don't think, but Jesus was met by 10 lepers.

As he entered a village, they cried out to him and he sent them to the priests and as they went, they were healed, lives transformed, bodies restored, hope given, all at the word of Jesus. And then we read this, Luke 17 and verse 15, "Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice.

And he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks." Now, he was a Samaritan. "Then Jesus answered, 'Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?' Where are the nine?"

Ten cleansed, only one returns to give thanks. Thanksgiving does not come naturally to you and it does not come naturally to me. We easily actually tend to feel hard done by, underappreciated and worse. And that's not to minimize, of course, the trials and the griefs and the difficulties we face. Those things are all too real.

But the truth is, if we belong to Jesus Christ, we have been healed of the deadly disease of sin. Our life has been redeemed. We've been forgiven. We've been cleansed, not through our own deserving, but through the merciful and gracious work of Jesus. And so our prayers, all of them, no matter how urgent or tear-soaked they may be, they come to the Father through Jesus Christ, by the Spirit, with thanksgiving.

Before we leave prayer, Paul has a specific request and we need to just register this. He wants us to pray for him and for Timothy, who's the co-writer of the letter, for him and Timothy as gospel ministers, as preachers of the Word. He wants us to pray specifically and specially for the work of the gospel. Notice this with me, verse 3. "Pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison, that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak."

Paul has no embarrassment about asking for prayer for himself and for other gospel ministers as they minister the word. And Paul does so not because he's selfish, because he's self-obsessed, but because he knows he needs prayer, and he knows that the true people of God will care deeply and passionately about the work of the gospel, about the gospel getting out.

And at the end of the day, I think it is a mark of spiritual health, isn't it? That we care about the work of the gospel and that we pray for the work of the gospel and pray especially for gospel workers. It's a sign that we prioritize ministry as being vitally important, that we care about the spread of the gospel, that we recognize that gospel ministry rests not on the powers of gifted people.

See, if we weren't prayerful about it, we'd think, "Well, it's just the people doing it." No, but on the strength and the opportunities that only God can supply. And you know, from time to time, actually pretty frequently, folk here in the church family come up to me or drop me a note in the week just saying, "You know, I'm praying for you."

Sometimes a member of the church family will just quietly reassure me, "You know, I'm praying for you." Some will say, "I'm praying for you every day." And each time I hear that, I'm genuinely moved by that. It's not kind of water off a duck's back to me, "Oh, he hears that all the time. It doesn't mean anything." No, no, no. I'm moved by that because I know the commitment that's involved in that, and I know how much I need those prayers.

Our pastors, our lay elders, our missionaries, our key leaders in ministries who teach the word here at the church, we are feeble and frail people, and we are only able, only able to serve and endure as God provides the strength and the opportunity. Pray for us, please pray for us. Please keep praying for us. Thank you for praying for us.

And notice the priorities in prayer for gospel ministers, verse 3. It is that God will open the doors of opportunity, that there will be people willing to hear, prompted by the Spirit of God to hear the word and receive it. If God doesn't open the door for opportunity, we can do absolutely nothing.

And then notice the next request, verse 4, "that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak." Now, that's fascinating. There is a whole lecture series there on preaching, a whole book on preaching. There's certainly a whole sermon in itself if we had time. What does Paul long for in his own preaching?

Better illustrations, a bit of creativity there, better rhetorical skill, more smoothness, more eloquence, better entertainment value, an act for, you know, pulling at the old heartstrings and evoking some tears from the congregation, getting a laugh. Is that what he wants? Uh-uh, no, not a bit of it.

No manipulation, no games, no silly entertainment, clarity. Clarity, clarity in presenting and proclaiming the word of God in faithfulness, so that the word of God, which is the source of power, so that the word of God can reach hearts and minds. Pray for us.

Pray for me, please, that we may make the word of God clear, which is how we ought to speak. Friends, how is your prayer life going? That's usually, I find that's a question that can embarrass almost any Christian person, if you ask it. How's your prayer life? Well, it could be better. That's a truthful answer, isn't it?

I mean, maybe you're one of those very specially gifted prayer warriors who has been given a grace in this, and there are people like that, and praise God if so, but most of us have room to grow in this area. Where do you need to grow in prayer? And where do I?

