Living a Dual Life

I would invite you to meet me this evening in Colossians chapter 4. Colossians chapter 4, we're going to look this evening at verses 2 through 6. We're going to talk to you tonight about living a dual life. Now please notice that I did not say living a double life. There's a difference between living a double life and living a dual life. If you live a double life it means that what you are in private does not correspond to what you are in public. You can put forth a good public face but in private you're not the same person. Or inwardly you're not the same person that you appear to be outwardly. That's living a double life. That's a hypocritical life. That's not something that's good. But a dual life is pictured in this little stick figure there. Living a dual life simply recognizes that we live with two perspectives in mind. We live with a vertical perspective which is a focus on our relationship with God. But we also live with a horizontal perspective which is a focus on our relationship with others. And that dual perspective, that dual way of life must be always kept in mind by the believer. Because we have a relationship with God that must be cultivated and maintained. But we also have a very real relationship with other people. That must be cultivated and maintained as well. There's a sense in which that is exactly what Paul talks about in Colossians chapter 4 verses 2 through 6. As he begins to close out this letter, he is talking with us about the practical implications of the Lordship of Christ. Remember that the theme of the letter to the Colossians is the Lordship of Christ. Chapter 1, God's or Christ's Lordship and Creation and the Church. Chapter 2, his Lordship in doctrine as Paul goes head to head with a cult that was spreading it in Sidious teaching around the Colossian area. And so he talks about how Christ is the focus of our theology, of our doctrine, what we believe. Then in chapters 3 and 4, he talks about Christ's Lordship in the Christian life, in practical living for the Christian, how Christ is to be our Lord. And as he draws to a close in verses 2 through 6, he talks about two important relationships that we have. Our relationship with God and our relationship with others, specifically our relationship with unbelievers. And so he talks about how we should live in relationship with God and how we should live in relationship with other people. We should never forget that as Christians, we live in communion with God, but we also live in contact with other people. We live for the eye of God, but we live under the scrutiny of others. There's always that dual life that we need to keep in mind. And so there's a wonderful balance in these verses between how to strengthen your relationship with God while at the same time strengthening your relationship with others, particularly unbelievers. Both must be guarded, maintained and cultivated. Let's see first of all in verses 2 through 4, what he has to say about our relationship to God. The focus of Paul's teaching about our relationship to God is prayer. And if we're going to cultivate, maintain, develop our relationship with God, we've got to focus on the subject of prayer. So Paul talks about that in these verses. And his first word to us is a challenge to pray. He gives us the challenge to pray in verse 2 where he says, devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. Now it's very easy to see that Paul says three things about prayer in that passage. In the challenge to pray, he gives us three commands really or talks about three areas of prayer, three concerns that he has about prayer. The first is faithfulness where he says devote yourselves to prayer. What does it mean to devote yourself to prayer? Well, the best word to describe it would be the word faithfulness. Because Paul is talking about that in our prayer life we need to be consistent, we need to be faithful, we need to give constant attention to prayer. Now you can get real legalistic with this if you want. You can say, well, you know the Bible requires people, you should pray 30 minutes a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year if you miss one day, you're out. I mean you're just, you're disqualified from being a godly person. You can get real legalistic with that kind of thing. But I think the scriptures that although they do not paint any kind of schedule, any kind of specific, you know, how much per day, how many days should you have a prayer time. I think the Bible does without getting that specific teach us that we should be concerned about consistent prayer, that we should develop a consistent prayer life. And that is sometime each day as much as is possible and there are days where that is difficult to do. There are days where you get up and you're running from the moment you get up at whatever time, five o'clock or whatever till the time you lay your head back on your pillow at night and it is absolutely not possible for you to spend a concentrated time in prayer. I expect to have one of those days tomorrow. I leave tomorrow for Atlanta for some board meetings for a mission