through it. So we'll turn to Colossians chapter 4. And this evening we are going to hopefully wrap up this section that we've been in for a while now on putting on the new man. And this specific section that we've been in is the new man puts on new speech, a new kind of speaking. And so this evening, hopefully, Lord willing, we will get through that section and wrap up the section putting on the new man in so doing. So we're getting to the end of our study here in the book of Colossians. And as we wrap this section up, in Colossians chapter 4, the closing chapter of this epistle, The Apostle Paul really winds down this epistle, this letter, to the Colossian believers. And just in brief summary, at the beginning of the book, he declares the preeminence of Christ. He declares the preeminence and supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then in the second half of the book, he calls for a corresponding duty, action that as believers we are to take in response to that fact that Christ is supreme, Christ is preeminent. And we have seen here in chapter 4, verses 2 through 6, that the new man has a new kind of speech. The new man has a new kind of speech. And in that we've seen that the new man speaks to God, and that's through prayer. The new man speaks the gospel by preaching the gospel, and then the new man speaks graciously, and we'll look at that here this evening. And this is all within the context of living out the Christian life, the practical Christian life. Christ is preeminent in the new man's life, and so what does the new man do? Well, the new man works out that reality in the way that he lives. Tonight's passage answers the question, what does the Christ-centered life look like? What does the life of the new man look like in its relationship to the world? And so tonight we want to look at our relationships in the world with those who do not yet know Christ, and specifically related to our speech, the way that we speak. Now here Paul was so concerned that he himself and the Colossian believers in that day so live in the light of the preeminence of Christ that they would then in turn proclaim it. everywhere and wherever they were, regardless of their circumstance. And when you think of Paul's circumstance, it was the worst possible circumstance to be in. Yet it was his desire and his goal to be sure that even in the worst possible circumstance, being in prison, that he took advantage of every single opportunity that he had to preach the gospel. He wanted to make full use of his opportunity. And so this led him to exhort the Colossian church for them also to make full use of the opportunities that they had. Both sections in this passage, verses 2 through 4, and then verses 5 and 6, are exhortations concerning the spread or the preaching of the gospel. They are exhortations to be involved in evangelism, both in regards to praying for it, but also in doing it. And I believe here that in verses five and six, then we're gonna look at that here in just a minute, this passage, this section of this is thematically connected to the preceding passage. So the verses we're gonna look at tonight don't just stand alone by themselves. They're connected to the previous verses. In verses two through four, Paul exhorts the Colossians. He exhorts them. Let's read verses two through four. Continue in prayer and watch in the same with thanksgiving with all praying also for us that God would open unto us a door of utterance to speak the mystery of Christ for which I am also in bonds that I may make it manifest as I ought to speak." And so he exhorts here the Colossian church to pray for him that he would have opportunities to preach the gospel, to pray for clarity when he preaches the gospel so that the message would be clear to the hearers. And this would be the way or how he ought to preach it. He wants them to be praying for him. And this is the concern that the new man has for the gospel. If you're concerned about the gospel, you'll be praying for it. You'll be praying about it. You'll be praying that people will have opportunities. You'll be praying for the missionaries to have opportunities. You'll be praying for others to have opportunities. But you'll also be praying for yourself to have opportunities to preach the gospel. And then in verses five through six, the subject shifts away from prayer to our walk. But the great concern for the gospel impact still remains in these verses. Paul shifts the conversation from his own personal ministry to the ministry of every single believer. Every Christian, has been called to be a witness for Christ. You see, Paul and his companions, they were commissioned, they were sent out to preach the gospel. But Paul points the finger back at the Colossians, and he says, it's also your ministry to preach the gospel, to speak the gospel. We are to proclaim the good news of salvation from sin by faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That's the gospel. The death, the burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And that's the message that we're to be preaching. That's the message that we are to be spreading. Now we may not all be called to do the same kind of missionary outreach that the Apostle Paul was doing. We may not be called to do it in the same capacity as these missionaries across the world are doing it, but we are all called to be witnesses. We are all called to be perfected to do the work of the ministry, and we've said that that's evangelism and discipleship. So part of living The Christ-centered life