That's praying. Now, more briefly, walking. Walking. Verse 5. "Walk in wisdom toward the outsider, making the best use of the time." I don't know how much thought you give to the way in which you walk. It's something that comes fairly naturally to most of us most of the time.

If you've ever seen those historical photos of tightrope walkers crossing the Niagara Falls, I think those guys knew something about careful placement of their feet. I guess they thought about it a fair bit. Most of the time we don't have to think about it much. I was just reflecting on my own experience in this actually as I considered these words.

In two different seasons of life, I worked in the great city of London and had to travel to work by train and by underground. And actually, navigating London in rush hour is its own special kind of art. As you come out of a train or a tube station into Central London, the people are just pouring out, hundreds of thousands of them, and then they're kind of stampeding toward their offices.

And I recall making my way out of London Bridge station in the mornings amidst the throng of besuited workers. In the midst of that rush, if you're going to avoid falling flat on your face and being trampled to death, here's the thing. You've got to watch your step. You have to walk carefully. Dare I say it? You have to walk very wisely.

Paul wants you and me to give thought, careful thought to our walk in the public place, amidst the crowds, amidst the outsiders, that is, among the people of this world. People in the community, people who do not know Christ, watch how you walk, says Paul. And we say, "Okay, well, what's the priority here, Paul? What in particular do you want us to do as we walk, apart from, you know, not falling down flat on our faces?"

And here his answer, I think, is quite interesting. Perhaps not what we might have assumed or thought of. Notice again what he says, verse 6, "Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time."

Best use of the time. Paul has his eye on the clock. He's not concerned about getting to the office by nine. He's not concerned about making that appointment at the bank. No, he's got his eye on the coming of Jesus Christ. He's got his eye on the hidden timeline of God, known only to the Father, when the history of this world will be brought to a close, when the opportunity for salvation will come to an end, when the work of the gospel will be complete.

And he says to you, and he says to me, "Make the best possible use of the time." We want the gospel to go out. We want men and women and boys and girls to hear the good news and to have an opportunity to respond to the good news. We've only got a limited period of time. We don't know how long, but it will end. It will come to a close. It will finish.

Make the best use of the time, says Paul. And so, we therefore watch our step. We walk in wisdom toward outsiders. That sounds great. What does that mean? Does this mean, you know, that Christians are to become sort of doormats to the world? You know, we're wanting people to come to know Christ, so we make sure we're just unbelievably nice to everyone all the time.

If someone, you know, mistreats us in business, we just smile and overlook it and hand them our wallet. If we have a tough situation to navigate at school or for our kids, we just do nothing and say nothing for fear of being, you know, a bother. Is that the call here? Time is short. Outsiders need the gospel. The best thing we can do is just drop all other concerns and be doormats to the world so that we never cause any kind of offense.

Well, no, I don't think so. I don't think so. We're walking here through life. We've got to walk. We've got to live. We've got to fulfill our multifaceted responsibilities: raise our kids, care for our homes, be diligent in our work, manage our finances. But here's the thing.

As we walk those sidewalks out there, as we navigate them, as we get on with life, in every interaction, you and I are to be thinking, "How can I display Christ here?" How can I commend the gospel? How can I show grace, perhaps? How can I show kindness in a way that maybe an unbeliever would not in this situation? How can I turn the conversation just to drop in something of the Lord and his gospel grace, something of gospel hope?

How can I treat this person with a dignity that I suspect others don't always treat them with? Yeah, we've got to get on with the business at hand. Yes, maybe I need to have a tough conversation with a customer or with my kids' teacher or with someone else. I've got to walk through life here. I've got to get through the day.

But how do I do that with a God-given wisdom that makes the best use of the time for the gospel? And sometimes, friends, you know, I find we've just got to pray going into tough situations. I had a situation just this week. Someone had done some work for us. We'd paid them for it. We received the result and, you know, it just hadn't been done right. It wasn't right.

And we thought, "Oh, no. Oh, this is a little costly. We needed it done. We needed it fixed." Should we just let it go and forget it? Is that our witness? Is that the best witness? But we needed the thing addressed. So, we made, tentatively, we made an appointment to follow up. And I just, I prayed walking into that conversation. I prayed for grace.