organization that I'm on the board for source of light. We use their material in our jail minister here, Jim Simmons does. And so our board meetings started about 11.45. So I'll leave here between 4.30 and the morning. Board meetings go till 9.30 to morning. I'll get some prayer time maybe in the car but I won't get the normal prayer time that I would have. And there are days like that for all of us where you just don't have that time where you can sit down and get alone with God and pull out your prayer list and really go through things. But I think what the scriptures would say is as consistently as you possibly can, devote yourself. Faithful in prayer but not only as faithfulness in prayer, consistency, faithfulness in prayer also means persevering in prayer. It means not quitting, sticking with it. Look at these verses where the Lord encourages us through His Word not to quit in prayer. Jesus said in Luke 18 verse 1, then Jesus told us disciples and parables showed them that they should always pray and not give up. Don't give up and He told them a story about that. To encourage them, don't give up, don't quit. Be faithful, persevering in prayer. You say, well I've prayed about that matter for two days. Not enough. Keep up, just keep praying. You know you've heard stories of people like George Mueller who prayed for over 60 years for the salvation of three friends and did not see that prayer answered. Before he died but all three of those men came to know Christ shortly after he died. He didn't give up, he didn't quit. So stay constant, stay persevering in prayer. Paul says in Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 18, and pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests with this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. Just underline all the alls in that passage. But the one I would focus on this evening is always be alert and always keep on praying. Don't quit, don't stop. Just stick with it. Keep on praying. Be faithful in prayer. That's what it means to devote yourselves to prayer. The writer of Hebrews says much the same thing and Hebrews 116 when he says, and without faith it is impossible to please God. Because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists, and here it is, and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. Now to earnestly seek him means that you don't quit. I mean if you make one request, it's not answered and you give up, that's not very earnest. So it means you stick with it, you persevere in it, you're faithful in prayer. So the first issue related to prayer and our relationship with God is faithfulness. The second is this alertness. Notice what he says, being watchful alertness. Every means to give attention to or to be awake, it talks about the spirit and the manner of prayer. Stay awake when you pray. Now sometimes that needs to be, that advice needs to be taken quite literally, right? At a roommate in college who had a pattern of having his devotions in bed before he got out of bed every morning. And most times I would find him about five minutes later with his Bible on his chest, and he's snoring. Now I think he would probably say, you know, those are what the Bible talks about, groanings that cannot be uttered, the spirit making intercession with groanings that cannot be uttered, that kind of prayer. But that wasn't really, he was asleep. And I don't know if he felt like the Bible would get into his heart by osmosis? What? But he just, you know, fall asleep, having devotions. This is probably one of the oldest tricks in the book in Bible college, just probably every class at some point along the line does this to somebody. But it's the best way to teach someone to stay awake in class. And it happened in a class that I was involved in. Thankfully, not to me, but to one of my buddies, we pulled it on him. When we were in Dean Reinerz, class Dean Reinerz was the dean of education there at Piedmont. And he was a great man, but he was as dry as dust as a teacher. And he was teaching parliamentary procedures. Okay? Teaching us how to do the right, Robert Rules of Orders types thing, you know, in a business meeting that nobody ever uses anyway. So it's extremely difficult to follow that class. We had one guy at Phyllis sleep in class almost every day. I think he worked late at night, you know, and so he'd fall asleep just about every day. Now, I know this is an old trick, and you probably have done it or heard it, but it's fun. I would encourage you to try it sometime. When somebody falls asleep in a class like that, you know, at the beginning of classes in Bible college, you always have prayer and sometimes at the end of class. And so this guy would fall asleep and somebody punched him one day and said, Dean Reinerz just called on you to pray. And boy, he shot up out of his seat and lost into a prayer, right in the middle of class. And of course, Dean Reinerz lecturing, you know, about parliamentary procedures, some point about what you do and some of the objects to something in a business meeting. All of a sudden this guy stands up and starts praying. Well, he never