Well, if you have your Bible today or a device with the Bible app on it, one invite you to open up to the book of Colossians. Paul's letter to the church at Colossae, we're going to be in chapter four, starting in verse two in just a moment. So I don't think it's any secret that our culture that our society is becoming less and less Christian, these days, we see it all around us. We feel it all around us that Christianity is becoming less and less the norm for people today. I mean, there was once a time where there was mostly kind of a common Christian consensus. Now, I don't mean that to say that everyone was a Christian, that came to have a true conversion experience. I recognize that a lot of it may have been cultural Christianity. But there was still a time even with that being said that Billy Graham could fill an arena full of people and simply say, the Bible says, And that carried a lot of weight with those who were there at that time and age today, not so much you could say the Bible says, And they would say, so what? Right? I mean, it's just different. Today, Christianity is becoming less and less the norm. There are Christian groups who are losing recognition in schools and public prayers that are being banned and Christmas programs that are being banned. And we see things that are specifically outlined as sinful in Scripture that are elevated and become normalized throughout the culture that we live in. Again, it's no secret that this is happening. And it, of course, affects those of us who are believers, those of us who are sons and daughters of God, those of us who are inside the church, because honestly, we're becoming the minority within the culture. So the question is, how do we respond to that? How do we respond to our culture and the secularization of the society that we live in? Amy Sherman, who's a sociologist, and a researcher says that when she looks at the way we respond to that as Christians, that she sees three primary ways that we've tended to respond to this kind of thing as the church fortification, accommodation, or domination, fortification, meaning that we just kind of hunker down amongst ourselves, right? We try to fortify ourselves against the evils of this world and all the evil people that are out there, those who are against us, it's us in here and them out there, and we must protect ourselves from them at all costs. So this is how some of us respond to becoming a minority. We've got to protect ourselves from all that stuff that's going on out there. Others of us respond through accommodation, maybe we see what people are saying the arguments that they're making, the way that a lot of things become normalized within our society, and we just go, Well, maybe what I thought was wrong is not actually wrong. Any more, maybe it's right, because it seems to be coming. So normal these days, and we just kind of make accommodations for people to live and us however it is that we want to whatever it is that we feel is right, we can do what is right. And so we just kind of ignore what God's Word says about things or we somehow try to justify in our own minds, like I said, that it's just okay, we make accommodations for that. That's how some of us react to being a minority and the secularization of the culture around us. And then finally, others of us respond through domination, we go on the offensive and we're trying to take the culture back through calling people out by ridiculing them, calling them names attacking them and those people who are our opponents out there to put them in their place, we will beat our opponents back and use whatever means necessary to dominate them. And to take our culture back. I think if we're all honest, we can look out and probably thinking right now of different groups, different church groups, different people that come to mind that we've seen respond in all of these particular ways groups that just really hunker down and talk and primarily focus on the evil out there and we got to fortify ourselves against that groups that just have begun to make accommodations and you can't really see much difference between the church and the culture out there and other groups that have begun this domination we're gonna go on attack anything and every thing and all people that are against us, put them under place. And that's the way we're going to kind of take the culture back. But the question I have is, what about you? What about us as colonial Hills Baptist Church? How are we responding to the things that are going on in culture? Are we fortify ourselves and trying to play defense? Are we making accommodations where we kind of just blend in with the rest of culture? Are we to respond through domination and trying to take our culture back by attacking our opponents? And all of those kinds of things? are one of these right?Or is there another way that Jesus is leading us to respond? The answer to this question is found in our text. Today, we've been going verse by verse through Colossians, I asked you to turn to Colossians four, verse two, that's the section we're in. Now we're on our second to last message for this series that we've been going over the last few months. And today, as we look at these five verses, these are kind of Paul's closing remarks. He's just going to make a few closing remarks right now, after having made all this application from the spiritual truce that he outlined in the first couple of chapters. And then after this, he's going to just make some final greetings, and he'll be done with the letter. But in these final remarks, we'll see the answer to how we are to respond. When we're the minority, the secularization of our culture, the way we respond to those outside the church. So let's dive right in Colossians four, verse two, Paul starts off and says, Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. A prayer, of course, is just communicating with God. It's how we talk to God, that's what prayer is, we focus on him, and we use our words to talk to him and to make request of him and to honor Him and praise Him and all of the above. It should kind of remind us of what Paul said one chapter earlier when he said, since you've been raised with Christ, to set your