Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

Have you ever felt like you were an outsider?

Have you ever felt like your sins could never be forgiven?

Have you ever felt like you could never be accepted by God? I’ve got good news for you: Jesus came for outsiders like you and me.

His grace has no limits and every sinner who embraces him in faith and repentance will receive salvation.

Does not mean put on a mask in public to look the best you can.

It means relying on Jesus, admitting sin, and seeking forgiveness when you have sinned.

It means helping those around you in the name of Christ, because of what He has done for us.

Walk in wisdom towards outsiders.

The final imperative of this section that Paul writes is the command or plea to walk.

The idea is to behave in a specified manner.

How we conduct our everyday life.

Paul writes - Walk in wisdom toward outsiders.

A very literal translation of this is “In wisdom, let your walk toward those outside.”

Within this we have to look at a couple of things.

Who are the outsiders, and how are we to walk in wisdom towards them?

Who are the outsiders that Paul is speaking of?

We must begin by remembering the audience of the letter.

Paul is writing to believers - so our natural deduction is that Paul is referring to unbelievers as outsiders.

For the Colossians this would be any of their non-Christian neighbors, anyone who they encounter while working or in the marketplace.

These were everyday interactions and relationships between the Colossian Christians and those they came into contact with.

Paul is concerned with them, as a minority in a hostile environment.

His desire is that the Colossian believer engage others effectively proclaiming the gospel.

Remember the verses Paul wrote just previous to this.

Pray that God may open a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ.

Paul is encouraging the Colossian believers to think about their lives, and how they are viewed by those who don’t know Jesus.

What is the relationship that they have built with people around them.

What sort of witness do they have?

Do unbelievers look at their lives and notice that something is different?

Do they notice a difference in how they interact in their business dealings?

We can make direct connection to this and our lives.

Each and every day, we come in contact with people who are not saved.

We all have relationships with people who are not saved.

Paul is concerned about our witness to those who haven’t placed their faith in Jesus.

This is our direct involvement in evangelism.

What is the old saying?

Actions speak louder than words.

Paul wants us to be intentional in our relationships, intentional in how we interact with people around us, intentional in how we live our lives.

His call then is to walk in wisdom.

How do we walk in wisdom towards them?

How do we do that?

How do we walk in wisdom towards unbelievers.

Wisdom of course is a very broad concept.

Wisdom can be defined as the ‘capacity of judging rightly in matters relating to life and conduct’, as ‘the ability to cope’, as ‘experiential knowledge’, as ‘intellectual activity’, as ‘the legacy of parents to their children’, or as ‘the quest for self-understanding and for mastery of the world’.

In biblical studies the term ‘wisdom’ is variously used as a literary category for classifying certain books (Prov., Eccles., Job), as a theological category for describing an approach to reality which focuses on creation, and as a sociological category for evaluating the activity of parents, elders and teachers.

Wisdom in biblical thought, occupies the crucial stage between thought and action.

As believers, we are to immerse ourselves into the life of Christ.

Remember back to chapter 3.

We are to seek the heavenly things that are above, those things that are good.

For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

We put off the old and put on the new self.

Our minds are being renewed at Paul says in Rom 12:2

Wisdom enables believers to determine just how, in a given situation, our new way of thinking, our new set of biblical values, should be put into effect.

This doesn’t come out of thin are though.

We have to learn what exactly the new set of biblical values are.

The only way we can do this is by reading our Bibles.

Paul’s prayer for believers in the beginning of Colossians was that God would fill them with knowledge of His will through all wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that they would live a life worthy of the Lord and please Him in every way.

All dealings with others, and especially those done with outsiders ought to be done in Wisdom.

One example that comes to mind of this in Paul’s life we see in Acts 16.

The jailer was saved because they did not live.

The man was going to kill himself because that was the punishment for losing prisoners.

But they called out that they were still there.

And we see that they were released the following day.

When we look to Jesus, he modeled this perfectly.

If we think about Jesus life and ministry.

Sinners were drawn to Jesus, and Jesus gladly spent time with those who were open to His teaching.

Jesus also forgave repentant sinners, and embraced those who believed in Him.

These people would not have wanted to be around Jesus had he not been genuine and intentional in his relationships.

You can always tell the person that does not fit in at the party, but that was not Jesus.

This was not because Jesus winked at sin.

He did not ignore it.

He didn’t treat it in a lighthearted way.

Jesus was a friend of sinners in that he came to save sinners and was pleased to welcome those who were open to hear the gospel.

Those who were sorry for their sin, and on their way to placing their faith in Him.

Jesus was intentional with His relationships.

As Christians, we also must be intentional with our everyday relationships, especially with unbelievers.

How can we gain wisdom though?

We must spend time in God’s word - The testimony

Prayer is another - James 1:5

Seeking Godly Counsel - We can find this in a couple of ways as well - through Godly individuals as well as looking to scripture - think the book of proverbs.

The hardest for us to cope with, I think especially today is that wisdom often comes with time and experience.

We live in a Burger King world - have your way - as fast as possible.

Make the best use of time.

Paul truly has evangelism in mind with this text.

Walk in wisdom towards outsiders, making the best use of the time.

The idea word here comes from an interesting word in the Greek.

The word making the best use, or as the NKJV translates, redeeming the time

The root is the Greek word - to buy.

Then a preposition is attached - out of.

So literally the word means to buy out of.

The idea is to use something efficiently, or to even redeem - to buy it back.

The idea of redeeming time as the NKJV puts it comes from that buying out of idea.

A few interpreters think the verb might have this meaning in the two other places it occurs in the New Testament, here in Colossians 4:6 and in the generally parallel Ephesians 5:16.

As God in Christ has bought humans out from their slavery to sin, so Christians need to “buy” time “out of” its captivity to sin and Satan

It is not so much redeeming time - or a more common phrase - making up for lost time.

The idea is more that Paul is encouraging believers to buy up all the time that is available.

Be intentional in interactions with unbelievers.

Buy up the opportunity!

Our lives are a series of opportunities that will never be repeated in the exact same way again.

Opportunities present themselves for redeeming the spiritual blessings God has provided.