did fall asleep again in that class. He learned how to be alert, to be awake. And that's exactly what this word is talking about when we're praying. Stay awake. Stay alert. Now, sometimes you can have your eyes open. I mean, you can be awake in prayer in the sense that you are not dead asleep, but you might as well be asleep. Because sometimes our prayers are real listless. Sometimes we just kind of go through the motions. Sometimes we're just kind of rattling through a list. Sometimes we are just verbalizing formulas that we've learned. And our mind is not engaged at all. Now, that's the same thing as being asleep when you pray. Because it really has about the same impact. So what Paul is saying here is when you pray, do whatever it takes to really focus, to give attention to what you're doing when you pray, to put some thought and effort into really being focused on your prayer life. So I would just challenge you very practically, this being watchful in prayer, I would challenge you very practically this evening, do whatever it takes to stay alert when you pray. And even if it means keeping your eyes open and walking or something like that when you pray. There are times when I find that to be tremendously helpful, just to talk to the Lord out loud, to walk, circles, you know, around my office or whatever, and just talk to the Lord because otherwise when I close my eyes and get to praying, sometimes I have really long prayers or at least my eyes stay closed a long time. And that's not a good thing necessarily. So do whatever it takes to focus, to stay alert, to stay awake in prayer. So faithfulness, alertness, the third thing about prayer he says in verse two is be thankful. Be thankful. He says devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. So thankfulness is the third command regarding prayer, the challenge to pray. Our prayer is ought to breathe the very breath of thankfulness and gratitude. And again, do whatever it takes. Make a list of things you're thankful for. Take some time at the end of each day to be grateful for the things that have happened through that day that you can see the hand of God in. Cultivate a spirit of gratitude. You know, we have a tendency, and I guess it's because of our sin nature, we have a tendency to grumble. It's easier to grumble than it is to be thankful. It's easier to criticize than it is to be grateful. And so the spirit of thankfulness must be purposefully cultivated. I remember at Moody Pastors Conference this past May hearing Dr. David Jeremiah speak. He told a wonderful story about people's tendency to criticize. And it was in the context of ministry and pastors and so forth. So he was talking about D.L. Moody. And he told a story that D.L. Moody told one time, you know, Moody was a great preacher back in the 1800s, late 1800s in America. He had a lot of great crusades across this country. And he held some great meetings in England as well. But Moody was not known for his appropriate use of the English language. Moody just simply butchered the English language. He was not well educated himself, and you know, he would split infinities in dangle part of cipples and do everything you could possibly do and do it all in one sentence, you know, with the English language. And so for some who were more cultured and refined, Moody was somewhat difficult to listen to. And that was certainly the case in England. Here he is in this prim and proper English speaking, the King's English speaking land. And he's butchering it up one side and down the other. And he's in a conference. And after the first session, there was a very prim and proper Englishman who gave the usher a note and said, sir, would you please place this on the platform where Mr. Moody will see it before he gets up to speak again? And so the usher took it up there and placed it on the platform. Moody got up to speak and looked down, picked it up, and that note had one word on it, the word full. And without missing a beat, Moody announced to the congregation, you know, I have received a lot of letters from people before who never signed their name. But this is the first letter I've ever received from someone who signed their name and didn't write anything. Well, that was one time where he got the King's English right. He didn't let it phase him. You see, we have a tendency to grumble and complain. And if you have more of a tendency to do that than normal, then you're going to have a more difficult time cultivating gratitude. And the command of Scripture is, when we pray, we need to be thankful. We need to think of things and thank God for the things that we should be thankful for. If you will force yourself to do this spiritual exercise sometime, if you will force yourself just to make a list of the things you have to be thankful for. Go back to your childhood, start tracing the hand of God through your life. People he's brought into your life. Spiritual influence is the time that you got saved. Your family members, people who met a lot to you along life's way, whether it was a Sunday school teacher or a former pastor or whoever it might have