includes sharing the message of Christ with others. If you live a sports-centered life, you will probably talk a lot about sports. If you live a pet-centered life, like you really, you know, life is about pets, then you're probably gonna talk a lot about your pets. But if you are living a Christ-centered life, then you should spend a good portion of your life talking and telling others about Jesus. So how do we do that? How do we effectively share Christ with others? Well, first of all, we pray for opportunities to share the gospel. We pray for those opportunities, and we've looked at that in verses three and four. When it comes to sharing the gospel with others, it should always begin with prayer. It always begins with prayer. When we go out and we preach the gospel, most of the time we start by praying. The new man is to be committed to a life of prayer, and specifically here in the context, Paul seeks for prayer for his own situation that he might have open doors, open doors of opportunity to preach the gospel. And this is the new man's concern. Are you concerned enough to pray for opportunities for others and yourself to preach the gospel? Certainly if Paul needed this, the Apostle Paul, the great Apostle Paul, author of many books of the Bible, he asked for prayer for this. Certainly if he needed it, we need it also. Secondly, Paul wanted prayer that he would not only have opportunities to preach the gospel, but that when he had those opportunities that he would deliver the gospel message clearly. Notice Paul says that it is necessary to proclaim the gospel clearly, and that's in verse four where it says, that I may make it manifest. That's the idea of that word manifest there. To make it clear, to make it plain, to make it evident. Paul wanted the gospel to be presented in a way that the hearers could understand the message. And this was in contrast to the false teachers who their teaching was shrouded in mystery. and confusion. So the job of the real teacher, the job of the real preacher, is to make the Word of God clear and plain to the hearer, to make it known, to make it understandable for the listener, to share the gospel in such a way that the person hearing it gets it. Now the wonderful thing about these two prayer requests Paul made while in prison is that in the book of Acts, we won't go there for sake of time, but you see this prayer request answered in the book of Acts, Acts 28 verses 30 through 31. In the book of Acts, it says this, and Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence, no man forbidding him." So Paul prayed for open doors. Paul prayed for an open mouth to share the gospel. And God granted him both of those requests. And God will do the same for us. If you want to have opportunities to share the gospel with others, it all begins with prayer. Committed prayer. Devoted prayer. Faithful prayer. So what do we do? Devote yourselves to prayer. We see that in verse two. Continue in prayer. Pray for open doors for the gospel. Pray for an open mouth. Pray for boldness to speak the gospel. That's the first step in sharing the gospel with others is praying. pray for opportunities to share the gospel, and then take advantage of those opportunities. Sometimes a fear can creep in the way, and we have the opportunity. It's right there. We prayed for the opportunity. God gives us the opportunity, and maybe we don't follow up and take advantage of that opportunity like we should because of fear, or there may be some other emotion that comes in, and we pass up the opportunity. Pray for the opportunity, but when we have those opportunities, take advantage of those opportunities. Preach. Preach the message. Open your mouth. Tell others about Jesus Christ. So we've seen the new man's care or concern for the gospel, that's in prayer, the clarity in preaching the gospel, the content of the gospel, that's the mystery of Christ, And then the consequence of preaching the gospel, and we mentioned this briefly last week, but that's at the end of verse three there, which I am also in bonds. And so the consequence for Paul preaching the gospel was that he was put in prison. Okay, now obviously today in this country, we have freedom to go out and freedom of speech, the first amendment, and we were able to go out and preach the gospel and go door to door and hang tracks and hand out flyers and do all of these things without fear of of persecution from the government, at least. But we do know the Bible says that if you're going to live for the Lord, if you're going to live righteously, if you're going to be a bearer of this message, you will suffer in our country at least some probably form of minor persecution, nothing that we see. Ultimately, Paul gave his life for the sake of the gospel. But there may be some kind of persecution that will come, and that's the consequence. And now we really, this brings us into this final point here in the text, starting in verse five. And this point here is that the new man's life is consistent with the message of the gospel. Your life needs to be consistent with the gospel message. Verse five, walk in wisdom toward them that are without. redeeming the time. Let your speech be all way with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man." Here, we are given general principle, really, of Christian conduct and Christian way of living, and especially as it's concerning the way that we relate to non-believers, non-Christians, And verse five here tells us that there's two things as believers that we must be concerned about as it relates to our life in light of living out the gospel. One, we should be wise in the way that we act towards outsiders. And two, that we need to make the most of every single opportunity that we have. And that's in verse five. Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time." Now we see that first phrase there, walk in wisdom toward them that are without. Here in verse 5, Paul orders each member of the Colossian Church to continue to make it their habit of conducting their life by means of wisdom while interacting with those who are outside the church. This is a present active imperative. So this is a continual way of living that Paul wants the Colossian believers to do. He wants them to continue walking in wisdom toward unbelievers. The concern of this exhortation is focused on outsiders. It says toward them that are without. These are unsaved people. These are those who have not trusted in Christ for salvation. If you are in Christ, you are an insider. Okay? And we should praise the Lord that He's made us one, an insider. We should be ecstatic that we are an insider. And we're an insider for eternity by His grace. And that's a wonderful thing. But if you have not received Jesus as your Savior, if you have not received Jesus as your Lord, then you are an outsider. You are on the outside. without God, without Christ, without forgiveness, without hope, and without heaven. Now I don't say that to belittle you or to put you down in any way. I say that to invite you to Christ today. Run to the cross. Look to Jesus. Put your faith and trust in Him, in His cross, in His empty tomb for forgiveness of sins. And the Bible promises that if you do that, you will be saved. God is able to take you from the outside and bring you in to the inside. But when He does that, when God does that, when God takes you from the outside and brings you in on the inside, He charges you then to reach others around you who are still on the outside. Now important with this, with reaching outsiders, here in this verse, is as Christians living a life that is consistent with what we say. You've probably heard that, you know, your talk. Your walk speaks, I forget how it goes exactly. Your walk speaks louder than your talk talks, something like that. I don't know the whole one, but how you live speaks louder than what you say. So as believers, our life needs to be consistent with what we say. The word here for walk, there in verse 5, refers to a believer's consistent conduct, their course of action, it's their manner of life, it's the way they live. And in Scripture, when you see that word walk, it's often used in Scripture, it refers to our way of living, how we live our lives. It's about your lifestyle. And so if you're going to reach those who are outside, if you're gonna reach those who are without salvation for Christ, you have to watch out how you walk. We could pray for opportunities. We can even take advantage of those opportunities. But if we do not behave properly, if we do not walk properly, then we can very well waste those opportunities, because your walk is being watched. By who? I don't know. You don't either. And that's the point. Because you don't know who's watching you, you must walk with wisdom. In other words, your walk needs to match your talk. I'm a Christian. Live like it. I'm a Christian. Act like it. I'm a Christian. Talk like it. And if you don't, they'll call you out. They'll know. They're watching. It's been said that your life is the only translation of the Bible that some people will ever read. Is it a good translation? Is your life a good translation of the Bible? Your reputation can have a great impact on people's receptivity to the gospel. Have you ever heard someone say something to the effect of, you mean you want me to be a Christian? All the Christians I know, they're just a bunch of hypocrites. Okay, where does that come from? They see Christians, and they see their walk, and they see how it doesn't line up, it doesn't match up. If you're going to share the gospel with people, you need to be careful that you don't say or do anything that jeopardizes or makes it difficult for you to do that. This means living a godly and upright life, being a person with a good testimony, a person with a good reputation, treating people with respect, treating people with courtesy, apologizing when you've done something wrong. This is all part of walking in wisdom. So we're to do this, we're to walk in wisdom. The word walk here is a metaphor for a steady way of life that is headed in a particular, specific direction. And the word wisdom here, it says walk in wisdom. The word wisdom in the Old Testament actually comes from a word that has to do with a skill. It is described in Exodus chapter 36 verses 1 and 2. It was used there to describe the craftsman who built the tabernacle. And we see this word used often in the book of Proverbs, often to contrast the wise man with the fool. And we see on many occasions that the fool is the one who disregards God's commandments about how to live. The fool pushes away God's commandments. He despises them. But the wise man skillfully orders his life according to the Word of God. His life is skillfully ordered according to Scripture. So that the results are, it's like that finely crafted piece of furniture that's put together with time, and it produces something great, the skill. The craftsman who's skilled, when he puts his hand to the work, it produces something wonderful. And wisdom, walking in wisdom does the same in our life. It produces