hearts on things above where Christ is seated, seated at the right hand with God, and he said, Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. You've been spiritually raised up with Christ, you're one with him. And since you're in a union with Him, now, Paul's saying, Devote yourselves to talking to him to that's the way the prayer is the way that we set our hearts and our minds on the things above as we're talking to him and thinking of him and asking him how it is that he wants us to respond. When Paul says, Devote yourselves to prayer. This is a key word here, we're to recognize that as being constantly diligent in talking to God and setting our hearts and minds on him, we don't get the idea that Paul's saying, hey, when you wake up in the morning, pray one time to start your day off, and then you're done. Or you know what, right before you go to bed, pray, and then that's all it will do that. And maybe when you sit down for a meal, like being devoted to prayer certainly means praying those times and even having a set time. Or maybe you pray through a list and other things going on in your life and other people's lives. But it is also the idea of kind of praying without ceasing that we can pray whenever we're driving our car, we can pray when we're at school, we can pray in between meetings at work, we can even be kind of praying in our minds when we're in each of those situations. And so this is what Paul was talking about, whenever he says, Devote yourselves to prayer. But notice that he's talking about also specific ways to pray here. The very first thing that he says when he says Devote yourselves to prayer is to be watchful. This is a watchful kind of prayer. Well, what is it that we're supposed to be watching out for, though? No false teaching and cultural influences that go against God's word and who he is that Paul is saying this because it's tied to what it is that he's been writing about throughout this letter, one of the main reasons that he wrote this letter, you may remember in chapter two, that Paul said this, he said, I tell you this, and he's talking about Jesus, the supremacy of Christ and all that we have in him, I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine sounding arguments, right? See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ. So Hall recognizes that outside the church, there can be influences that make their way into the church. And we can be deceived by things that even sound really good, like they might be true to us. And when they do, they can take us captive and really begin to dominate our, our walk in the way that we're living our lives and all of those kinds of things. And so, having said that, now that he's closing out the letter, I think he's pointing back to that right, devote your selves to prayer, being watchful, this watchful prayer, where you're asking the Lord to, to help you keep an eye out and to see the false teachings, the influences of the things that are going on out in the world that can become so normalized and creep their way into the church, we got to be watchful for that kind of think, talking to God, about those kinds of things, that he also says, to pray with Thanksgiving or to be thankful. If you've been here with us over the last several months. You know, that's not the first time he's used that language. Paul's talked about that a lot throughout this letter. And as we've talked about before, this is such a huge emphasis, because, again, Pa has been talking about the supremacy, the superiority of Christ, the fullness of all that we have in Him, that we are complete, that it is Jesus plus nothing that equals everything that we have in, the more that we're praying and being thankful for who Christ is and what we have in Him, the less Our minds are on the things that we don't have, the things that we're lacking in our lives. And the more we're going to experience the fullness of Christ, when we're praying with thanksgiving and experiencing the life that he has provided and given to each one of us. The thing that I think we see in this when we're talking about the three different responses that we were highlighting earlier, is that of course accommodation is is is not one of the proper responses, right? I mean, if Paul is telling us to be devoted to prayer, a watchful prayer for false teaching and fine sounding arguments, then certainly the way to not respond to the things going on in the culture is to just let it come on in and make accommodations for it. And we'll just we'll just run with it and go with it. Okay. So that's certainly the thing that we see here. But Paul goes on. And we'll see that he addresses other arguments as well that we mentioned. In verses three and four. Paul had mentioned prayer. So now he asked them to pray for him and those who are serving with him on his team, he says, and pray for us to that God may open a door for our message. Why? So that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, which is what he's been talking about Christ, the hope of glory in you, Christ in you, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. You think that the apostle Paul, who eloquently wrote all of these letters and just came kind of naturally to him, apparently, he had to pray that Jesus would work in and through him to make it clear. So that should be our prayer as well. But also, we see where Paul is, for the first time in this letter, he hadn't told us or said anything about being in chains. But we see here that apparently, he's in jail. He's in jail for telling other people about Jesus for this call on his life to go and preach the gospel. And so he asks the church to pray for him in the situation that he's in. But notice, he doesn't say, hey, pray that I'll have strength. Pray that I'll have courage. You know, pray that I'll get out of here. So I can go home and prop my feet up on the recliner and all of those things. He says, No, pray for an open door to share our message. Now, who would that be? That he's asking them to pray for? Not really him.But for outsiders, for other people in open door to be able to share this message about Christ with other people who are not yet on the inside those who aren't part of the church