Bobby Bosler: Welcome to the Thee Generation Podcast. I’m Bobby Bosler, and I’m speaking to you today from Kerwinsville, Pennsylvania, where I and the Cola Clash team are getting geared up here the next few days for the Cola Clash. This week, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.

It’s been a thrill to see what God has done. So far this summer, we’ve seen over 60 young people trust Jesus Christ alone as their Savior. And we’re believing God for many more.

We’ve got seven more weeks left. And I’m just thrilled at what God is doing. In fact, God is teaching our team constantly.

I think you all understand this, that you never get to a point in your walk with Christ where there’s nothing left to learn. And God is teaching all of us. We’ve been in the midst of a study of the book of Colossians.

And we’re in chapter 4 now. And there’s something specific that I’d like for you to see here that I brought up to my team just recently. Colossians 4, verse 2, the scripture says, Continue in prayer and watch in the same with thanksgiving.

Now, there’s a lot that could be said about this. But the idea of the word continue is to continue to do something with intense effort, with the possible implication of despite difficulty. He’s saying, listen, I want you to persevere in prayer.

And, you know, many of you have made decisions to spend time with Jesus, and that’s not always an easy thing to keep up. And I want to encourage you with how God’s led in your life to continue, to make sure you take that time to spend time with the Lord, not only in prayer, but in his word. But he doesn’t just say continue to pray.

He says, and watch in the same. You know, watching is an important part of prayer because watching is keeping an eye on the circumstances all around you to know what to pray for. And as you are involved in surrendering to the Lord, he’s going to put you in situations that are impossible.

and in these situations, you’re going to see specific needs all around you. You’re going to see needs in your own heart. You’re going to see needs in the hearts of those around you.

You’re going to see a spiritual battle taking place right before your eyes. And he says, okay, don’t just pray. Watch and pray with thanksgiving.

And the idea of that is just simply you can praise God for the victory before you even see it. Now, what I really want to focus on is what’s coming after this. He says, with all or at the same time, verse 3, praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds.

Here’s his prayer request. He says, okay, you Colossians, I want you to continue to pray, even when it gets tough. I want you to watch and look for things that you need to be praying about and praise God for the victory before you see it.

And here’s something I want you to pray about too. Pray for us. Pray for our missionary team that God would provide opportunities everywhere we go.

And also pray that not only would God provide opportunities, but that we would actually take those opportunities. Verse 4 continues the prayer request, that I may make it manifest, the gospel manifest as I ought to speak, as it’s necessary for me to speak. So young person, Paul is asking, and I ask that you ask God for us to even here this week, pray that God would open doors, pray that God would open hearts, but you know what?

Pray that we would take those open doors as they open before us. Now, let me turn that around for you here, young person, because You know, it’s one thing to ask God to bless you. It’s one thing to ask God to give you victory in your walk.

But are you asking God for opportunities to speak the mystery of Christ? You know, we know from another place in Scripture we have not because we ask not. And I think sometimes we get frustrated and we feel like, well, you know, I want to share the gospel, but I just don’t really see the opportunities anywhere.

Have you thought to ask him for those opportunities? God is very interested, and it will amaze you. When you begin to ask the Lord, God, open doors of the word for me.

Open situations in my life. Open doors so that I can speak the gospel. And what you’re going to find, I guarantee, if you genuinely ask God for opportunities, you’re going to find yourself in a situation in the next couple days where you suddenly realize, whoa, this is an opportunity right in front of me right now.

And you know what’s going to be a temptation in that moment? Same thing that’s a temptation for all of us. When the opportunity presents itself, when the door opens up, we chicken out.

You ever been there? I’ve been there. Oh, far more times than I’d care to admit.

God opens an incredible door. Somebody starts to talk to me when I’m out in public or somebody asks me a question. that I know in the moment would be a perfect bridge to get into the gospel with somebody.

But for whatever reason, whether it’s fear, whether it’s insecurity, whether I just have other things in my mind, whether I’m just absorbed in myself at that moment and don’t feel like it, I don’t take the opportunity. So not only should we pray and ask God to open doors of opportunity to share the mystery of Christ, We also need to pray for God to give us the boldness to take them when they come.

Now here in this verse, Paul is talking about himself. He’s asking for the Colossians to pray for him, that God would give him open doors and the boldness to step through them. But in verse 5, he turns it around and he challenges the Colossians.

Look at verse 5. He says, walk in wisdom toward them that are without. to the outsiders, redeeming the time.

Now, I’ll be honest with you. Whenever I hear that phrase, redeeming the time, what I think about is not wasting time. I think, okay, I need my actions, my minutes, my hours to count for Jesus.

