I'd like to thank you for inviting me this evening. Turn to Colossians chapter four. Colossians chapter four, we'll be looking at verses two through six. Listen, for this is God's holy and errant word. Continue steadfast in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison, that I may make it clear which I know how, excuse me, which I now, excuse me, which is how I ought to speak. walking 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. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the word. We thank you that you're using it to change us. and that Father, as your spirit takes that word and kneads it into us, just like someone kneads flour into some bread, we pray, Lord, that we would rise to the occasions that you call us to, that we would be people of ministry, that, Father, that we would go forth and do your work. For it's in Christ's name I pray, amen. The name of the message this evening is Praying for Opportunities. When I was in seminary, I was on my way by plane to my first interview. It was my senior year, it was February, and I was on my way from Jackson, Mississippi to Atlanta, Georgia for an interview. I got there, the interview went really well. They shocked me and offered me the job. which I was not expecting. I mumbled something about, give me a week, and I'll let you know. And so, I got back on the plane, and it was an interesting week, because that Monday, I was supposed to do a presentation in my patristics class, on Athanasius. And so, the plane was going to land in Jackson at 11, And I was gonna have to make my presentation at one. So I didn't have a lot to play with. And I already talked to the professor and warned him. I said, you know, I can't do anything about the weather. So the weather was fine. Guy on the plane was on the plane for that about hour and 15 minute flight from Atlanta, Georgia to Jackson, Mississippi. So I get on the flight, and I have all my stuff. As soon as we get up to altitude, I break all my stuff out, and I'm reading. And the guy next door suddenly became fascinated with me. And you know how you are on planes. Sometimes you pray, God, please don't let this person talk to me. And sometimes it's obvious they don't want to talk to you. And sometimes I had great conversations on planes. Other times, I have not. And this one, I really wasn't wanting to have a conversation. So he's sitting there, and he looks at me, he looks over, and he says, well, who was that? And he pointed to my paper, and I said, well, this is Athanasius. He was one of the early church fathers. And I said a couple of things. I thought that would end it. No, it didn't. And so for the next hour and 15 minutes, I answered questions about who Athanasius was. This so happened that what I was gonna be leading was about new birth, about how the Holy Spirit comes and regenerates somebody to believe in Jesus. And so I talked to him about that, and he said, well, that sounds fascinating, let's talk some more. And so I decided that at that point that What he wanted was more important than my presentation. Of course, what happened was I really did review the presentation by going through it with him on the airplane, so that worked out really well. I did make an A on that one, so that was good. But one of the things I realized is that God has opportunities for us all, no matter who we are. Now, this morning in his message, Dan Kiel, the pastor at Oakwood, was talking about, you know, people who were introverted and people who were extroverted. And I am pretty much an extrovert. You know, he's talking about bandwidth. You know, we talk about, you know, you talk about the age of bandwidth. Well, his bandwidth was about this much. Okay, and he looked back at me, and I know he was thinking about me, because he didn't mention my name, but he said, there are other people in this congregation, their bandwidth is like the length of this auditorium here. And that's sort of me. I like to be around crowds. I like to be around people. I enjoy that. I married a lady that my wife, Lynn, she is not that way. She's a one-person person, usually. Two-people person, but the more people come in, the more exhausted she gets by the end of the day. The thing is, the more people that come in, the more energized I get. In fact, somebody was telling me earlier in the year, we had a record number of internationals come to a meeting, and one of the volunteers looked at me and said, you know, you were bouncing off the walls tonight. And that's just what happens. But God gives us opportunities, whether you're an extrovert like I am or introvert like Dan is. There are always opportunities that are opportunities we actually are called to pray for. And that's what I want to talk about tonight is praying for opportunities to share the gospel, praying for opportunities for God to work. So first, let's look at this a little bit here. Let's look at the scriptures. Verse two, continually steadfast in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray for us that God may open a door for us for the word to declare the mystery of Christ. We pray that God would open doors for the gospel. Every believer needs to pray this. I mean, this is, you know, whether you are just as shy as you can be, or whether you are off the walls like I am, you need to pray for opportunities to give the gospel. And notice this, what, you know, Paul is praying this, and where is he? He's in jail. Now, you know, if I were in jail, I'm not sure if I would be praying for opportunities. But yet he was, and there's obvious reasons why, because there are guards that come through, there are the prisoners that come through, there are all sorts of situations in which he finds himself that he can give the gospel to people that do not know it. Imagine, you know, having Paul, the apostle Paul, one of your prisoners, and having to listen to the gospel all the time. Now, and I've read some stories, some papers that they really believe that a lot of the early church there, especially as it grew when Paul was in prison, came through guards, people that came to know Christ. You know, for people that definitely had a reason to be with Paul for any length of time. You know, this letter to Colossians, he encourages them to devote themselves to prayer, especially for open doors, for open doors. Paul knows that it is the Lord