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Colossians 4:3-6 – Preaching from ChristChurch London’s Sunday Service

SLIDE:
Title: How to win the world (Colossians 4:3-6)

This is talk number 10 in our series of 11 sermons on Paul’s letter to the Colossians, and ever since we started this series I’ve been longing for this Sunday to come. I’ve literally been counting down the weeks.

Because today, we get to talk about the most exciting thing that anyone could ever do with their life. Today we get to talk about the most important thing that any of us could ever do during the short time we are on this planet.

This truth we’re talking about today is the most exhilarating, the most mind-blowing. It’s so empowering and faith-building that it’s very hard to believe that it’s true. But it is true!

You know some nights, I lie in bed or I gaze out the window at the stars and I think . . . The same God who made the universe has chosen to channel his love to lost people through me. God has given me the privilege of re-directing human beings from hell to heaven! I lie there and I think . . . eternity is a very long time. Eternity is a long time for anyone to spend either in heaven or in hell. Every single person I meet tomorrow is going to spend forever either in heaven or in hell. What could possibly be more important than where they spend eternity? And the great news is that anyone can be saved. That’s how huge God’s love is. The Bible says that: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” God loves people so much that he gave his only son, and he’s chosen to channel that message through me! Imagine the most love there could ever be, poured out lavishly on lost people, through you and me! But first they’ve got to hear the good news about Jesus, so they can believe in Jesus and get their sins forgiven. But the Bible asks a logical question: “how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard, and how can they hear without someone preaching to them?”

That’s where you and I come in.

The other day, as we were driving along in the car, Julia said to me “a funny thing happened today. So and so came up to me at the schoolgate, and said: ‘Julia I’ve heard about what you’ve done for some of the other mums, and I need a session. In fact I may need several sessions and I’ll pay you.’ I say to Julia: “Are you telling me that so-and-so is offering to pay you to witness to her?” Julia said: “yes”. I said “that is fantastic, how much are you going to charge?” I mean it’s got to be more than the minimum wage hasn’t it!

What do I learn from that: In every office, and at every school gate, there’s one person who’s thinking: “there’s got to be more to life than this.”

Have you ever before in your whole life realized how important you are! How valuable you are! How much God is with you. How much God through Christ is in you! What riches, what treasures, God has placed in your lap to give away to others! You are God’s plan. You are God’s masterpiece. When we read Colossians we discover that . . .

SLIDE:
“God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:27)

And so . . . God has chosen to make known among my non-Christian friends, the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in Adrian Holloway, and for them, that’s the hope of glory.

And God has chosen to make known among your friends and your colleagues, the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you. And Christ in you is the hope of glory for them.

SLIDE:
Title: How to win the world (Colossians 4:3-6)

And in our passage today in Colossians 4 we find out “How to win the world”.

Well my story is that when I didn’t go to church, and I didn’t know anyone my age who did, a 15 year old girl called Caroline Payne invited 20 of her friends to church. I was one of the 20. And nine months later, on 14th April 1985, I crossed the line of faith, at Queen’s Road Baptist Church in Wimbledon, and I told all my friends about it, for the simple reason that I thought “I’ve lived here all these years, and nobody ever told me that if you go into the town centre, go past the Civic Hall, and then about 200 yards up Queens Road on the left hand side, there’s a building, and if you go in there, you can find out that God is real.”

My gospel message at this stage was essentially a list of directions.

And so on the day after I became a Christian, aged 16, I started telling people at school about Jesus.

And I went on a series of adventures of faith. Every morning, I’d pray and I’d name particular friends from school, and I’d ask: “Lord, please give me a divine appointment with say, Nick Pimlott in the lunch queue at school today, so I can tell them about Jesus.” Lunchtime came, I’m standing in the queue, and there he was. So then I’d pray for the chance to speak to Andy De Groot, or Anthony Vandersteen. And every single time I asked, it happened. So after 2 years of doing this, my faith was absolutely sky high, and we started to see people become Christians. And it snowballed to the extent that one or two teachers, became curious and they began to let us take school assemblies, and even whole lessons. Well I can remember a double period of A level history, that’s one hour and twenty minutes, and I remember the teacher, who wasn’t a Christian, starting the lesson by saying to me: “Adrian, why don’t you just talk to us about speaking in tongues? We were supposed to be doing Tudors and Stuarts, but did speaking in tongues instead, which as far as I know the Tudors and Stuarts never did. But over those two years, people became Christians, and eventually, the high point of my school career was just before we left, on one unforgettable day when my friend James Lewisohn accused Julian McCorquoradale of only becoming a Christian because it was “trendy”.