been, someone else who took you under their wing and a wanna leader, whatever it might have been. Just start making a list of people and things you have to be thankful for. And your list will become quite long if you give any time to that exercise at all. And you will find if you have difficulty developing a grateful spirit, that can be a help to you in learning to pray with thankfulness. So Paul says, in his challenge to pray, be faithful, be alert, be thankful. But there's not only a challenge to pray, there's the request for prayer. Paul takes this opportunity when he's challenging them to pray to also make a request for prayer in verses 3 and 4. And so he says, and 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. And notice Paul makes two requests for prayer. The first one in verse 3 is the request to pray for us for opportunities to preach. You see how he says it there? Pray for opportunities to preach. Pray for us that God may open a door for our message. And he wants to preach because he realizes as he says in verse 3, I am in chains right now for the gospel. You may recall, been a while since we started Colossians, but you may recall that Paul wrote this letter from a Roman prison. And so he is in chains for the gospel and he's asking for opportunities to preach. Now you would expect, yeah, I can certainly understand that. Paul, you know, Paul was used to having the freedom to preach, to travel, to go from city to city, to speak in synagogues, to speaking people's homes. Wherever there was an opening, an opportunity to gather people to hear the word of God. He was used to having that freedom and now he's in chains. He's in prison and he's still asking for opportunities to preach. And you know it's wonderful how God answered that prayer. The imprisonment that Paul is in when he writes this letter is his first Roman imprisonment, not the second one, but the first one. And that is described in a couple of places in Scripture. So hold your place here. Let's just flip back for a few moments to Acts 28. The book of Acts, chapter 28, where we find how this prayer was answered. And I don't know whether this letter was written to Colossians in the first month of his imprisonment or, you know, after he'd been there six months or what, I don't know how early it was, but we know that this prayer was answered, that he did have opportunities to preach even though he was in prison. In Acts 28, he is being taken to Rome to be placed in prison there awaiting a hearing with Caesar. He has appealed his case to Caesar and he's awaiting that hearing. And in verse 16, it says, when we got to Rome, Paul was allowed to live by himself with a soldier to guard him. In other words, he was not thrown in a deep dark dungeon somewhere. He was put in a kind of a house arrest type situation where he couldn't leave the house, but he was free to move around. He was free to entertain visitors. He just had a prison or a Roman guard there with him at all times. And most believe that those Roman guards rotated every four hours. So he's in his own house. He's held prisoner, but he has some amount of freedom. And if you look at verse 17, it says three days later, he called together the leaders of the Jews. And what does he do? He preaches the gospel to them. And then in verse 23, they arranged to meet Paul on a certain day. They had asked to come back and hear more. So they arranged to meet Paul on a certain day. And they came in even larger numbers to the place where he was staying from morning till evening. He explained and declared to them the kingdom of God and tried to convince them about Jesus from the law of Moses and the prophets. Some were convinced by what he said others would not believe. And that's when Paul says because of the hardness of your hearts and he quotes the Old Testament, you know, the gospel will go to the Gentiles from now on. And then in verse 30, look at what it says in verse 30, for two whole years, Paul stayed there in his own rented house and welcomed all who would come to see him boldly and without hindrance. Notice these words. He preached the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ. So when he's writing the collotions from this in prison and he says, pray for me. That I have opportunity to preach. And he answered for two years, he had opportunity to preach the gospel in that Roman prison. You want to know some of the results of that? Look at the book of Philippians. Philippians chapter 1. Paul writes the letter to the Philippians from the same Roman imprisonment. At about the same time he wrote the letter to the collotions. And what he says in Philippians chapter 1 verse 12 is this. He says, now I want you to know brothers that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. Then he goes on to talk about how that's affected preachers who are out preaching freely. Some of them took advantage of Paul's imprisonment to proclaim the gospel more boldly. Some took advantage to try to usurp some of Paul's territory and did it with evil motives. But the important thing is Paul said, hey, everybody in the palace guard, those are the