Everlasting Reality IRL

We're living in such an interesting period of history, aren't we?

A time where you could possibly ask someone, did you do it IRL?

Are you familiar with that term?

When someone goes for a jog in our house, sometimes we will ask the question, IRL?

And that means it wasn't on the treadmill, it was in real life.

IRL, in real life.

The Christian faith, or as we often refer to it at this church, the way of the master is to be lived IRL, amen?

I mean, there's no other way it could be lived than in real life.

But sometimes we need to be reminded of this fact, and this is the title of our series in Colossians, Everlasting Reality.

It's meant to jolt us as we read Colossians, with a reminder as we come into 2025, our faith needs to be grounded in real life.

IRL, knowing Jesus, following Jesus, trusting our everlasting eternity with Jesus is the real deal.

It's reality, everlasting reality.

This morning, we come to the last of our four-part message in Colossians.

It's just a wonderful book.

I hope you've been able to read it.

We've only looked at some of the portions of the Scripture.

I just hope you've read this short book again and again in the last month.

And if you haven't, please do this week, because it's full of just incredibly faith-building, hope-oriented Scripture.

It just lifts Christ up so wonderfully.

We've looked at everlasting hope, everlasting supremacy of Christ, everlasting personhood in Christ.

And today, we're looking at everlasting reality, IRL, in real life.

So what does it look like, this IRL?

Living out the Christian faith in Paul's perspective could be summarized in this short portion of Scripture in three ways, prayer, behaviour, and conversation.

IRL, faith in Christ, lived out in reality, is going to involve prayer, behaviour, and conversation.

Our passage today follows an intensely practical portion of the letter.

Just before chapter 4, at the end of chapter 3, if you take a look at your Bible, just familiarise yourself, that's the part where Paul talks about how husbands and wives should get on, and how slaves and masters should treat one another, and how parents and children should act.

And it's very practical stuff, and it's wrapped up in this classic catch-all line, chapter 3, 23.

Whatever you do, Paul says, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord, not for human masters.

Whatever you do, in whatever context you find yourself living out your one and only life, do it as unto the Lord, for His glory.

Colossians 4, 2 to 6 focuses in, even more on this practical aspect of life.

Prayer, behaviour, conversation.

Devote yourselves, Paul writes, from Rome to Colossae.

He's in Rome.

The Colossian Christians are in Turkey.

Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.

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.

Last week, Ben preached a fantastic sermon.

If you haven't heard it or watched it, it's available online and just worth checking out.

Colossians 3, 1-15 is one of the all-time scriptures that covers so much of our faith and life.

But he mentioned last week that there are verbs in scripture which are indicatives, stating factual reality, and there are imperatives which are sort of the ought-to's, the actions we're meant to offer to God in obedience, in response to the indicatives.

What he has done for us makes it possible for us to do certain things.

Today, it's a bunch of imperatives.

It's a bunch of ought-to's.

And sometimes we think, don't tell me what to do.

Well, avoid Scripture if you don't want to be told what to do.

Because the Bible has lots of times where it says, you should do this.

Avoid that and do this.

These are imperatives.

And so we have an imperative here to pray.

Do you find it challenging to pray?

Sometimes, sometimes, I think many of us, if we're honest, we might say, often.

For Paul, it's striking that he says, you must pray for me.

He says, devote yourselves to prayer.

Devote is this Greek word which means steadfast and persistent.

It means unwavering.

It means if you do this, you will look like a zealot.

It will look like you're a bit over the top, your belief in prayer.

But that's what Paul says.

Devote yourselves to prayer.

To live a flourishing Christian life, we need to be devoted to prayer.

With a zeal, a passion, it reminds me of the story of the woodpecker who came and flew in and landed on a steel pole, like an electricity pole.

He started banging away on this steel pole, and it drew a crowd.

People came underneath and were looking up at this woodpecker having a crack at a metal pole, and they were jeering and pointing at him, laughing.