And I thought “yes.”

Now, since that time, I’ve continued to share Jesus with people as I’ve gone through life. And over the last 20 years I’ve seen many people come to faith in Christ.

You might think “that’s a good story.” You know what I think? Caroline Payne. Humanly speaking, if you were to ask me why I’m in Christ today. You could say ‘it’s because one 15-year old girl took courage in her hands and one Friday night said to 20 of her friends: “how would you all like to come with me to my church on Sunday evening?”

All 20 of us turned up, but within a month, most of the 20 had dwindled away, but 4 of the 20 stuck, one of the 4 was me, and I became a Christian, and that’s how come I’m here tonight.

And to encourage you, and to bring the story right up to date, I want to introduce you now to three people who’ve crossed the line of faith recently on our Alpha Course. Let’s meet David, Lizzie, and Matt – why don’t you come up and join me!

INTERVIEWS WITH: Matt Wilson, Lizzie Crossthwaite and David Gibbons

Now I know the three people in Christ Church, who invited those three onto Alpha. Can you imagine how exciting it is for them to see their friend, not only in church, but on stage giving their testimony?

Now I’ve not preached about evangelism since we were at the New Connaught Rooms, two and a half years ago, and that means that most of you will have never heard me speak on this subject before.

And so tonight, I want to invite you into a crazy adventure. It’s the most exciting adventure you could ever go on. Because it’s the adventure that Jesus is on. It’s where Jesus is. Because Jesus is on the move. The first thing Jesus says to us is: “come follow me, and I’ll make you fishers of men.” The last thing Jesus says to us is: “Go and preach the good news to all creation. Go make disciples, baptizing them.” And it’s as we “Go” that Jesus says “I’ll be with you always even to the end of the age.” God’s heart is for lost people. That’s why, when Jesus came on the scene, he spent his time with lost people. Jesus said: “I haven’t come to call the righteous but sinners.” Jesus said “it’s not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick.” The apostle Paul said that: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Jesus said of himself: “I have come into the world to seek and save the lost.”

But how? How do we do it? Well as we pick up today in Colossians chapter 4 verse 3, we find out how to win the world.

SLIDE:
3. Pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. 4. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should.
5. Be wise in the way you act towards outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. 6. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.
(Colossians 4:3-6)

So Paul is writing this letter from prison. He’s under house arrest in Rome awaiting trial. He’s spent two years in prison, first in Caesarea, now in Rome. And we know quite a lot about this period of house arrest because it’s described for us at the very end of the book of Acts, in chapter 28, which ends with Paul alive and well in prison in Rome, awaiting trial.

So while in prison in Rome, he writes his letter to the Colossians, and in chapter 4 verse 3, we’re at the very end of a long section that began way back at the start of chapter 3. Chapter 3 was all about how we should behave towards one another within the church. Now in our passage today, Paul’s focus turns outside. How are we, as Christians, to relate to the rest of the world?

He says:

3. Pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains.
4. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should.
5. Be wise in the way you act towards outsiders; make the most of every opportunity.
6. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

So in verses 3 and 4 we are talking to God about people, and 5 and 6 we are talking to people about God.

And to summarize the passage we just read:

SLIDE:
Question: How do we relate to Non-Christians?
Answer: Colossians 4:3-6

a) We pray for them to hear the gospel clearly (Colossians 4: 3–4)
b) We behave wisely toward them in our actions and with warmth towards them in our conversation (Colossians 4: 5-6)

Firstly, we pray for them to hear the gospel clearly (Colossians 4: 3–4). Secondly, we behave wisely toward them in our actions and with warmth towards them in our conversation (Colossians 4: 5-6).

