Living with Gospel Intentionality
Gospel Centered Living (2025)

Transcript

It's our part, as servants of God, to be intimately involved in reaching people with the Gospel. We're going to need people working at both campuses. Certainly there's church work to be done, but more than anything, we want to release you as God's people. We gather on Sundays for empowerment.

We gather for power and encouragement, but we scatter for proclamation. We want to scatter as people who are sharing the Gospel, so I wanted to take a couple of Sundays and talk about that. It seemed to me that , we've proven that we desire what God's called us to do,

by the way our hearts have been moved in giving. Now, let's see if we can be generous with sharing the gospel. That's what we're talking about today. I want to refer to a quote from a book. This is a book called, “Total Church: A Radical Reshaping around Gospel and Community” by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis:

They say this: “We need Christian communities who saturate ordinary life with the gospel. The communities to which we introduce people must be communities in which “God-talk” is normal. This means talking about what we are reading in the Bible, praying together whenever we share needs, delighting together in the gospel, and sharing our spiritual struggles, not only with Christians but with unbelievers. We want our life together to be gospel-saturated.

We want to live and talk about the gospel as part of our shared life.” I want to ask you to think about this for a second. Do you delight in talking to others about Jesus? Do you delight in maybe sharing something you read in the Bible that day with your co-worker or somebody you're going to school with or someone in your neighborhood?

Are you transparent when you're having a struggle and even talking to unbelievers and saying, ‘I'm praying to God to help me with this struggle,’ so that they begin to see how you're working things out, that you're not perfect but, you're trying to work things out. Here's the thing I want to ask you - Is there one version of you that you bring to church, that talks about the Bible, prayer and Jesus? Then, is there another version of you that you send to work, to school, to your neighborhood, to your family reunion that's more of a public persona that doesn't allow that kind of conversation? Are there two versions of you?

Do you know what I'm talking about? Do you feel the tension of your two versioned self or is there only one version of you so that you're whole? There's just one you and it's you, filled with Jesus, the spirit of Christ. What would it look like? What kind of adventure, what kind of intention would it require of us to say, ‘I want God to work in me so that I'm the same everywhere I go, so that I'm just as willing to share what I'm learning from the Bible, what I'm praying about, what I'm even struggling with, and talking to the Lord about wherever I go.’

Wouldn't that be an adventure? Wouldn't that be awesome if you could get to that place where you would be willing to do that? Now, I know some of the young people are thinking, Well, look, if I do that, I'm going to lose my “cool at school” card. If I do that, I might not get that promotion at work. I want us to think today, what it would look like to be intentional, to live our whole life with gospel intentionality, so that everywhere we go, we're always talking about Jesus.

In the Apostle Paul's letter to the Colossians, he talked to them about how they might live day to day, prayerfully, always radically living with gospel intentionality. I believe that we can live our daily lives with gospel intentionality. As we look at the text today, I think we'll see three ways that we can live in such a way. So let's “dig in” to the book of Colossians, chapter 4. Starting at verse 2, Colossians 4:2-6 (ESV) 2 “Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.

3 At the same time, 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 4 that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. 5 Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. 6 Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” This is God's word.

We're looking for three ways on how to live with gospel intentionality. Here's the first way:

1. Prayer.

He's in a Roman prison. Paul's writing this letter to the church at Colossae. It's a church he planted. He's over in.

Rome. Colossae is a city that's in Asia Minor, which today is modern day Turkey. I've been to the site where the town of Colossae existed. Today, there's really nothing to look at.

It's just a mound. It's what archeologists call a “tell.” They've yet to uncover what's there. There's a few pieces of broken marble; a pillar is sitting there and one sign that says “Colossae.” That is all that's there.

But at this time, it was a thriving city, not far down the road from Laodicea. Paul here, is in prison and he's thinking about that church in Colossae and he asks for prayer. First of all, he tells them to pray. He gives them a command to pray.

That's what we see in verse 2. This is in the imperative Greek language here. He says, “Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.” Stay at it.

He says, ‘Be steadfast in prayer” and then, it's the kind of prayer where you don't give up. He says to persevere in prayer.

Be unceasing. As 1st Thessalonians 5 puts it, “Pray without ceasing.” He says, ‘Be steadfast in this prayer life of yours.’ Not just steadfastly, but be watchful. Be watchful in prayer.