And that’s certainly true. But what’s interesting about this phrase here is he says, is the idea of these words, the word redeeming is the idea of to buy up everything. So if you saw a deal in the store on, I don’t know, a bag of Doritos, you know, 250 bags of Doritos for $10, you might snatch up every bag they’ve got.

I don’t know. That’s a dumb illustration. But you know what?

When you see a good deal, you take advantage of it. You know, some of your moms, they know how to stockpile stuff. And they find a good deal at Walmart or Costco or Sam’s Club or something like that.

and they come home with like hundreds of this particular item. And what they inevitably say to your dad when he asks what they’re doing was such a good deal, I couldn’t pass it up. And what he’s saying here is, hey, listen, Colossians, I want you, as far as your relationship with the outsiders, with the lost world around you, I want you to snatch up every opportunity.

In fact, that redeeming the time is how he defines wisdom, which is a little different than many times I think you or I define wisdom. As I was talking to the team this morning, I was just telling them, you know, when I think of being wise in an opportunity, I typically think of, you know, showing discretion or being careful and not, you know, overextending myself or getting myself into a dangerous situation.

But actually, the way he defines walking in wisdom here is taking advantage of every single opportunity. Now with my team, this is something that I train them and challenge them to do because as some of you may be aware, we do this thing called recruiting. We’re for two days solid.

We’re out and about looking for every team we can. And for every team that we see, it is our job before God. We’ve already decided weeks ago that we were going to talk to every single team that we see.

And so really kind of our phrase is don’t even pass up one. And that may sound good on paper. That might sound fine around a conference room table as we’re training.

But when you get out there, oh boy, it’s easy to chicken out. And Paul, just as he prayed, asked the Colossians to pray for himself that God would open doors and that he would take them. He is challenging the Colossians to use skill in the way that they relate to outside people and take advantage of every single opportunity.

You see, wisdom sees opportunity and buys them all out. But I want you to think about this from the flip side. If it is wise to snatch up every available opportunity, it’s foolish to pass them up.

You know, I want you to think about this, young person. It is never wise to squander opportunities to talk about Jesus. See, I want you to think about this from God’s perspective.

God placed those opportunities in your path, and they are a stewardship. They didn’t just happen to show up in front of you. These were placed there by God.

And for you or I to say, well, it doesn’t look safe, for you or I to say, well, you know, I just don’t really feel like it right now. Well, for you to say, well, you know what, I’ve got other things to do. I’m busy.

I don’t quite know what I would say. is to take the incredible opportunity, the open door that God has opened in front of you in answer to yours or someone else’s prayer and to waste it and to squander it. You know, one of the things that I’ve been burdened about for you as a listener to the Thee Generation podcast is that tagline, you know, total surrender, total dependence, to turn the world upside down with the gospel of Christ.

And I think many of you get total surrender, right? I want to yield myself to God, surrender to him for whatever he wants. Total dependence, we recognize he’s going to call us to do some things that are impossible.

But you know, that last phrase is something I think we all really need to grow in. And that is to turn the world upside down with the gospel. Young person, if your surrender and dependence doesn’t lead you to take opportunities to talk about Jesus and to win people to Christ, really, what good is it?

Oh, listen, you know me. I’m all for your victory. I want you to find victory in your personal walk.

But to what end? Victory for what? So you can feel better about yourself?

So you don’t have to live with guilt? Young person, as much as that is absolutely essential and necessary and important and what God wants, that’s not all God wants. And for that to be our goal, so I don’t feel guilty anymore, so that I don’t have to, you know, every time somebody preaches, feel horrible about the sin that I’m involved in, that’s so short-sighted.

See, God wants you to experience victory so that you can look at the person at the checkout line and tell them, Jesus delivered me, and he can deliver you too. Young person, if your walk with Jesus doesn’t connect to talking to people about Jesus, you haven’t come to the goal of your walk with Jesus yet. You know what?

This is not intended to be a guilt trip in any way. This has been on my heart. This is something I’m praying for God to grow.

Me in, my team in, and you in, young person. And I want you to know God is for you. And you may not have everything together.

You may not be perfect. Neither am I. Neither are any of us.

But God wants our lives to be effective in the harvest fields. You know, you think about some people on your street, think of some friends, maybe some people you work with, maybe some people in your school. God wants you to open, take those opportunities, step through those open doors, and open your mouth and share the incredible mystery of Christ with them.

Think God can do it? Absolutely he can. So why don’t you do this?

Why don’t you surrender to Jesus? And why don’t you depend upon him to open your mouth and to tell someone this week about Jesus.