a beautiful life, an orderly life. So when Paul says that we are to walk with wisdom towards outsiders, towards those who are without, towards the unsaved, he means that we are to live. We are to live in accordance with God's words. So why? So that those who are not Christians will see that order and see that beauty. and see that righteousness, and see our lives and our relationships, and they reflect Jesus Christ. We're Christians. We say we're Christians. And so our lives should then reflect Jesus Christ. We're in Christ. That's what it means to be a Christian. We're in Him. We're in Christ. And so Christ should reflect, be reflected out of us. And so they ought to see that, and they ought to be able to see the fruit of the Spirit in us. We ought to be loving, joyful people, long-suffering towards those who are without. And ultimately, this may, it can, it doesn't always, and this isn't really a strategy, like the strategy. There's this idea that, out there, that you just live a good life, and that is your evangelism strategy. They call it lifestyle evangelism, just live a good life, and be obedient, talk right, and just let them see your obedient life, and that's all that you have to do. And that will, you know, they'll get converted because they see that. And there's more to this than that. But certainly that's a part of this. We want to live right and we want to have a good testimony and we want to have a good reputation. And we want to represent Christ in the right way. The new birth makes a difference in how we walk. It makes a difference in how we live. Salvation here then creates this obligation from God and an expectation from him as well as from the church and as well as from the world that our walk will change. If you say, I'm a Christian, people are going to expect that your life is going to be different. In Romans chapter 6 and verse 4, Paul urges the believers to walk in newness of life. And in Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 1, he exhorts us to walk worthy of the vocation or the calling wherewith we are called. And so when a person follows Christ, it changes their walk. Their walk is different. Specifically here in the context of Colossians 4, we are to walk as those who are wise. We are to walk in the realm of wisdom. We are to walk wisely with biblical understanding and biblical discernment. And what does this precisely look like? Well, biblical wisdom really is to make our life's work, everything that we do, about the glory of God, about pleasing Him. Moses prayed in Psalm chapter 90, so teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. And he prayed that prayer as an old man who still desired in his old age to live his life for the glory of God. And so those who live wisely live lives that glorify God. In a nutshell, those who walk in wisdom are Christ-like. They're like Christ. For Christ is the very personification of wisdom. The Proverbs often speak of wisdom as a personification of a person. And the ultimate person in whom wisdom is personified is no doubt the Lord Jesus Christ. In the New Testament, 1 Corinthians, Paul says, Jesus Christ is made unto us wisdom. Of course, the only sure means for us to walk in wisdom, to live like the Lord Jesus Christ then, is to then, to bring this back full circle to Colossians 3, is to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly. And as we do, we're filled with the spirit, and then we can live this Christ-like, spirit-controlled, life. Consequently, as we do this, as we walk in wisdom towards unbelievers, the result will then be that you will be making the most of every single opportunity that's given you. And that is the sense here of redeeming the time. So walk in wisdom. And as you do that, the result will be that you will redeem the time. You will be making the most of every single opportunity you have. The word redeem here is an economic term. The word means to buy or to buy up or to buy back. We speak of this word as it relates to salvation, and in salvation, God redeems us by paying the penalty of our sin through the blood of Jesus Christ. Here, saved people redeem the time. as they make the most of every opportunity that God gives to them to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ, to edify our brothers and sisters in Christ, and to evangelize the lost. As we make the most of every single opportunity to do that, we in turn redeem the time. The form of the word in the original language indicates an additional intensity of action. There's more to this than just like, oh yeah, reading the time. This is not a leisurely stroll through the shopping mall, okay? Now I just got all the ladies' attention. It's like, whoa, shopping. This is not that. There's some different kinds of shopping. I've witnessed it. You've got the leisurely stroll through the shopping mall. Oh, what's in there? Oh, that's cute. And then there's Black Friday shopping. There's the line at the door, the doors barge open. And there's that item that if you don't get there and get it right now, it's gonna be gone and there's gonna be 50 people there fighting for it, right? That's what this word here for redeeming, that's the sense of this word, not the shopping mall, but the Black Friday shopper. Be the Black Friday shopper when it comes to taking advantage of every opportunity that you have. Quickly moving in before the opportunity is gone. This must be our attitude when evangelizing the lost. Take advantage of every opportunity. It might be the only one you get. The word time here is a