You know, he's not going to get anywhere at this woodpecking a steel pole.

And then he looked down at them, looked away and flew off.

He'd seen a bigger pole.

He flew off and he started on that pole.

And when I read this little story this week, I thought, that's actually what prayer looks like.

It might sound peculiar to hear that, but wouldn't you agree, often prayer is so hard to fathom how it will be answered?

People that believe in prayer, you can't help sometimes but look in and say, you're a little naive.

Really, do you really think God's gonna answer that?

But truly devoted people who pray the way scripture calls us to pray, pray like the woodpecker, amen?

They just keep believing.

They devote themselves to prayer.

They believe that their father in heaven will not give them a stone if they ask for a loaf of bread.

We're called to pray.

Let that sit as a challenge, because it's easy not to do that.

Devote yourselves to prayer, scripture says.

And be watchful and thankful as you do it.

Watchful is the idea that is conveyed in the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus says, Couldn't you have kept watch?

So there's an intensity about this watchfulness.

And with thanksgiving, Paul then asks for incessary prayer, verse 3.

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

Isn't it interesting?

This is the Apostle Paul.

He has seen so much of the power of God manifest through him.

Yet he's still in Rome, he still says, would you please pray for me?

We need prayer because doors won't open without you praying and standing in the gap.

And that's what incessary prayer is.

It's this idea of reaching out on behalf of others to God and bringing the needs of another person, another, maybe a Christian or maybe not.

This is incessary prayer.

And why?

So that the mystery of the gospel could be conveyed.

In Colossians 1, 27, I'm going to read from verse 25 of chapter 1, talks about this mystery.

And you don't want to go through Colossians without understanding the mystery.

Paul says, I've become its servant, the gospel, the servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness.

The mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord's people.

What is this mystery?

To them God has chosen to make known among the gentiles, the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ.

To this end, I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.

Last week, Ben talked about eternal personhood or everlasting personhood, and we looked at those concentric circles that show the soul of a human being.

There's the spirit heart will at the start and then in the core of us, and then we need to have a mind renewed, which renews our emotions.

And our body is part of who we are as a living being.

And who we hang out with.

Our family of origin is the social context.

And all of that means we are a soul.

But it all starts, a living soul, all starts with the heart coming alive.

And this is the hope of glory.

Christ in you.

The dead in transgressions, Ephesians 2, are made alive by grace through faith.

And it's to this end of telling people that they can come alive from the inside out with a new spirit, a new heart, that Paul is giving himself to.

Strenuously contending with all the energy he has to let people know there is life eternal available for you in Christ.

And so he says, pray for me that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ for which I am in chains.

We need to pray to be devoted to prayer, so that the mystery of the gospel can go to more and more people.

Amen?

That's actually part of the package.

So if we're not praying, is that consequential?

It would seem so.

I find this disturbing.

I find it confronting.

The apostle Paul says, I need you to pray, because I'm thinking doors will probably remain shut without your prayer.

I don't quite understand, because I feel like God is sovereign.

He can do anything he wants.

But God in his gentleman-like attitude, his desire to involve the body of Christ says, no, I want you to pray.

I want you to play a part.

Over a week ago, we had my mum's funeral.

I've mentioned her a few times, more than normal, recently.

Mum was a Christian.

And I will never forget being a 15-year-old and hearing mum say, I pray for Aunty Di, my mum's younger sister by eight years.

I pray for her every day.

And Aunty Di was the black sheep of the family.

She had sort of got involved in all sorts of different things in life that made life difficult.

And she had no room in her life for Jesus.

And mum said, no, I'm going to pray for her, that God opens the door.

And she prayed every day for 30 years and my Aunty Di got saved.

She came to Christ.

And some of you might remember the online church we had and there was a butterfly, a pink butterfly.

Does anyone remember her name was Di?

That was my Aunty Di.

And some of us got to know her in the COVID time.

