Proclaiming Christ to the Max

Imagine you are a medic on the front line during the Second World War. You have a tiny bottle of medicine that can save a wounded soldier’s life, but it is the only bottle you have. As you move through the battlefield, you come across wounded men everywhere.

Would you casually open the bottle and start pouring?

Of course not. You would handle it with extraordinary care. Every opportunity to use it would be precious.

God has entrusted something infinitely more valuable to us: the message of reconciliation through Jesus Christ. We live every day among people who are dying and need to hear the gospel.

So how do we make the most of those opportunities?

Paul gives us the answer in Colossians 4:5–6:

“Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” — Colossians 4:5–6 (ESV)

Paul begins with how we live. Christians are citizens of heaven, but God has deliberately left us in this world. We live, work and interact with people who do not yet know Christ. Walking in wisdom means living in such a way that the pre-eminence of Christ is visible in our ordinary lives.

Then Paul speaks about how we use opportunities. God has entrusted the message of reconciliation to people like us. We are weak and inadequate, like jars of clay, but the weakness of the messenger does not diminish the power of the message. Our part is small, but it is real.

And then Paul addresses how we speak.

Our speech should be gracious. Grace concerns the way we treat the person we are speaking to. But Paul adds that our speech should also be “seasoned with salt”.

Don’t confuse being gracious with being bland.

Gracious speech can be kind without being empty, gentle without being dull and respectful without simply saying whatever keeps the conversation comfortable.

Grace asks, “How am I treating this person?”

Salt asks, “Is what I am saying worth hearing?”

Gospel conversations are not sermons delivered to people. They are conversations with people. We listen, understand and respond to the person in front of us.

That is what we see when Jesus speaks with the Samaritan woman in John 4. He engages her, listens to her responses and answers her questions. Through the conversation, he brings her face to face with the truth about herself—and ultimately with the truth about himself.

Being heavenly-minded does not make us less useful on earth.

It makes us more useful—because the pre-eminence of Christ flavours our ordinary lives and opens our mouths to declare the mystery of Christ.

Listen to the full sermon here.