yet. And so when Paul says this, and he asks for prayer over and open door could mean Hey, y'all pray that I'm getting out of here so I can go talk to other people in other places about Jesus. It could to mean to though just pray for an open door for for me to share with those who are punishing me right now. Those who are watching over Mi in the jail we see Paul kind of even using that language in Philippians. The another letter we looked at a year or two back where the saying the whole prison guard knows why I'm in chains as because Paul was sitting there sharing the gospel with them the whole time, right. And so either way, though, the focus is on who, those who don't yet know Jesus reaching outsiders. And so when we think about these responses that we mentioned earlier, that Amy Sherman sees most Christians responding in one of those three ways, we've seen already that we don't accommodate. But here, then we see that really, the proper response is not to, to fortify ourselves, we don't put ourselves in a bubble and in hide from the rest of the culture to try to make sure that that we're safe in here. Now, certainly, there's times where we guard against influences in those things. But again, it's the posture of not even looking for what it is that Jesus wants to do in us and through us to reach people out there. We're just too busy focusing on making sure that the evil isn't getting in here. And then we're protecting ourselves from all of those really bad people out there whom, let's be honest, Jesus died for out of his love for them as well. So this is another thing that we see with Paul's saying this, we don't, again, respond through accommodation. We don't respond through fortification. And so let's look at how he's leading us to respond. Colossians four, verse five, he goes on, it says, Be wise, in the way you act toward outsiders make the most of every opera tunity. So here, the apostle Paul had asked them first to pray for himself for his chance to be able to reach the outsiders. And sometimes we think, Well, that's the Apostle Paul. That's what he was called to do. That's not what I'm called to do. But then he comes right back after saying that, and addresses the whole church at Colossae. And he's talking to them, Be wise in the way you, he says, Now act toward outsiders. So he's addressing the response to those outside of the church, and to be wise in the way we act towards them to make the most of every opportunity to reach those who are out inside the culture, which, let's be honest, is the majority of people, especially in Paul's day and age two, that the early church was getting launched, that there was no Christian culture. They were not the dominant factor, right. There were no Christian principles that were woven into society and their government and many other people's lives. They were the minority, and they knew it. And instead of fortifying themselves against it, stead of accommodating in there. He says, Be wise in the way you act towards out ciders. Don't be influenced by culture around you don't fortify yourselves against them make the most to try to reach them. But what does that look like? How do we do that, though? Glad you asked. Because the Apostle Paul answers that question. In our final verse today. Paul says, Let your conversations always be full of grace and seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. Let your conversations be full of grace. Notice that the apostle Paul doesn't say here, to dominate those in culture, to beat them up to tear them down to put them in their place. He says to act wisely towards them to make the most of every opportunity. And the way that you do that is to let your conversation always be full of grace and seasoned with salt. That is the way to win the culture war. That is the way to respond when we're becoming a minority within society. Many of you know who Philip Yancey is he's a Christian author. He's written a number of books over the last, I don't know 20, maybe 30 years or so. I can't name all of them. Jesus, the Jesus I never knew is a real popular and maybe that's one that you've read before. One of my favorites is what's so amazing about grace. He originally wrote it in 2002. And it was really a lot about reaching the culture and our response to what was happening in culture even at that time. But of course, 20 years goes by and even lots changed in culture since then, and so he wrote a second edition kind of up stating things and what it really kind of looks like now and and he was asked about it he was asked why it is that he's revisiting the subject and trying to update certain things and in and I loved his response because it really kind of ties into what I think Paul is saying here and what he's leading us to do and the way we're gonna respond. Philip Yancey said we we hear nowadays about Christian groups losing University recognition, public prayers, Christmas displays being banned, we feel on the defensive, and that we're the outliers. But much of Christian history has been lived this way. Like it was during the Roman Empire, when a small number of Christians modeled another way to live that was different from the culture. So he says, in a culture like ours, we need to demonstrate first how faith in Christ makes a difference in the way that we live. And he goes on to say, what we need to do is to create pioneer settlements that show the world a different Grace based way of living. In other words, be wise in the way that you act towards outsiders. And let your conversation always be full of grace with them, and seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. There's a lot of times where the apostle Paul talks about the content, right about what the gospel is. And certainly that's involved in the conversations that we're to have with people on the outside to be able to help them see who Jesus is and what it is that he's done for them. But that's not what the Apostle Paul is talking about here. What's the Apostle Paul talking about? How to have those conversations, apparently, the content isn't the only thing that's important. How we share the content, how we engage people, in conversations, to be able to point them to Christ really does