So firstly, Paul wants the Colossians to pray that non-Christians should hear the gospel clearly. Verse 3

SLIDE.
Title: How to win the world to Christ
a) We pray for them to hear the gospel clearly (Col 4:3-4)
3. Pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should.

Pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should.

Now if it had been me in prison in Rome, I would have said to the Colossians: “Mayday! Mayday! I’m in prison. Please pray like mad that God will get me out of here. We need a rescue plan. Mayday! Mayday!”

But Paul takes a rather more strategic view of his situation than I would. So he says to the Colossians: Pray for us, that God may open a door . . .

Yes exactly, the prison door? To get him out of prison?

No . . . a door for our message. That God may open a door for our message.

Now why would he want to stay in prison?

Answer: Because he’s in Rome.

He’s at the centre of the universe. If there’s anywhere on earth, where Paul wants to stay, so that he can get the gospel out, it’s Rome . . . the most strategic capital city in Europe.

Remember it was Paul who, when on trial in Israel, appealed to Caesar. Paul wanted to be taken to Rome. At the end of Acts 26, Agrippa says to Festus: “This bloke, Paul, could have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar.” In other words Agrippa’s saying, “If Paul wasn’t so determined to have his case heard in Rome, we could just set him free from his chains right now, here in Israel.” But Paul didn’t want to be free in Israel. No Paul wanted to be shipped off to Rome. Paul is happy to be imprisoned if that means that he can get on a ship to the most strategic capital city in Europe.

I wonder, just in passing, what is considered today, to be the most strategic capital city in Europe today? Oh, yes, it’s London. And what is considered to be the most strategic language in the world today, which people all over the world are falling over themselves to learn? Oh yes, it’s English. Conclusion: if you’re a human being, and you want to change the world, living in London is a smart move.

Look, let’s be honest . . . in the eyes of some, living in London, especially when you have 3 young children, like Julia and I do, doesn’t make much sense. But when you look at the world like Paul does, it makes perfect sense.

Seeing as God has given us a message that has the potential to change our nation for good, where should I live? Hmmnn! Where are we most likely to influence, politics, the media, culture, music, the arts? Where can we influence the greatest number of people in the shortest amount of time? If I want to influence the influencers where should I live? Easy. London.

And that’s one of the reasons why 20 people moved here 4 years ago to start Christ Church, London.

But what is the message, which Paul is so excited about? Paul describes it in verse 3 as “the mystery of Christ.”

Well there’s an enigmatic phrase. What is the mystery of Christ? Well Paul has already told us, as we’ve seen. In Colossians 1:27 he says:

SLIDE:
“God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
(Colossians 1:27)

Does Christ now live in a temple? In a cloud? In a tomb? No, Christ now lives in fashion editors from Clapham! In studio managers from Camden! Christ lives in dancers from Balham, and journalists, and doctors and nurses! Christ lives in you!

I know if I’m a journalist, there may be 100 non-Christians in my office who have no plans to go to church next week, but that’s not a problem because at 9.00am when I step out of that lift, Christ in me has arrived in that office. They may have no plans to read the bible this week, but that’s not a problem, because Christ in me has just walked into their day.

But, we must watch both, how we live and how we talk . . .

SLIDE:
Title: How to win the world to Christ (Col 4:3-6)
b) Wisdom in our behaviour (vs 5) and warmth in our conversation (vs 6)
5. Be wise in the way you act towards outsiders;

Be wise in the way you act towards outsiders. We must show wisdom in our behaviour. A blameless life lays the foundation for a gracious witness.

There is power of Christian living. Whenever I ask a believer: “how did you become a Christian.” The answer is almost always, “well there was this bloke in my hall of residence, or there was this girl on my course, or there was this woman in the office.” And then “it was her kindness,” or “it was his integrity, his authenticity.” Every testimony has phrases like: “it was the way she lived her life,” or “he had something I didn’t have” or “he had time for me.”

Wise living will attract people to the Christ in us.

Next,

SLIDE:
make the most of every opportunity. (Colossians 4: 5)

I have found that almost every social contact with a non-Christian on a level playing field is an opportunity. It all depends on how you define “opportunity.”

And rather than just tell you my best stories, which will make it all sound totally unrealistic, I thought I’d tell you about some non-Christian friends of ours, none of whom have so far become Christians.