soldiers that guarded him. That were sent from Caesar's palace. All those soldiers know why I am here in prison. Can you imagine being chained to the apostle Paul for four hours? You would not be chained to Paul for four hours without hearing something about how he got arrested and why he was there. And he would begin sharing his faith and begin preaching the gospel. And so he had a captive audience. Literally one person at a time he began to preach the gospel to the whole palace guard. And look at what he says at the end of this letter, chapter 4 of Philippians verse 21, he says, greet all the saints in Christ Jesus, the brothers who are with me sin greetings. Now look at verse 22, all the saints send you greetings, especially those who belong to Caesar's household. So you know what that tells us? That tells us that some of those guards were getting saved. Some of them were coming to no Christ. So Paul is writing to the Colossians, hey, I'm in prison, but I've got this itch to preach the gospel. And so pray that somehow I'll have opportunity. And he asks the Colossians to pray, pray that I will have opportunity. God will open a door for the message. And so he starts preaching to the guy that's chained to him for four hours. Or the guy that's washing over him for four hours. And some of those guys start getting saved. Pretty soon the whole palace guard knows that Paul is a prisoner for Jesus Christ. And for two years he's able to welcome guests into his home and preach to them the gospel. So Paul had opportunities that he never dreamed would be possible to impact the guard of Caesar's palace. So you know when you pray, God has remarkable ways of answering those prayers. Paul prays for opportunity to preach. But not only does he pray for opportunity to preach, he prays for clarity in preaching. You see that in verse four? Pray that I may proclaim it clearly as I should. Clearly. So he prays not only for opportunities to preach, but for clarity as he preaches. Now that could mean a couple of things. There are a number of ways to see that or apply that when we were going through our series on evangelism. We saw that it might apply to the fact that Paul wanted to make sure that he explained it in terms that his audience could understand. You know he's not with a Jewish audience anymore. He's not in Israel. He's in Rome. He's speaking to palace guards, hardened soldiers. There may be different terms he needs to use, different explanations he needs to give so that he'll make it clear. And he's asking them to pray. Please pray that I'll make it clear. That you know I won't say things that are confusing to the people who are listening to me. I think that's part of what he meant. Part of what he meant I believe also was that he wanted his preaching, his telling of the gospel to be very clear in the sense that it was focused. He would not be timid or feeble but that he would be bold in the proclamation of the gospel. That he would not be cold and lifeless and ritualistic as he gave forth the gospel. But that it would come out of his heart and it would be crystal clear. I mean it would be focused in the sense that it would really hit its target. I think that's part of what he was saying too. It could be that Paul is even talking about his trial. He doesn't know when he's going to be called before Caesar to give an account for himself, to give his defense. And when he goes before Caesar he really is asking others to pray. Be praying that when I go before Caesar I will make it crystal clear. He sees an opportunity to witness to the most powerful man in all the world, the Roman Caesar. So pray that I'll make it clear that I won't leave anything muddy, that he'll understand what the gospel means. That probably is part of what he was asking as well. The request for prayer was that I may make it clear that I'll have opportunity to preach and that I'll preach it with clarity. I would encourage you to pray for your preachers, to pray for me, to pray for Judd as he shares some of the preaching duties. Pray for us as we preach the Word of God. And we're not necessarily asking to pray for more opportunities. We have plenty of those. But pray for clarity. Pray that as we preach. Please. I would ask you as Paul asked his churches. Pray. Pray for us that we may make the message clear that we'll not confuse people. But that the words that we give will be like arrows that shoot straight for the heart. That they are focused and clear and not muddy in any way. Pray for us that we'll be able to do that. If Paul would ask that request, certainly we need that as well. So our request to you is for clarity in preaching. So that's prayer, our relationship with God. But then Paul moves on very quickly to our relationship with unsaved people in verses five and six. Our relationship with others, specifically those who are unsaved, has to do with our testimony. And Paul talks about two different aspects of our testimony. First, our life, then our speech. Let's look at what he says about our life first in verse five. He says, be wise in the way you act toward outsiders. Make the most of every