translation of the Greek word kairos, which refers to a point or period of time. And so it's not that we're not talking about just a chronological passing of time. Therefore, any time and all time is to be redeemed. Time is something that many of us say, man, I wish I had more time. I wish we all may wish that we had more of it. But we must understand that God has given us all the time that we need. God has given us all the time we need to go out and preach. We have 24 hours a day. We have 168 hours a week. That's the time that we have. And it's a gift from God. Time is a gift from God. He gives us every moment that we have. And we're ultimately dependent on the Lord for every second that we live. Our problem, though, is not that we don't have enough time. Our problem is that we don't properly esteem our time. We can waste our time and not redeem it, not hold it as precious. That seems to be Paul's point here. Sometimes we can act like we have all the time in the world. But the truth is, our time is limited. We only have a limited amount of time, and when you recognize that your time is limited, that'll help you to live wisely, to walk in wisdom. A wise witness, one who's walking in wisdom toward them that are without, is on the alert to buy, to snatch up every opportunity to share Christ with lost people. We have limited time, and so we must redeem that time. that we do have so we can make the most of each opportunity. Paul's exhortation here seems to be that we must exchange our time for that of which is of greatest value, of greatest importance, that we must invest our time in the most honorable of pursuits. And in the context, of course, the most honorable pursuit is wise living with the loss, taking advantage of each opportunity. So when you get those opportunities, how do we speak? How do we talk to those unbelievers? Well, this is the third point here, and that's that the new man speaks graciously. So we have the new man speaks to God. The new man here speaks graciously. Paul's attention now turns from the walk back to our speech. We're going to go back to how we speak. The apostle Paul here urges then the believers to speak in a gracious way. Now, this is in the context, and we'll look at this, the context here is that it's towards the unsaved, but this is not to say that we are to speak in an ungracious way towards believers. I don't want to miss the point here. We should be speaking graciously to everybody, including believers. But specifically in the context here, we're speaking about gracious speaking towards the unbelievers. It stands to reason that if we have experienced the wonderful grace of God in our own lives, that our actions and our speech towards others would then also be gracious. In light of Paul's repeated emphasis on grace throughout all of his letters, this means that our preaching of the gospel should be filled with God's grace. The message that he gives, salvation is a free gift to sinners who deserve judgment. We all deserve it, but it's by his grace that we're saved. So this includes not only the message about grace, but it includes speaking graciously to others. As a sinner who has received grace, we don't speak in a condescending or condemning manner to another sinner. You will be kind, you will be humble, and you will let the other person know that we're all sinners, we'd all be on our way to hell if it were not for God's grace, God's unmerited favor. The first instruction here is that we are to let your conversation always be with grace. That is, and you see that there, let your speech be always with grace. That is that our speech should be pleasant. Our speech should be lovely. Our speech should be purposeful. Our speech should be delightful. Our speech should be joyful. And it should be this way continually, as it says, always. Let your speech be always with grace. This means that the words that come out of our mouth should be edifying. They should be loving. They should be thoughtful. They should be kind words. And this was the testimony that people gave concerning Jesus. This is the example that he left for us in Luke chapter 4 verse 22. It says, and all bear him witness and wondered at his gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. So Jesus leaves us this wonderful example of gracious speaking, edifying words, not griping, not complaining, not murmuring, not gossiping, not slandering, not lying, not swearing, not jesting, not retaliatory words, but rather spiritual words, wholesome words, fitting words, uplifting, kind, sensitive, complimentary, gentle, truthful, and thoughtful words. Consistency of life must be backed up with consistency of speech. So our walk has to match our talk, but our talk should match our walk. Sometimes we can excuse ungracious speech by claiming that, oh, I was just being honest. I was just being brutally honest. Like that's an excuse somehow. Like, well, I'm just going to tell them like it is. You know, that's who I am. I'm the tell them like it is guy. I don't care how they feel. I don't care how it comes across. I'm just going to tell them, just let them know right now. This is who I am. That's the guy that I am. Let's not be that way. Don't be that guy. Now I'm not saying that we, you know, ought to avoid truth telling, right? Like, oh, okay, well, then I won't say anything at all. I can't say it the way I want to say it. I won't say anything at all. No, the Bible actually gives us instruction in this, in how we're supposed to speak the truth. We're to speak the truth in love. It says in