You see that in verse 2,”...being watchful in it with thanksgiving.” Be watchful. I remember in the early days of the church, I had led a young man to the Lord, and one of the ways I was trying to spend time with him is I would pick him up and ride with him. That way, we could get more talking time to disciple him and I was teaching him about prayer.

He brought up a need in his life. I’m driving down the road, at about 55 miles an hour and I said to him, “Well, let's pray right now.” He reaches over as if to drive, to grab the steering wheel. I said, “Whoa, what are you doing?” He says to me, “Well, you said you were going to pray.”

I said, “With my eyes open.” Paul says to pray with your eyes open. Here, he's not concerned about driving, but he's saying to be alert. Have God's perspective. Pray “eyes wide open” prayers.

Be circumspect in your prayers so that you know the culture you're in and the people that you encounter. Be watchful. As you pray, be aware.

Be watchful. Be vigilant and alert. Stay awake in your prayers. I don't know what it is about praying, but it will put you to sleep if you're not careful. Now, some people have talked to me and they've said, ‘I tend to get sleepy when I pray.’

Well, get out of bed when you're praying. That's where I would start. So, it's good to get out of bed. I wrote about this a couple of days ago, to sometimes pray standing up or do a prayer walk.

You're walking around. Walk around the block and pray. Do I know the neighbors in this house that live across the street from me? Since I do know them, let's pray for them by name as we walk. Maybe you could be walking with your spouse and do a prayer walk around your neighborhood. These would be vigilant prayers, watchful prayers.

He says to
be watchful, and then he says, “pray with thanksgiving.” So, pray steadfastly, pray with your eyes wide open and pray with thanksgiving. Be thankful.

This is a great instruction to live with. Gospel intentionality begins with praying and being aware of what's going on around you that God might want to use you. Then he surprises us, or at least he surprises me. He says,
In verse 3, “At the same time, pray also for us,” Now, where's he at?

He's in a Roman prison. He says, continuing in verse 3, “...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 is not what I'd be praying; I would be praying, “God, get me out of here!” If I was writing a letter to you, I'm writing a letter to the church at Wilson.

It'd be “First Wilsonians.” I'm writing a letter to you, and I'm writing, ‘I'm over here in jail. Pray I get out.’ That's not how Paul prays.

He prays for an open door, not to get him out, but for an open door to get outsiders in. What kind of man is this, that even in prison, he assumes that God put him there? It is because God is sovereign over him. Caesar's not over him. The governor's not over him.

If he's in prison, there must be somebody there he's supposed to share the gospel with. ‘Pray for us that God would open a door for us so that we could share the Word with where we're at right now.’ You know, sometimes we're some place and we think, Now, this ain't the right place to be sharing the gospel. This is a place where I just need to focus on ME. I'm in a spot here. I'm in a hospital room or I'm in the doctor's office, and I don't need to be sharing the gospel with this person next to me. I'm in trouble; I'm at the bank and I need a loan.

I'm at the Walmart and this clerk has been rude to me and I don't need to be nice to her.

Are you with me? But that's not how Paul thinks. He's in prison, but he's not worried about that. I don't know what kind of man this is. He's not worried about that.

Instead, he is concerned and he says, ‘Do you know what got me here? Do you know how I ended up here? Let me remind you, “to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison.” Preaching the gospel is what got me here, and preaching the gospel is what I'm going to keep on doing.

That's why I exist. It begins with prayer, though. He says, ‘That's how I want you to pray for me. I want you to pray that God would open a door for the word that I could declare the mystery of Christ.’ Unusual language, or at least the way we understand “mystery.”

The word, “mystery,” in the Greek is “mustérion.” It tends to mean “secret.” Not so much like something to solve, but something you could never know unless someone told you more, because that's what is required for people to come to Jesus. He must be revealed to them, primarily through us speaking the Gospel to people, although we've been reading about for the last, really ten to twenty years of a great movement in the Middle east of Muslims having dreams of “Issa Almasi,” Jesus the Messiah, and then they go looking for someone to tell them about Jesus.

But the mystery, the mystery of Jesus here is the secret that we know. It's not a secret to us, but the world doesn't know it. He says, ‘Pray for us that we won't waste our time here in prison, but that we would have an open door to share with these Roman soldiers and these cellmates. Pray for us. That's how I want you to pray for us.’