She lives in Queensland and she has gone home to glory now herself.

But how is your prayer life?

We are called to be devoted, watchful, thankful, engaged in intercessory prayer for the lost, like the woodpecker, with a zeal that is extraordinary, because we believe in the God and His grace and His desire to save that we are talking to.

It's not just prayer we are called to in IRL Christianity.

Behaviour is needed to be such that people are drawn to Christ.

Be wise, verse 5 Paul writes, be wise in the way you act toward outsiders, make the most of every opportunity.

Following Jesus is in some ways an individual pursuit.

We know there are disciplines that we need to engage with to grow in our faith and certainly throughout history, there have been times where fervent followers of Jesus, zealous believers stole away from community for decades.

There was a guy, Simon Stylitis, who a couple of hundred years after Jesus climbed up a pole and spent years up a pole, just push away society.

But I think most of us know we're meant to not be of it, of the world, but we do live our lives in the world.

And there's a reason, because as we live our lives amongst people who don't know Jesus, we're meant to live in such a way that we have questionable behaviour.

Aren't we?

Not questionable behaviour in that that's a bad behaviour.

Questionable behaviour is in such a way that people look at our lives and are magnetically drawn towards the beauty of our life, such that they ask questions.

Amen?

They're like, what's going on with you?

I'm looking at the way you behave, and I know some people in this room, your testimony is you saw someone else in your life, a brother, a cousin, a friend, and you said, I want to know what you've got.

What is it that's different about you?

Because that's the power of behaviour.

I love the story of one of the most famous Christians.

One of the most famous Christians and leaders of world history, really, Billy Graham.

Billy Graham maintained his integrity throughout his 99 years of life, probably 70 to 80 years of ministry, by adhering to a set of guiding principles that they called the Modesto Manifesto.

So, 1948, like, just amazing humility and wisdom.

This bunch of people, they didn't know how big this ministry was going to get, did they?

1948, they got together and they prayed and they felt the Spirit say, I want you to set up a bunch of guidelines.

And then it included, the Modesto Manifesto included financial integrity.

Together the Billy Graham team said, we will have full transparency with donations and will never seek personal enrichment from the ministry.

Sexual purity, we are going to do our best to stay out of situations where we could both fail or be accused of moral failure.

Billy Graham famously refused to meet with women at all by himself.

How many other people over the years have thought, that will be fine.

That I don't need to make hard rules about how to stay pure.

Billy Graham did.

Respect for the local church.

They avoided, they said that we will avoid undermining local church pastors.

And I love this one.

Honesty in public.

They vowed that they would not exaggerate the numbers that came to their crusades.

Isn't that wisdom?

Humility and wisdom.

And by God's grace, Billy Graham never had a single credible accusation of impropriety.

Isn't that amazing?

Behaviour matters.

In contrast, the last ten years, many people I looked up to and have looked up to throughout my ministry, they've fallen in just terrible ways.

And yet by the grace of God go we, for sure.

Paul says, be wise in the way you act toward outsiders.

Make the most of every opportunity.

Moral failure is a terrible blow to the witness of the gospel.

So to live out our Christian faith, IRL, clearly it will involve some alignment, some commitment, some discipline regarding our behaviour.

And we talk about this with habit formation and spiritual disciplines.

They help us learn obedience in the way of the master in community.

It's very important to put effort into our Christianity, trusting in the grace of God, to teach us how to live the way Jesus said we could live.

So Christianity, IRL, in real life, it involves devoted prayer, Christ-shaped behaviour, and spirit-led conversation.

Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt so that you may know how to answer everyone.

It's very succinct, I think, today's teaching from Paul.

Gracious words, salty words, thoughtful answers.

The Apostle Peter famously said in 1 Peter 3, in your hearts, revere Christ as Lord.

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks, asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have, but do this with gentleness and respect.

Always be ready to have that salty conversation, seasoned with grace as ambassadors for Christ, on mission in our everyday lives, and keen to make the most of every opportunity.