Ephesians chapter four, verse 15, the Lord would have us to say hard things, but he'd have us do it in a gracious way. The balance of truth and love is all the more significant when it comes to proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ. It's even more significant when we go out and preach the gospel message. We are to be a faithful witness. That's our job. Our job is not to be a prosecuting attorney. Our job is not to be a condemning judge. It's to be a faithful witness. In that courtroom setting, you know, you have the judge and you have the prosecutor and you have the witness. And the witness is on the stand and gets asked questions from the attorneys, but the witness does not get to prosecute the case. He just gets to answer questions and that's it. And he doesn't get to judge the case. He's a witness. That's our job, to just be a faithful witness. We're trying to win people to Christ. We're trying to bring people to Christ. We're not out there trying to win arguments. We're not out there trying to win a debate. That's not the point. We are to proclaim the name, person, and work of Christ. That's the point. Preach the message of Jesus Christ. We're not out there to promote how smart we are and how much knowledge we have, how much experience we have, or how spiritually mature we are. We're going out there. This isn't about us. This is about him. This is about his message that he wants us to deliver. And this matter of using our tongues the right way is really a universal matter. James talks about this. No man can control his tongue. Only a perfect man can bridle his tongue. It matters not where we live, what our status in society is, who our friends are. We all can battle with this issue. We all battle with the tongue. And so we must all hear and take heed to this exhortation, that our speech be always with grace. And then the second instruction here is that we are to let our speech be seasoned with salt. And this is always something that, you know, especially growing up, like, what is this? What is this seasoned with salt? What is this all about? Well, in the New Testament times, and we even now use it, but salt was used a preservative to guard against corruption, but also it was used for its flavor. When this verse talks about your words being seasoned with salt, it's talking really about speech that is wholesome, speech that is attractive, speech and speech that guards against corruption, speech that is also attractive or appealing to others. And there's different aspects here to this idea of salt and speech. In our world, we speak of salty speech in a negative, kind of in a negative way. in a negative light. We say, now, you can take what that person says with a grain of salt. Okay, that's a negative thing, right? We say that, or, man, that guy's speech, man, he's salty. Okay, that's negative, but scripture tells us that we are to make sure that our words are salty. Okay, so salty speech is actually a good thing. There are, of course, here a few implications of this salty speech. One, salt prevents decay. Salt prevents corruption. The ancient world did not have refrigerators like we do. We take our perishable items, we put them in the fridge, and the fridge, unless you leave it in there for too long, typically preserves that food for a longer period of time than if you just set it out on the counter. The ancient world, though, they didn't have that. And what they did was they would pack their food in salt in order to keep it from spoiling. So that's kind of the understanding in that day. And so to season your words with salt means that our speech, it ought to be not spoiled. Our speech is to be pure. It is to be wholesome. It is to be honorable. And so our speech then fights off or prevents the spoiling or the decay of a society that is corrupt. in their speech, that is profane in their speech, and is immoral in their speech. And so the Christian, Christ says, you're the salt of the earth. And there's this idea that there's this prevention of just absolute, complete, immoral chaos by having Christians in the world. We should be preserving morality, not being a part of spoiling it. Likewise, salt provides flavor. As one boy put it, salt is what makes food taste bad when it's not in the food. Salt adds flavor to food that would otherwise be just blah. or bland without it. And so to season our speech with salt is to not only speak pure, moral, wholesome words, but it is also to speak what you could say are winsome words. Winsome words. Words that are interesting. Why? Because they're biblical. Not because it's, you know, I'm like Mr. Great Speaker and, you know, I have this really great, you know, way of speaking and everyone just loves my speech. No, it has nothing to do with that. But it has everything to do with the fact that we're speaking God's words. And so, our words should be interesting because they're biblical. You know, countercultural talk can be very interesting. It can actually strike up very interesting conversations and I'm sure that many of you have had these kinds of conversations at work where you bring up something that's kind of like not politically correct. related to scripture. If you work in the world, you know that there's probably about two things you don't talk about at work. One is politics, and the other is religion. And if you start to bring those up, things can get really interesting very quickly. Instead of shying away, though, from saying those difficult things, we ought always to say the thing that needs to be said. Declare