So pray steadfastly, watchfully, with thanksgiving. Pray for an open door. Then, in verse four, he says, “that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.” Pray that I make it clear, because what's clear to this person might not be clear to this person. So pray that the Holy Spirit will help me speak in a way they can understand, which is how I ought to speak.

Paul's praying, not for an open door to get out, but for an open door to get outsiders in. Lord, I want to be more like that, don't you? It begins with a life that is steadfast in prayer, that gets God's direction before a day begins. We are called to stay alert in prayer. There's a sister book to Colossians; it's the book of Ephesians.

The city of Ephesus was not that far from Colossae. They were both churches that Paul had planted. Ephesus today is on the coast of modern day Turkey. He writes similarly to them. In Ephesians chapter 6

he says, Ephesians 6:18-19 (NLT) “Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere. And pray for me, too. Ask God to give me the right words so I can boldly explain God’s mysterious plan that the Good News is for Jews and Gentiles alike.”

He gives both of these churches similar prayer requests. I think he's calling us to the kind of prayer that is aware of the need around us so that we're actually looking at people differently. He writes this to his son in the Lord, Timothy. He says, 1 Timothy 2:1-4 (ESV) “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

We are spending our effort and all of our posts on our social media sites about our political points of view and what we're for and what we're against and what we're judging right and what we're judging wrong; I'm not saying that these things might not be important. What I am saying is that the instruction from God's Word seems to be here to live a quiet, Godly, dignified way, aiming always at praying for people that are in positions of power and then, being mindful always that God desires that people everywhere hear the gospel and have an opportunity to be saved. No matter where we're presenting ourselves, social media, in the neighborhood, in person, at work, at school, always be praying that our life would demonstrate the love of Jesus wherever we are.

Warren Wiersbe says this. He says, “If each believer would pray for the lost, and watch for God’s open doors of opportunity for witness, we would win more people to the Savior.”

The apostle Paul was traveling from Asia Minor. He'd been involved in planting churches in Colossae, Laodicea and in Ephesus. He's up to the area that's called Troas and God opens a door for him there. He closed the door to go east.

He said the spirit wouldn't allow it. He looked west, and he had a vision of a man of Macedonia beckoning him to come. So he called a boat and went over to a little town called Philippi. He goes to Philippi, and he begins to preach the Gospel. He and Silas have been preaching for days and they've got this one young lady.

She's a slave girl who's possessed by a demon. Her owners sell her time to people because she had a gift of predicting their future.

She was a fortune teller and with demonic power. She's following them around, saying, “These two are prophets of the God Most High.” Every time that Paul would try to preach, she'd open her mouth and start saying, “They're prophets of the God Most High.”

Finally, Paul prayed, “Get out of her in the name of Jesus” and the demon came out of her. Then, the owners are ticked off because they've lost their source of income, right? The woman's clean. She wants to follow Jesus now.

She's no good to them now. So, they bring Paul and Silas before the magistrate there in the city of Philippi and they say, ‘These Jews have brought some strange word here that's not of Rome and they need to be punished.”

They publicly chain their arms to a pillar in the marketplace in front of the magistrate's seat of authority and publicly beat them and throw them into jail. We keep reading about this in the Book of Acts, chapter 16. That night, Paul and Silas start singing. I don't know what they were singing.

I don't know what song they were singing, but whatever song they were singing, they started singing a chorus in heaven, and the whole place shook like an earthquake and the doors flew open. Now, that was one of those situations where yours truly would have been like, ‘Well, thank You for the open door, Lord. I'm getting out of here.’ But that's not what Paul and Silas did. They stayed in there

and here comes the jailer, the Philippian jailer. He's ready to kill himself because he is thinking, Surely all of my prisoners are gone when he saw all of those gates, all those doors open. Paul says to him, ‘We're still in here.’ He brings in a lamp and there they are. He takes them home with him and he cleans up their wounds, their beaten backs. He offers them food and they share the gospel with him and his family.

The whole house comes to Jesus and is baptized. That Paul. His idea of open doors and my idea of open doors are completely different. He spent his life praying for God to open doors for the Gospel. I wonder what it would look like for us to get up in the morning, say, “Lord, I'm available to talk to anyone that You put in front of me today, that you open up a door for the Gospel.” Would it be God's will to answer a prayer like that in the positive?

What do you think? ‘God, I'm available today.’ Would He answer that prayer? I want you to think about this. We have this container down front that we're using for these impact cards.