opportunity. So our lifestyle is what is being talked about here. You see, we do have an impact on outsiders. And by outsiders, Paul is simply speaking of those that are outside salvation. He's not using that term in a pejority or negative or condemning or condescending way. It's just the idea that these folks don't know the Lord yet. And they're outside the family. You know, it's not that we have inside truth and these people are something less than us. It's just they're not inside the family yet. And so when you think about outsiders, those who are unbelievers, be wise in the way you act. But what does that mean? Quite literally, to be wise in the way you act. Our lives are on display before a watching world outside this church, where you work and where you live. All of us are being watched by others and they will form opinions by what they see in our lives. So when Paul says, be wise, what does he mean? What does he mean? Act in wisdom. Well, I think there's a great answer to what kind of lifestyle this entails in the book of James. So hold your place here and look at James chapter three, please. Where James identifies for us what a lifestyle of wisdom looks like. James chapter three, beginning in verse 13. James says, who is wise and understanding among you? Okay, Paul says live wise. What does that mean? Well, James asked the same question. Who's wise? Okay, then he answers it. Middle of verse 13. Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. Verse 14, but if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth, such wisdom, and in the NIV, that's in quotation marks, such wisdom. Is that really wisdom? No, it's not, but such so-called wisdom does not come down from heaven, but is earthly, unspiritual of the devil. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. First of all, what it means to be wise toward outsiders, toward unbelievers is don't be envious. Now that strikes right to the heart of materialism. It strikes right to the heart of don't live the kind of lifestyle that is envious of everything you see your neighbor has. And that's all you can focus on. That unsaved neighbor will pick up on that. He'll realize your hearts in no different place than his is. So don't be envious. Don't live with selfish ambition, and that has to do with the very principle of putting ourselves first, promoting ourselves, looking for a claim, and honor for ourselves. Don't live in that way, says that's worldly wisdom. But now look at what godly wisdom is in verse 17 of James 3. But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure. Then peace loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy, and good fruit, impartial, and sincere. Peace makers who so in peace raise a harvest of righteousness. Now it would take us a while and we don't have that time tonight to go through all those words and describe what they mean. It would be a good study for you sometimes just to look at all those words in verse 17. What does it mean to really live wisely? It means purity, peace loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy, good fruit, impartial, and sincere. Those are the qualities that define godly wisdom. Now let's go back to Colossians 4. When Paul says live in wisdom toward those who are outsiders, what he's talking about is living with that kind of spirit and attitude. The Church of Jesus Christ would do well to learn that in the day in which we live. We live in a day where issues are hitting us in the face from all around us in the culture. You know what I mean? The social issues like homosexuality and stem cell research and abortion and those kinds of issues, and it's very easy in those kinds of issues to get our dander up and to get kind of round and angry and to go on a crusade. I had someone call me just this past week and say, John, I wish you would have our church do more publicly on the issue of homosexuality. Take a stand out there in the community. Put it out in our publications. Put it on the TV in the radio. I mean, he was going on and on about things we need to do to make sure everybody out there knows that we don't like homosexuals. And my response to him, this is before I even looked at this passage, my response to him was simply, you know, there's something about that that just turns away a watching world. Yes, we take those stands against the sin of homosexuality, but to get on a soapbox and start angrily frothing at the mouth in the community and saying, this is our issue and we hate this and we, you know, in on and on. That doesn't strike me as the kind of spirit that either Paul or James says will go anywhere toward winning outsiders to Christ. And you know you've seen them on television. You've seen those who do those kinds of things and pick it and all of that kind of stuff. You see how the world looks at them, don't you? You know how the world views that. They just write us off as some kind of crazy extremists. Wouldn't it be better to yes, take the right stand and if we're pushed into a corner or if the subject comes up, don't back down a bit, take a biblical stand. And when the opportunity comes up to preach