Prayed for the Lord's help. And you know, it went smoothly, and it went well. I think our witness was preserved. I think the person felt well treated. We worked through the issue. We came to an understanding, a mutual agreement. The Lord gave grace. We had a good conversation, a good outcome. I think there's a foundation there now for an ongoing relationship.

See, the Lord gives wisdom as we ask him. There are riches of wisdom in his word. I would say, by the way, as a side note, but a significant side note here on wisdom. The book of Proverbs is our treasure trove of practical wisdom in life, how to walk wisely in this world, practical advice for home and family and children and business. It's gold. If you don't read Proverbs regularly, you really should read Proverbs regularly.

But the Lord gives wisdom. And, you know, having in the back of our mind this awareness, "Time is short." We've only got so long, the clock is ticking. Each interaction counts for the gospel. Having that in the back of our mind, being being aware of it, it is a game-changer. It guards us from foolish ungodliness. It prompts us to be thinking in kingdom terms in each and every interaction in the community. Watch how you walk.

Steve Hiller: And we have to pause the message right there. But stay tuned. We'll get back to this message, Walking Prayerfully and Wisely, in just a moment. This message has been one of the most listened to in the past year. We went back and we looked at what had been the most streamed, downloaded and requested broadcast, and we've taken those messages and we've put them together in a series called Listener Favorites.

Now, some of the other topics we're looking at in this series include what it means to become steadfast and wise, how we can have confidence in trials, what it means to be gracious and to have a merciful God. And we'll look at the king who judges the heart. In addition to these messages that we're airing right now on the radio, we've also put together a study guide that goes along with this series.

And you can access that for free at our website. Just come to encounterthetruth.org. That's encounterthetruth.org. Back to the message. Here's Jonathan.

Jonathan Griffiths: Now, finally, speaking, as we close. And it's closely related, verse 6, "Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person."

How do you and I speak as those who represent Jesus Christ in every interaction? How do we speak, as it were, in the Lord's name day by day? Well, says Paul, "Let your speech always be gracious." Let's just let that sink in for a moment. Always be gracious. Not, you know, most of the time be gracious as you're able. Not usually be gracious. Not be gracious unless you have good reason to be annoyed.

Always be gracious. That's a challenge right there, is it not? But it's what's called for if we represent Jesus Christ in the world as his people. It's a challenge, isn't it? If the kids are pushing us to breaking point, if the customer service rep is being unhelpful, when you've been on hold for three hours and hung up on, then you call and you wait another two hours and then you don't get the answer you want.

When someone has been dishonest with you, or unfair, when someone has been rude to you. I was on the phone just the other day with a customer service rep from a company that had been just a little disappointing. It wasn't disaster. I was a little bit frustrated. And I was just debating as I was on the phone, debating internally how much of that frustration I would express to this lady on the other end of the line.

As I was having this internal debate, I was really just debating, "How much do I say now?" And as I was doing that, I heard actually some noise in the background at her end of the line, some noise at the end of the call. I heard a baby crying actually. And suddenly I realized this lady was probably doing this call center job from home, balancing some child care, trying to make things work, and she was actually doing her best.

And you know, I was so grateful that I paused just for a moment. So glad that I paused just to to think before saying anything more by way of complaint. And at that moment, I just I just thanked her warmly for her help and wished her a really good afternoon. I think the Lord just gave me a little insight there.

"Let me hear that background noise," because it was just the prompt I needed to do what I always ought to do, to make my speech gracious as the Lord's representative on that call. It was a reminder for me. Here I am talking to a person made in the image of God with concerns and pressures of her own. "Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt."

Salt does two things at least. It preserves stuff from rotting and it makes things taste better. Well, it does at least to people like me who like salty food. We're in a decaying society, aren't we? The words we hear around us, they're rotten. The conversation we hear around us is deadly and infectiously so.

But the words of the Christian, the words of the representative of Jesus Christ, they hold back the rot. They promote wholeness. They preserve. Our words do that, yours and mine. Even simple words in conversation, they do that because actually they pave the way for the gospel of life. Not every conversation is a gospel conversation. Sometimes I think we could push too hard and try and make every conversation a gospel conversation.

But here's the thing, each conversation, each interaction, either opens or closes the door to a gospel conversation. And in that sense, each conversation is actually an invitation to the person at the other end of the call, the other person we're engaging with. It is an invitation either to live or to die because each opportunity we have with a person dictates whether they will be willing to hear anything else from us in the future.