We have them at all four tables down front where we're asking people, “Who do you know that we would pray that they would come to Christ?” We've been emphasizing raising the income in order to make Jesus famous. But what's my individual part? Well, I think it begins with who God is bringing to my heart right now that I already should be talking to

and would I be willing to write their name down? Who's my “long shot?” There is a line that says, “ My long shot.” That's the person you've almost given up on

or maybe, it's someone you don't like and you're thinking, I don't even know if I want them to spend eternity with me. I don't even like spending time with them now. That's definitely who you need to write down there and say, ‘Lord, change my heart towards that person.’ What if, at the end of the service today, one of your steps of prayer, of taking this first step of being intentional, would be to write down the names of some people and prayerfully drop it in here and say, “God, I want to not only pray for their salvation, I want You to use me. Give me an open door to talk to this person, to write this person a letter, to send them a text message, to begin the conversation of talking to them about Jesus.”

This is the first way. We've covered verses two through four. We recognize that Paul is praying for an open door and he wants you to join him in prayer. He's always looking for an open door, and he's always asking for prayer to open those doors. This is the first way: prayer. Here's the second:

2. Care.

I try to use words that will help us remember what we've studied today. Prayer and then Care. That's the second way we can live with gospel intentionality. We're at verse 5,

“Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.” Walk in wisdom. Now, the word, “walk” is a kind of Jewish word that they would use to describe your lifestyle.

”As you go,” you're going somewhere “as you go” through life. Walk with wisdom. What kind of wisdom toward outsiders? Now, what does he mean by outsiders?

He means outside the family of faith. He means people that don't know Jesus. Don't just be going through life celebrating that I'm in the family.

That's great that you're in the family. I'm just going to hang out with family members. I don't even like outsiders. I'm going to stay away from outsiders. That's not what he says.

He says, ‘Walk with them in mind, caring about them. Walk with wisdom toward outsiders. Be careful the way you speak, the way you walk and your manner of life before outsiders.’ Then he says this, “making the best use of the time.”

Literally, the idea here is to redeem the time. It's an unusual word. It's a marketplace word in the Greek to buy back the time.

I didn't really have a chance to talk to that person. I was there getting gas or I was there picking up groceries.

I know some of you are better than me. I know some of you are more Christian than I am. You're more spiritual than I am. I'm trying to grow, but I tend to think of projects before I think of people.

It’s something about my personality. I always have a checklist in my head, and I'm always in a hurry to get it done. Y'all pray for me, okay? So, I have to pray that God will go against the grain of my personality and I don't put projects over people.

Well, I'm here to buy this item. I'm not here to talk to that person that wants to talk right now. I have to watch that and I'm aware of it. God's working on me.

Y'all pray for me. I'll pray for you. You got whatever your issue is, right? He's saying to make the best use of your time. Well, usually, I think my best use of the time is to go ahead and get that done and get out of there.

That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about walking with wisdom toward outsiders; the way you redeem your time here is by the impression you make on people outside of God. You thought you were there getting groceries, but no, you were there to be a blessing to the checkout clerk who was having a bad day.

The lady in front of you in line chewed her out for putting the wrong price on her apples or whatever it was. There she is, making minimum wage. She's got tears in her eyes. You're next in line; what will you say to her? Will it be, ‘Make sure you get my apples right,’ or will you be concerned for her?

How are you going to live day to day, so that you're walking with wisdom before outsiders, so that you're redeeming your time, using your time wisely. You're already going somewhere. We send teams out on the mission field, we send them out internationally, we do domestic trips,

but you're doing something every day; every time you walk out your door, you're walking into the mission field. Redeem the time. Don't waste your time.

In the book of Ephesians, he again says something similar to what he says to the church at Colossae. He says, in Ephesians 5:15-18 (ESV) “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, (there's that turn of phrase again)

redeeming the time
because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.” O Lord, fill us with Your spirit so that we care about the things You care about. So that we care for people

and we put people ahead of our own agendas. That's what You said when you came to Earth. You were asked, ‘Lord Jesus, why do you eat with sinners? Why do you spend time with tax collectors and prostitutes?’ You said, “I came to save those who are lost.”

A physician doesn't go to the well, he goes to the sick; he is aware. So, if we say that we're Christ followers, if we're following Jesus, then we'll follow Jesus, because Jesus is on the mission field every day. The spirit of Christ is calling the body of Christ every day, to be His hands and His feet and to care for people, because we know this: “People really don't care what you know until they know that you care.” We say it another way at the church, that we're “building a bridge of trust that will bear the weight of truth.”