matter. Do we share it with grace, full of grace. And when he says to, to have it seasoned with salt, that's just a way of saying to share it in a way that's gracious in a way that's warm in a way that is attractive, when our hearts and minds are set on Jesus. This is the way that he will lead us to respond to those outside the church. Those who are not for us, but against us. Those who are even making decisions that are pushing us into the corner, those who are making our lives, miserable those that we love, to hate, because of what it is that they've done to us. Jesus will always lead us to have conversations with them. We're not hiding from them. We're not joining them and accommodating things. We're not trying to dominate them and beat them up, put them in their place, make fun of them in front of others. That will lead us to have conversations that are full, full, but partly full of grace, and seasoned with salt. So when we think about what Paul is saying here, and what is he saying to you? What is he saying to you today about these truths and your response to the culture and those on the outside? What is he saying to us as colonial Hills Baptist Church? I think the first thing when we're trying to answer that question is we really need to have an honest assessment of our habits and how it is that we've been responding Jesus. Would you reveal to me the ways the honest ways that I've been responding to those outside the culture? And if we look at our habits and the things that we've been saying, Would we notice that we've been about mostly fortifying ourselves, gosh, Ijust hate to see what I was going out there. So many bad people, all these people are making our life miserable. We got his high, we got to hunker down. We got to make sure that we as the church were in here, we're right, they're wrong. They're out there. And we just we do everything there's we can to make sure that nothing gets their way in here. never gone out. Just gotta block play defense. Maybe that's where you're at. Maybe that's how you see yourself responding. A lot of times. If you looked at your habits, would you say would Jesus reveal? Maybe you've been accommodating? Maybe you started to take things in a culture that had been normalized and going you know what? I bet there's really nothing wrong with that. Seems mostly like people think that's right today and you've just started engaging in behaviors and other things along with culture. because, well, I know it used to say in the Bible, or maybe it still does. But everybody today seems that that's kind of outdated and no longer applies to us now. And maybe Jesus would reveal to you that that's been your response, if you can't beat them, let's just join them. They seem to be having a little fun, right? Or would Jesus lead you to see that maybe you're the one that's trying to dominate other people, you're the one that's posting on social media all the time about your opponents, and the people out there who are are making life difficult and trying to beat them down and and take the culture back by dominating them and putting them in their place and making fun of them and helping other people see how how wrong they are. And we're trying to humiliate them and just make sure that they get what's common for them, right. We've got to keep in mind when we see that again. And if the Lord reveals that to us, sometimes we feel like we're standing up for truth, right? We're putting those people in place, who are who are making all these terrible decisions and helping normalize all this stuff that's going on in our society. And that's our way of standing up to what those things are. And yet the Apostle Paul says, Let your conversation be full of grace, would you say that acting out in that domineering, dominating way? Is being full of grace? I don't think you could really make that argument. Yeah, that's the way a lot of us tend to react towards these things, we must keep in mind again, that as much as we can sometimes hate what's happening around us. And the decisions that other people are making that are affecting us in those ways, that as Jesus was allowing them to drive nails through his hands, he was thinking about those very people that we love to hate so much. He was dying for them, so that they too, could have eternal life. If that was the attitude of Jesus, then why do we think it's our place to think any differently of them, we can separate what it is that they're doing and their behavior and those things from the people themselves, and learn to pray for them. To allow our conversations be full of grace and seasoned with salt, quite honestly,when we think about where we're at, where the early church was, when he was writing this, and what we see happen, come out of the early church, maybe it's a good thing, that we become the minority minority. I mean, I don't mean that in a way where I want just as much as you for us to be so influential in our society, where things are good for people, and the Lord is impacting them. And they're making a difference in all of those things. But then we saw the early church when they were the minority, and anything far from being the majority in the culture and having any power within it all of a sudden be used by Jesus in such a powerful transformational way that we're still talking about it today. And so maybe as we get pushed further and further back into the corner, we are forced to keep our eyes on Jesus and set our hearts and minds on him so that he'll lead us to live out in a different way, and be so radically different than the culture that they can't help but notice that and want to be a part of it, because even though they're attacking us, we're still full of grace in the way that we approach them. The this might be who Jesus is calling us as colonial Hills Baptist Church to be put us in this community. To be for this community. That means for those on the outside, even those who are against us, and making decisions that are making our lives more difficult. So let's be about that. Let's set our hearts and minds on Jesus and allow him to use us to be wise in the way that we act towards outsiders, and to let our conversations be full of grace, when seasoned with salt,