the truth. Preach the truth. Speak the truth. Who knows the opportunities that our commitment to the truth might ultimately give us or create in sharing the gospel. So a lot of those conversations end up turning into a gospel kind of conversation. You may not get to preach the whole gospel, but they can head in that direction. Or maybe somebody singles you out later and asks you about it, and you have an opportunity then to talk about Christ. And when you look at examples in scripture, John the Baptist, Paul, Jesus, all of these men were known for speaking and preaching and arresting the attention of their hearers. In fact, their critics were even compelled to become hearers of their message. So what do we have to do? Well, you have to make sure you know what you're talking about, which is going to require study. It requires that you must be a student both of scripture, but also of the surrounding culture, what's going on in the world. So read. meditate, study, and then look for opportunities to arrest others with your speech. Not because it's you, but because it's scripture. The final point here is found at the end of verse 6. Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man." Our speech must not only be the right content, okay? It has to be the right content, but it also must be appropriate. It must be said in the way that is the best for the hearer to hear it and to understand it. And that's the clarity side of it. We want it to be clear and understandable. Note here that the word answer implies that our walk and our talk will generate questions. It should, the way we walk and the way we talk should generate questions just as people asked Jesus questions when he was living here on this earth. If you know God and you know his word and you're a student of it, you can then give the appropriate answer in those situations. In fact, this very exhortation proves this. Paul would not exhort us in this way if we could not, in fact, obey this exhortation. So when we have that situation where someone asks of us a question and we are to give this answer, we actually can know the right thing to say. That's why Peter wrote in first Peter 3 15 but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and what be ready always to give an answer to every man that ask if you a reason of the hope that is in what in you with meekness and in fear Paul says you must know how you should respond to each person each situation and this is where we have to be careful with a cookie cutter presentation of the gospel just the one size fits all and just because one person may need to understand sin and judgment. Whereas the next person may need to understand about God's abundant grace for sinners who repent. Every person has their own strongholds. And we have to know how to pull those strongholds down. And the stronghold for the guy who's been in a Christian church his whole life is going to be different than the stronghold for the Buddhist, or the stronghold for the Catholic, or a stronghold for some other religion. And one person may need to really focus, you may need to focus in on something specific for that person. And so what do we do? We study Jesus as witnessing encounters in the gospel. How did he confront the unsaved? Well, we see how he confronted the Pharisees. Was he soft and gentle with the Pharisees? No, he went right after them. But then he was gentle with others. With others who were humble and knew they were guilty, he was softer and gentler with those people. And so we see the example of Jesus and how he dealt with others. And so we pray for wisdom as you speak so that you will know how to respond to each person that you come into contact, their unique situation and their unique needs. All of these things are essential to our witness for Christ, for being faithful witnesses of Jesus Christ. If you do not pray for opportunities to share the gospel, If you do not live your life in light of the gospel, if you do not guard your speech, if you do not guard your reputation, if you do not guard your testimony for the sake of the gospel, you may miss out on many opportunities to preach this message, to share this message of Christ with others. We have a mission here in this world as a church. It's every single one of our responsibilities to ensure that this mission goes forward. And we all have a different responsibility in it, but we are all responsible in fulfilling it. And as such, God calls all of us to a life that is devoted to prayer, a life that is devoted to wise living, and a life that is devoted to gracious speech, so that we may fulfill our mission of preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to them that are without. And so living a Christ-centered life, living a life that has Christ as supreme, Christ as preeminent, means that we are going to preach Christ to others. And so let us commit ourselves to that. Let us commit ourselves to grow in each one of these areas so that we can be better equipped and that we can be better prepared to share the gospel with the people that God places in our lives. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your goodness to us. We thank you for the opportunity that we can come and hear your word and really understand these basics, these simple things that you have for us. We want you to be praised and honored in our life, and we ask that you'd strengthen our church, that you would encourage us to, in this area of preaching the gospel and living a life that's consistent with it, we ask that you be honored and glorified