We want to be ready, don't we, to speak words to those who don't know Christ, such that they are drawn towards his truth.

They are drawn towards the light of the Gospel.

Words, salt-seasoned, gracious words.

It's hard to find gracious, salt-seasoned words in public these days, isn't it?

It's a lot of nasty words.

It's a culture, sort of a global movement towards nastiness, I think.

It's odd.

A few days ago, the United States inaugurated their 47th president.

And, you know, at a time like that, it's often a time where words really do matter.

Words are put together carefully, classy words, memorable, meaningful words, because human beings use speech to inspire and to call others upward.

It's not always the case.

But Paul says, I want you to use your words with grace, seasoned with salt.

A compelling example of a speech from another era was Abraham Lincoln, his second inaugural speech in 1865.

It was a time when the United States, like now, was deeply divided.

It's just coming to the end of the Civil War.

What a tumultuous time in the history of that country.

And rather than use his speech to gloat over the impending victory and to condemn the South, Lincoln offered these words, of grace, humility, reconciliation, seasoned with wisdom and compassion.

I think I've got them on there, yeah.

With malice toward none, with clarity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

It's refreshing, isn't it, to see a classy statesman or woman speak words that point humanity to a higher place.

Prayer, behaviour, conversation.

It's not hard.

You see this anywhere you want to look at the life of Jesus.

Prayer, godly behaviour, gracious speech.

But I was thinking of the Garden of Gethsemane.

I mentioned it before.

And you imagine, there you see fervent devoted prayer.

As the cross is looming over him, he's about to go to that terrible destiny.

He prays, Father, if you're willing, take this cup from me, yet not my will, but yours be done.

Passionate devoted prayer.

In fact, such that his blood pressure is so high, he sweats drops of blood.

And then, faced with betrayal and this overwhelming, imminent suffering, his boy, his friend Peter strikes the high priest's ear off.

What does he do?

What's his behaviour?

Immediately gracious.

He jumps in there.

He didn't have to do that, but he heals the servant's ear.

Stunningly righteous, I would say.

And then his speech.

So much pressure.

And he says, watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.

The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

Even when Judas comes up, think about the words he uses, our master.

What does he say to Judas with his words?

First thing he says, Judas comes up and he calls him, friend.

How gracious, it's monumental.

Prayer, behavior, gracious words.

He's a legend, Jesus.

He's the perfect example of true humanity.

Humanity in real life is Jesus, amen.

Humanity, IRL, flourishing humanity the way it was always meant to be.

Praying, behaving, conversing.

So we live in a society that is certainly interesting at the moment, where you could say IRL or virtual.

We live in a world where it's just hard to know, is it misinformation, disinformation, is it deep fake?

Is it a picture, a video of a person that is completely fabricated, giving me a falsehood, giving me lies?

Or is it the real deal?

We have to read our Bibles, don't we?

We have to encourage one another, spur one another on in Christian love and good works, in the grace of the Gospel, in the truth of the future we've been given in Christ, that God is leading this world to.

It's a challenge, but we are called to live it out wherever we are placed in real life, trusting in the grace of God.

This is reality.

Can I commend that truth to you?

This is reality.

Everlasting reality.

You won't find it more real out there.

And then you sort of add a bit of once a fortnight, once a month, Christianity gathering that sort of secures your ticket to heaven, but you go back and you live reality out there.

No, in Jesus' name, reality is what Scripture defines as the kingdom of God.

Amen.

Could we stand together?

The band is going to come and lead us in worship.

I'd love to pray a blessing over our church.

Jesus is everlasting reality.

May you know this truth, may you grow in this truth.

May you feel the urge and urgency of prayer to pray for gospel opportunity.

May you behave such that people ask you why and how.

And when they do, may you give an answer for the faith you have, pointing them to Jesus Christ.

And may you do it with gentleness and respect.

Amen.

‍