it as I've done here plenty of times, preach what the word of God says about those issues. But when we're dealing with people out in the community, shouldn't we be like Jesus said, be harmless as doves, be as wise as serpents. You don't go out on the attack, don't go out on a crusade, go with the love of Jesus Christ. I just can't imagine Jesus Christ going out into the community looking at people who are living in sin and saying, you dirty sinner, I hate what you're doing and just going after him like that. I just don't see that in the life of Christ. So I think what Paul is saying to us is in your lifestyle, please act with wisdom. Please act with wisdom. Be wise toward outsiders. Let's move on. He talks about our speech as well in verse six. He says, let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. Now there are four things he says about our speech there and I'll just mention them to you. First of all, he says our speech needs to be gracious. Let your conversation be always full of grace. And that's really what we're just talking about. Gracious speech is speech which is kind, considerate, pleasant, courteous, not rude, not in kind. If it needs to be plain and bold, it is still gracious and loving. That's the kind of gracious speech that Paul commands us to have. So it's gracious. Secondly, it's pure. He says, seasoned with salt. You know, one of the uses of salt was to prevent the spread of corruption, of decay. And I think that's the meaning here, that our speech ought to be salty in the sense that it prevents the spread of corruption. You know what it's like when somebody begins spreading stuff that's a little either off color or a little racy or tells you something that may be a little bit shaded on the side of gossip about someone else. You can either serve as a feeder or a stopper of that kind of thing. And your own speech will determine whether or not it goes any further. You can prevent the spread of corruption by pure speech rather than your speech being tainted and carrying on that channel of filth or corruption to someone else. So it needs to be pure. And then thirdly, it needs to be appropriate. He says so that you may know how to answer everyone. The idea there is weigh your words carefully. Don't just speak before you think, weigh your words carefully. You know, even the book of Proverbs says that a man is thought wise when he's a man of few words. It doesn't necessarily mean he is wise. Had a guy say to me one time when I was pastoring in Florida. I'd just been there a short time and he didn't really know me very well yet. And I'm not a big talker. It's just my personality. It's not necessarily a sign of godliness on my part. It's just I'm just not a big talker except when I get to preaching. But otherwise, you know, just in personal conversation, I'm kind of low-key and that kind of thing. So we were coming back from a conference in Tampa and I wouldn't say in a whole lot. And there were several in the car and this guy was kind of a big talker. And he said, he said to everybody in the car. He said, you know, Pastor John is either very wise or very ignorant. That's what he said. And of course, you know, which one I opted for. But you know, it brought to mind that verse in Proverbs, even a foolish man is thought wise if he's a man of few words. If he doesn't say a whole lot. If he kind of keeps restrains his words and doesn't just gush out everything that comes to mind. Being appropriate simply means knowing when to speak and knowing when to be silent. Knowing how much to say and restraining when it's best to restrain. Paul says, let your words be appropriate. You know how to answer everyone. And then the fourth thing is our words need to be consistent. And that was really the first one on your outline there. Sorry about that. Be consistent. Back to the word always. Let your conversation be always gracious, pure, and appropriate. So it needs to be consistent in those ways. Well, two great concerns that Paul has for our lives is the vertical dimension, the horizontal dimension. Our relationship with God, which is best challenged in this section by prayer. And our relationship with others, especially unsaved people, which has to do with the lifestyle we live in the words we speak toward those who are outside the faith. Let's take these words, take them to heart, and seek how we might better represent our Lord in this world and better relate to Him in our prayer lives. Join me in prayer, please. Father, I thank you for challenging us from your word. And it's just amazing, Lord, to me, whenever we get into your word, there is a real challenge for our lives. And we come away saying, Lord, I've got a lot of work to do. Or Lord, I need to submit to your working in our lives, my life. And certainly I see a lot of things to work on. So I pray that you would help me and help all of us tonight in our relationship with you in prayer and in our relationship with unbelievers, that we will have a strong vertical and horizontal dimension to our lives. That will be people of God and people who represent you well in this world, in Jesus' name.