If we will let people know, ‘I really care about you’ then they'll be more apt to listen to the Gospel. Remember what Jesus commands to us? He says, Matthew 28:19 (ESV) “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” The word, “go” in the Greek is really a participle.

It means “going, as you go” to make disciples. You're already going somewhere. as you go to work, to school, to your neighborhood, shopping… As you go, be a disciple maker; be watchful, walk in wisdom, be prayerful.

Think about the story of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37; remember how that story begins. A young man came to Jesus and was asking him some questions and Jesus said, in verse 27, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”

He said, ‘but who's my neighbor?’ and Jesus told him a story. He told him the story about a man who was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. It's downhill all the way.

Jerusalem's up at a height. Jericho's down close to the Jordan Valley. As he was going downhill, down that way, he fell among thieves and robbers, and they stole all that he owned and stripped him and left him for dead in a ditch on the side of the road. The story continues as Jesus told it; along came a priest.

He's coming up the road, headed up to the temple probably, and he hears the man moaning over there. He thinks to himself, ‘If I touch him, I'll be unclean. I won't be able to go to the temple for seven days. Surely the Lord cares more about me getting to the temple on time and serving than He does…’ (I'm putting that part in the story.

It's not in the story, but I'm trying to understand the priest.) Why'd he do that? Then along came a Levite and he probably thought the same thing. He heard him over there and he went over to the other side of the road, because if he got on that side of the road, he might be tempted to help him.

He went on up to Jerusalem. But then came a Samaritan. That story has more of an ironic feel there, because the Jews hated the Samaritans. The Samaritans had been Jewish from the city of Samaria, but they had intermarried with the Assyrians, and so they called them “Samaritan dogs.” They would go around Samaria when they were traveling north to south.

Here in this story, Jesus tells about the good Samaritan who goes into the ditch and takes care of the man. He puts him on his donkey, he takes him to an inn and pays for the price. He cleanses his wounds, he feeds him, and he comes back and checks on him later. Then, he asked the man who was the neighbor and he said, “The one who showed mercy.” Caring for people is often the way people are opened up to the Gospel.

Praying for an open door sometimes means taking care of somebody to put in your daily routine or a desire to have a listening ear. Whenever that person comes to you that's always talking so much and you can't get any work done, wonder what it is there that you could listen to and help them. That person who needs an act of kindness, the person who no one sees but you see them. You decide, I'm going to see this person.

What is it going to look like for us to care for people, to care enough to bring them Jesus? Here's the third word:

3. Share.

Dr. Chris Castaldo calls this: “Share, Share, Share,” saying there are three levels of conversation with an unbeliever. He gives here three descriptions of speech:

First of all, gracious speech. Do you see it in verse 6? “Let your speech always be gracious,” Notice he said, “always.”

He didn't say “most of the time.” He said “always.” Gracious; God's grace has been poured out on you. What is God's grace?

It's undeserved favor. You didn't deserve it. So I want you to think about that person that you know that does not deserve your grace; does not deserve your favor. That's the one I think, most of all, that God has put in your life to ask, ‘How can I be graceful in my speech towards this person and what would it look like?’

What is this grace? Some have said it's “charming” speech, it's “edifying” speech. It's a speech that makes you want to lean in and listen to more. It's an “encouraging” speech. It's speech that just feels like a warm fuzzy that's just come on you and made you feel so sweet and good and warm inside.

My daughter Erin, when she was a little girl, a little toddler and she was just learning to talk. (The boys never did this. Girls and boys are different. I don't know if you agree with that, but you're wrong if you don't.

They're different.) My daughter was different from the boys. She would climb up in my lap and I couldn't just talk to her and watch football on Sunday afternoon because she would take her little hands and put them on both sides of my face and say, “Daddy, look at me.” Then, I'd look at her and I'd say, “Well, what do you want to tell me?” I guess in the intensity of that moment of me looking at her, she forgot what she wanted to tell me.

But then I'd say to her, “You sure are pretty. You've got brown eyes like your daddy and I sure do love you.” She'd do this; she'd start putting her ear close to my mouth like, ‘Bring it on. Keep it coming.’ Now, she has three kids, two boys and a girl. Her youngest is named Penny.