And I just thought I’d explain how we originally met them, as a pointer in terms of how we can make the most of every opportunity . . .

SLIDE:
Title: How to win the world (Colossians 4:3-6)
1. Neighbours

One day, as I left the house in the morning, I saw a neighbour, who I hadn’t met before, I’ll call him David, getting his kids into his car, and, his kids looked the same sort of age as mine, so I said: “Hi, we live at number 23” and his face lit up. He said: “Oh, I’m absolutely delighted to meet you.” And I’m thinking, “wow, he’s friendlier than I am!” Now I could tell from a few things he said that he wasn’t a Christian. So I say, “Oh, we’ll have to meet up sometime and our children can meet each other,” He says: “Yeah, let’s meet up lots of times.” I’m thinking ‘wow, he’s friendlier than I am.’ I can tell you that they are genuinely about the friendliest family I know. And here’s the deal. They can’t work out the fact that our church meets in a West End theatre, so he says, “I don’t know anything about religion, but have you read the Da Vinci Code.” I say, “as a matter of fact I have,” and off we go, and we’re onto the Templars, conspiracy theories, secret societies, and who was Jesus, and was he God.

Now neither he nor his wife have yet been converted, but that couple are part of our world, and we’re not going to give up on them, and here’s the lesson I learned: If you say hello to a few neighbours, you’ll flush out any who are friendlier than you are.

Whenever you move to a new flat, say hello to a new neighbours, invite them over for some sort of flat-warming. None of them will be offended. A surprisingly large number of them will turn up. The worst thing that can happen is that they just think of you as a friendly person. It’s worked for us. We’ve reached hundreds of people by doing that.

SLIDE:
Title: How to win the world (Colossians 4:3-6)
2. Parties, weddings and social occasions on neutral territory.

Folks, sometimes, even here in England, you and I get invited to social events where it’s normal to talk to people you haven’t met before. For example, we went to this local multi-cultural evening in a school hall. And I got talking to a man who was wearing a Haiwaian shirt, a Mexican hat, and a grass skirt. I’ve no idea why. Oh, yeah, cos it was a multi-cultural evening. Anyway, I ask him, where are you from? “Iraq”, he says. Much later on I ask him: “Would you say that everyone in Iraq is a Moslem? He says: “We need to talk.” And he beckons me over for a sort of secret private conversation to the bar. He looks around, makes sure the coast is clear, and then he says: “I have completely rejected Islam.” I look around, I check that the coast is clear, and I say: “So have I”.

He says: “No way! We need to talk about this. We should exchange phone numbers. You need to come over, bring your family.

He says: “Come over for dinner, and my wife, who’s a doctor, will cook you and your family a full Kurdistani dinner.”

So we arrange a date, and he says: “Come over on Saturday at 3.30pm.”

I think, “wow, we’re making a day of it. I guess we’ll have dinner in the evening.”

It just so happens we have a late lunch on the Saturday just before we go over there, and I have a Big Mac Meal and a large strawberry milkshake. We go over at 3.30pm, and she says: “How wonderful to see you let’s sit down and have dinner,” and we sit down and she brings out mountains of food. It’s 3.30pm, and I’m full of strawberry milkshake.

Well I can tell you I have never felt so bloated in all my life. Almost passing out. Thank you Lord for Ronald McDonald!

I’m feeling so fat by this stage, I was actually able to roll around the flat. Anyway, he tells me why he’s rejected Islam, and that he has nothing to replace it with. And we’re away. Now he and his wife haven’t become Christians yet.

But do you know what, when we got up to leave, he said to us: “We want to be with you. We want you to be our friends.”

And recently, when he and I were talking in the swimming pool at Family Splash, kids may be drowning elsewhere and he said he wanted his 7 year old daughter to become a Christian and get baptised. The lesson I learn from that is: if you are willing to speak to people you don’t know at social functions, God will bring to you those who he knows are spiritually open or searching.