Salt is a preservative. It also makes things taste good. It gives attractiveness and appeal to the taste buds. And we need to make our words taste good to people. People who interact with us should feel that they have encountered something different. Something savory, something that has a little something special about it, that extra note of interest in them as a person.

That extra dash of patience, that extra word of kindness, the lack of deception or griminess or selfishness. Again, not every interaction will contain the full substance of the gospel. Of course not. But every interaction should make others willing to interact with us again, curious about what is different about us, eager to hear. And that's why Paul continues as he does in verse 6.

Notice it with me. "Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person." Paul wants us as believers to be in the habit of speaking graciously, and if you will, saltily, so that when the questions come along about our faith, we Christians will already have habits of speech in place.

We will have developed the instincts and the character to answer not aggressively, not defensively, but graciously, to answer not drily or unattractively, but in a way that could be described as salty, bringing the substance of the life-giving gospel and doing so in a winsome, appealing way.

And, you know, over time the questions do come. We may feel, you know, they're never coming. Sometimes in a in a relationship, it feels like that. But they do if we persevere in gracious speech, in salty speech. If we do so prayerfully, the questions come, the opportunities come. The other day I was I was chatting to a friend I've been getting to know over recent months, and he knows I'm a believer. He knows what I do for living, I'm a pastor.

But spiritual things, it's been clear, they've just been a kind of no-go area in our conversation. I've just sensed that. But we've we've become friends, and we chat openly about this and that and actually have a lot in common. And then the other day, out of out of the totally out of the blue, I was actually taken quite by surprise. He asks me out of nowhere, "Why did you choose to go into the line of work that you went into? What motivated you and drew you to do that?"

And there was a question. There was an open door, slightly open, but open. An opportunity, and suddenly we were talking about spiritual things. He'd been observing. He'd been listening for months, and now he wanted to know something more. Still a long way to go there. I'm looking forward to the next opportunity, but it's a start. It's a start.

Friends, if we know Jesus Christ as our savior and our Lord, we are his representatives. We operate under the banner of his name, and what a privilege that is. But what will it look like for you and for me to do that more faithfully, more consistently in our praying, in our walking, in our speaking in the days ahead?

Steve Hiller: Jonathan Griffiths in a message called Walking Prayerfully and Wisely, here on Encounter the Truth. And if you ever miss a broadcast, you can always listen at our website, encounterthetruth.org. Well, Encounter the Truth is a listener-supported ministry. We're able to be on the station, make the podcast and the app available because of your generosity.

And as you give a gift of any amount this month, we want to send you a book entitled The Final Lap written by John Wyatt. And Jonathan, I have a friend who likes to say, "You know, what you read isn't necessarily as important as who you read." So that kind of begs the question for me then, who is John Wyatt?

Jonathan Griffiths: Yeah, John Wyatt is a medical doctor who's a leading Christian ethicist in the UK. And John's made a wonderful contribution to thinking about practical Christian living and significant choices we make in Christian discipleship. I've used John's resources over the years when I've had an opportunity to teach Christian ethics at different times. I've relied on John's thinking a huge amount.

But just recently, he's been working on the whole area of aging and retirement and dependency and the final years of life, and how we think about that as Christians and how we steward that time well as believers. I had an opportunity to speak alongside John at a convention in the UK, the Keswick Convention, not so long ago.

And John's seminars on aging and retirement and ill health and dependency in older age were just gold, and people appreciated them so much. So I think this particular resource that we're making available this month will be a tremendous help to many people.

Steve Hiller: It is called The Final Lap, and it's our thank you gift to you as you financially support Encounter the Truth this month. You can call and give a gift over the phone. Our number is 1-833-99-TRUTH. That's 1-833-998-7884, or go online to encounterthetruth.org.

You can also write to us at Encounter the Truth, P.O. Box 5513, Ottawa, Ontario, K2C 3M1. Or in the US, at Encounter the Truth, 215 North Arlington Heights Road, Suite 102, Arlington Heights, Illinois, 60004. For Jonathan Griffiths and our producer, Mark Brotton, I'm Steve Hiller. Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll join us next time.