Last weekend, me and my wife, Robin, were watching Penny. Penny's about the same age as Erin was at that time. he likes to climb up in my lap and she requires my full attention. She was holding my face and she was doing this, trying to figure out, how did that happen? How'd you get that on your chin? Then, I started saying to her, “You're beautiful; where did you get those beautiful eyes?

I sure do love you.” There came her ear close to my mouth. What is that? We love gracious speech.

It's like we were built to be loved and built up and yet we deny it to people. God's grace has been poured out in us and we should overflow with it. That's the first kind of speech. He says, let it overflow. He doesn't say, be gracious.

He says, let, which is like, allow, because it comes from God. It's not from us, it's from God. Let it bubble up and go out. Let there be gracious, edifying, beautiful speech and people will follow you around like a puppy dog just to hear you because you encourage them. They love to hear you talk.

Gracious speech. Then the second kind was salty speech, he says, “seasoned with salt.” Salt has many uses, but I think here he has in view the flavor of it. The flavor of it, I think, seems to be the proverbial use here of salt as a seasoning agent.

You might say “tasty” speech, so that it tastes good to hear it. Your ears think it tastes good to hear. I think it also has the idea of what Jesus talked about in the Sermon on the Mount, that it has to do with sharing spiritual truth and biblical truth with people. He says, “You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.” I think it has to do with spiritual speech, salt seasoned speech.

Then he says, “... so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” So it's the kind of speech that takes into account the person in front of you so that you speak in a way that they can understand, not for your own benefit, not according to your own timing and need, but according to theirs. You might think, Well, how would I like it if I just met somebody? How would I know how to say something that was perfect for them? Well, remember, you've already been praying about it and you've already been caring.

You already have an attitude. I care about this person, even if I did just meet them. Then, you're asking the Holy Spirit to tell you what to say to them. If you're sensitive to the Spirit's voice inside of you, you'll say things to people and they'll think, How did you know that?

How did you know what to say to me? You have to be honest and say, “I didn't, but I just had a sense that God wanted me to say that to you.” Paul says, “so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” Life becomes an adventure when we live like this, when we go out prayerfully saying, “Lord, use me today.

Open doors of conversation for me to talk to others about Jesus. Give me a broken heart for people so I care for those that don't see. Help me to care for them. Lord, I'm not finished till I share the gospel with them,

but help me to do it with grace, seasoned with salt, and in a way that they can understand it.”

We want to bring out the flavor. I know some of you like popcorn without salt. You're on a diet. I'm sorry, I can't do that. I like salt on my popcorn.

It just tastes better. I think maybe I like the salt better than the popcorn. I don't know what that is, but I do like salt on it. It enhances the flavor. Our speech should be seasoned with salt, full of grace and always attentive to the hearer and

what they would need to hear in order to bring out the opportunity of the gospel. Prayer, Care and Share, Share, Share. What if we go out from this place like that? What if we gather for power today from the Holy Spirit and we scatter for proclamation; we go out and we start talking about Jesus everywhere we go. Church, we've said “yes” to God and we've made these commitments financially.

But, the most important aspect of this vision that God's calling us to as a church is, as you go, we're to make disciples. We're to be out there with gospel intentionality, praying for gospel opportunities, caring for others, and sharing the gospel in an attractive and generous way. Let's pray. Lord, thank You for Your word. Thank You for this people Lord, that You've called us together to serve You, to be Your hands and Your feet.

Lord, before we pray for ourselves, I want to pray for those that may have come in today and you're an outsider. You're someone that God's working on right now and you came in on a thin thread today. Somebody invited you

or you found us on the Internet. You're watching online. You're hurting and you're far from God today, but you want to come near. Would you pray with me right now? Would you pray right now and make a decision to hear about Jesus and to follow Him and to give Him your life? Pray like this.

“Dear Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner. I've been living my life my own way, but today I surrender my life to You. I believe You died on the cross for my sins and that You were raised from the grave and that You live today. Come and live in me. By Your Holy Spirit, make me born again.

I want to be a child of God and I want to follow You all the days of my life as my Lord and Savior.” If you're praying that prayer, believing, He'll save you. Others are here today and you're a believer, you're a Christ follower, but you've been living two lives, one public and one personal, one private. Pray, “God, forgive me. I want to be whole.

I want to live for You everywhere I am and everywhere I go. Lord, I lift up the names of the people that You've put on my heart this morning. Lord, I pray for an open door to share Jesus. In His name we pray. Amen.”