SLIDE:
Title: How to win the world (Colossians 4:3-6)
3. Those we work with

Few jobs provide much opportunity for evangelism in the work place. I continually meet Christians who feel condemned that when they’re on the job they don’t witness more than they do. Now I used to work in a 24 hour newsroom. I was presenting on television, and let’s just say it was a pressurized environment. When you’re living in that kind of intense situation with tensions running high, I would not have been doing a great job if I’d spent a lot of my time in the newsroom witnessing to other employees. Nor, even through my job, which was broadcasting sports news, would it have been appropriate for me to communicate the gospel. For example, if I’m on air and I’m reading the football results and I’m saying: “Barclays Premiership: Arsenal 1 Manchester United 0, Chelsea 2 West Ham United 0, Everton 1 But God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that if any of you football fans should believe in him you won’t perish but have eternal life.” Now if I’d said that on air, I could have turned up at church the next day and said: “I was pretty radical today! Guess which verse I managed to get into the sports news today? John 3:16.” Now that might have been considered radical, but you know what, I would have got sacked, because I wasn’t being employed to do that. Which is an important distinction.

I viewed my working life, as an opportunity to come over to my boss as primarily, one thing, a team player. That was my ambition. I wanted him to think: “Adrian pulls for the team.” I wanted everyone in the office to feel good about my contribution. So my goal was to try and build up a positive reputation in the office, so that when work-related social occasions come round, and I mentioned church, I’m starting from a position of strength.

So what we’re really doing at work is building up credibility by the way we do our job, waiting for social opportunities to come round (e.g. Friday evenings after work, somebody’s leaving do, somebody’s wedding) so that when after work, when they say, “what are you doing this weekend?” and our answer includes something to do with church, they’re curious, because they’ve already favourably disposed towards you.

SLIDE:
Title: How to win the world (Colossians 4:3-6)
4. Leisure Time

Maybe you’re in one of our life groups, but you don’t yet have eight non-Christian contacts who you are praying for. If so, then I have a wonderfully releasing question for you . . . what do you enjoy doing?

Your thing might be motorbikes, for somebody else it might be upholstery, for somebody else it might be learning to speak fluent French.

The person next to you, their thing, wouldn’t even vaguely interest you, but your thing . . .

So there are people who like military history. So you’ve got all your little soldiers in little rows. And I’ve got my marble, and you’ve got your marble, and then I roll my marble, and I knock some of yours over, and you get yours and you knock some of mine over.

And then there are other people and they say: “No, we don’t want to mess around with toy soldiers, let’s do it in real life, so they dress up in chain mail, and they go out into the countryside, and ‘I am Arthur’, and they sort of slay each other, and they say: “I am slain. Woe, woe, thrice woe, you have slain me.” And they fall over in fields in Wiltshire, and they drive back to London, and say to each other: “What a Great Day. Woooh, let’s do it again next year.” That’s their thing.

Now what’s your thing? Because there are people, who don’t know Jesus yet, who live in your part of London and they are passionate about the same thing that you are. And get this: they would really like to meet you.

Because then you could go rollerblading, or talk about books or whatever it is.

So you can communicate the gospel to your world and have the time of your life while you’re doing it!

This verse says, make the most of every opportunity.

Now strictly speaking, if we define an opportunity as when a someone just asks you out of the blue: “How did you become a Christian?” then we each have only only 1 or 2 opportunities a year at most.

SLIDE:
Literal translation: “Buying up every opportunity.” (Col 4:5b)

“the verb is drawn from the commercial language of the market place, and it’s prefix denotes an intense activity, a buying which exhausts the possibilities available, signifying the personal interest of the subject.” Peter O’Brien – Word Biblical Commentary “Colossians.”

“The verb literally means “buying up” or “buying out”: it [means] that every opportunity is to be snapped up like a bargain.” NT Wright “Colossians.”

However, the commentators tell us that the Greek here actually means, snapping up a bargain. In other words, you and I go hunting for a bargain. That’s what Paul has in mind.

And by that definition, almost any conversation is an opportunity.

So let me tell you what I do. I have discovered that providing it’s a social situation, where the pressure is off, and we’ve got some time, I’ve discovered that roughly half the people I speak to 1 on 1 are willing to talk about Christianity. Of course, when I start I have no idea whether this particular person is in the 50 per cent who will or the 50 per cent who won’t, so I just feed them comments, which they can chew on if they want to.

