This Is the Life: Freedom - Prayer and Proclamation
Colossians 4:2-6
Pastor Bob Hiller
9/12/2010
Colossians 4:6 Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.
1) Evangelism consists of two conversations: one with _______________ and the other with ______________.
2) Only the ___________ ___________can change the heart, so we must pray for to proclaim his word .
3) When dealing with outsiders, we must be _________ and .
Scripture Readings
Ezekiel 34:11-24
Colossians 4:2-6
Luke 15:1-10
Take It With You!
Here we will offer thoughts and meditations on the message to help us as we contemplate and discuss and wrestle with what we are hearing.
As we approach those outside the faith with the condemning message of God's wrath and the vivifying message of God's mercy in Jesus of Nazareth, we need to marshal the Word and our insights into the personalities and personal spiritual needs of those whom we are addressing. The disciple never moves beyond the tension between speaking the Word purely and effectively and rephrasing it so that it can be understood in our culture. Nor do we move beyond the tension involved in determining when the secure sinner has been broken and when that sinner remains not jus slow to learn but actually resistant to God's law.
...We do not resolve this tension, but we are able to live with it gladly when we keep our eye on Jesus rather than on our own performance of the witnessing task, when we proceed with confidence that His power in His Word, not our "getting it right," makes disciples. We dare never be indifferent in conveying the Word correctly and properly; we dare never depend on our conveying of the Word in that manner either to justify ourselves or convert our hearers, both of which are the tasks which the Holy Spirit performs. We dare never use Him as a license to be sloppy in preparation or proclamation, yet God's love and favor, as well as our confidence in the Word's power, relax us so that we can throw off the immobilizing tension of such problems and thus witness joyfully, to - and in- our heart's content.
This is possible because we are confident that He is always with us.
-Robert Kolb, Speaking the Gospel Today. pg. 257-258