So If I’m at a party for example . . .

I am interested in them. So I ask “what do you do?” “where are you from?” “where do you live?”

And whatever they say, if we talk long enough, I can find a natural link to something from my life or my past to somehow mention the fact that I go to church.

At which point about half the people I get this far with, will then ask:

“have you always been religious?”

And that gets me onto my testimony, and I can give them the 30 second version or the 1 minute version, or if the circumstances are right, it could be the 30 minute version.

In other words, I’m prepared, and we’ll get to that in a moment.

SLIDE:
6. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, (Colossians 4:6)

Our conversation should be gracious, loving, understanding of others, and should reveal a life filled with grace. In those three questions, I am asking them about them. I want to know about them. Get them talking about what they want to talk about. The more you do, the more they’ll relax, and the more likely it is that they’ll reverse the question.

So our conversation should be full of grace, but also seasoned with salt.
“Salty speech” was a common expression from the world of Greek rhetoric. Salty speech was witty, engaging, attractive, sharp, “salty speech” captured peoples attention. There’s actually a bit of flavour in what you have to say.

So there are loads of salty hooks that you can throw out.

So for example if they do ask: “Have you always been religious?”

I’ll might say, “you know for many years I never understood the difference between Religion and Christianity.”

Now for some people that’ll intrigue them, and they’ll pursue it. And I’m in . . .

Folks, almost all the evangelism I do is with men, and I usually end up talking about football, because about 75 per cent of blokes want to talk about football, and it so happens that I have an almost encyclopedic knowledge of football. I can’t do cars. I don’t do women. But I do football big time.

But I’ve got loads of ways of linking from football onto the spiritual side of life. So this week, for example, the world player of the year, Kaka is coming to London, when AC Milan play Arsenal. Kaka is a born again Christian. And I’ve got loads of trivia on Kaka that people who are into football might want to chew on. Something is happening right now that has never happened before . . . The best player in the world is going around wearing a T shirt that says: “I belong to Jesus” on the front and “God is faithful” on the back. Well that’s a bit different from our own Wayne Rooney, God bless him.

So I make it my business to get loads of other stuff to appeal to all sorts of different people. Let me be totally honest with you. If I go to any party, I will make it my business to be the most interesting person to talk to in the room. I want to make an impression. Because Jesus is in the people business, I am too!

SLIDE:
so that you may know how to answer everyone.
(Colossians 4:6)

Now here again, this gives the impression that people are asking.

And the idea, here, is that if (verse 5) we live wisely and if our conversation is full of grace and seasoned with salt, people will be attracted to the Christ in us, and they will ask us questions.

And the Bible is clear that we should prepare for these questions . . .

SLIDE:
“Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.” (1 Peter 3:15-16)

Folks, I have been talking to people about Jesus every week for 20 years. In that time, I have discovered that there are basically only 7 questions that non-Christians ask, and I have refined my answer to every single one to make it as gracious and salty as possible.

And as I’m speaking Perhaps the band could come forward

So if they say this . . . I say that. And obviously if we went through my answer to every question we ever get asked, we’d be here all night, but the good news is that if you want to hear my answer, in the form of a conversation, then you get it by going to the stalls bar when we finish this meeting, and picking up a copy of my book Aftershock. I get none of the royalties. I give all the royalties away.

So finally, folks right now we are a church of 400, and we’d love to be a church of 800. Right now we’re planning on how we are going to get there, and I’m sure that it’ll look different. We’ll be doing some new things we’ve never done before, and we’ll do some things differently. But let’s not forget lost people. Because they matter to God so much that he sent Jesus to die for them.

Folks while we are alive, and living in London, let us make the most of every opportunity, so that more Matts, more Lizzies, and more David’s can stand on this stage and say: that Jesus Christ has saved my soul.

Let me just finish with Paul’s prayer . . .

Philemon verse 6 says:

SLIDE:
“I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.” (Philemon vs 6)

Folks here’s what Paul had learned, if you want to enjoy the Christian life, get active in sharing your faith. If you want to really have a full understanding of every good thing you have in Christ, then follow Jesus on this crazy adventure, because that is how we will win the world.

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