that opens the door. You know, I pray for this all the time. You know, I think I've shared with you here before, excuse me if I have not or if I have, that one of the ways I grew my international group on campus was basically eating lunch and praying for people willing to sit with me. You know, I would go, what I would do, I found Joe Dennessy who was preaching here this morning, in fact, gave me the idea My second day here, he took me on campus. Yeah, there's nothing worse than going on a huge college campus and go, and walk, take one step on the campus and look around and go, now what? And that's what I'd said that first day, now what? Because I needed to build a group, I needed to meet people, but you also don't want to be a stalker. You don't want people running away from you and stuff like that, so you have to try to meet people naturally. And so one of the things that I did was Joe showed me around the hub and we went down where the Burger King was and he said, you know, there are a lot of internationals that sit down here. And so for the next couple of days, I went down from about 10 o'clock to two and just sat and watched, tried to judge what was going on. And so that next week, that Monday, I got there about 11.45, got a meal. You don't have to only go to the Burger King, you go to other places. But I just happened to go to Burger King that first time. Got in, sat down, and ate very slowly. So about 12.05 or 12.10, about 3,000 people appear. I mean, just a huge throng of humanity comes through those doors. Lines go out into the, you know, as long as you can see them almost, even at the Burger King. And one thing I did find out was that there are two major USA fast food places in China that are very prevalent. One is Kentucky Fried Chicken, and another one is Burger King. So when new Chinese people come here, they go to Burger King because why? They know it. And so what I did, I went and got a table and I sat there. And what happens very quickly, the tables fill up around you and I just wait. And after the last table is filled up, the next person that came out, there was an international that was coming out of the Burger King And then what they'll do, they have a tray and they'll come out and they look around like that and try to find somewhere to sit. I'll go, sit with me. And I did that 80 times and always left with their name, phone number and email. God provided opportunities. You know, I used to, I told my intern that came here a couple years ago, Sarah Beth, I said, this is what I do, you know, to meet some new people every now and then. And she said, you're kidding me. They will sit with you and they'll give you their information? I said, yes. And so I took her down there. She didn't believe me. So I took her down there, we sat down, and the moment we sat down, a Chinese girl walked up and said, can I sit with you? So she sat down, talked to Sarah Beth, and Sarah Beth is sort of like... And then, before I left, another girl sat down. And I just left her, I left her with Sarah Beth. And God was honoring my prayer that I would be able to meet people, opportunities. And... I've shared that in other places. I've talked to people about, hey, if you're in a business or somewhere, just find places that you can meet people. And today, my problem today is this. My face is known among a lot of internationals now. And so I go there, and people will come sit with me. I don't want them to sit with me. But they know me either been to our group or know me from other groups. And so they'll say, oh, Richard, we'll sit with you. And one guy walked up to me, he said, oh, are you fishing? Because I've talked to him about, I'm fishing. And he'll walk up, my friend from China will walk up and say, oh, are you fishing today? I said, I am, Guam. He'll say, OK, I'll go somewhere else. But yeah, that's what God does and can do with you. You just gotta find the right place to go. And you ask God to provide that right place. And sometimes, now did I ever in my wildest dreams when I moved up here thought that Burger King was gonna be how I built my group? No. But God did. So that's what we do. We pray for opportunities. God opens those opportunities up for us. You know, God tells believers to be watchful for them and be prepared for open doors. You know, my first year here, a lot of Malaysian girls would use the Pascarella Center, the spiritual center, as a place to study. Well, two things was in my way of reaching to them. Number one, I was a male, and they're Muslims. And they all wore the head coverings. And I wasn't sure how conservative that meant they were. It turned out it wasn't that much of a problem, but at that time, I really thought it was. And so I began to pray, God, God, how can I open up a ministry to these, these young ladies? So I went home and talked to my wife and I said, this is what I want to do. I want to, I want to approach some of those girls and because it's about exam time and I want to offer bringing lunch to them one day. And they'd seen me in there a lot, so I was not somebody that was not familiar, at least my face wasn't. And so I walked up to the one girl that I actually had some conversation with, and I said, listen, y'all are real busy, and I would like to bring lunch for your whole table here. And she said, you will? I said, sure, I would like to bring lunch, because I know you don't have time because of your exams. And so, and I would like to bring my wife with me. She said, that would be great. Well, two days later, that's the day we decide we get there. And like there are eight Malaysian girls that ate with us for two hours. And they talked about, and Lynn invited a couple to our house and things like that. And it's just God giving opportunities to be able to do that kind of thing. You see, we never need to stop praying for open doors. The Lord will go before us to prepare the way for our witness and conversations. And you see, we need to be about the work of the gospel. And the thing is, we also have to be willing to seize those opportunities. Give me back to my illustration about my plane ride. The first 10 minutes on that plane, I was not willing to seize that opportunity. I had other things on my mind. And it would have been fine if the guy had sat there and not said a word to me. But God has something different in mind. And those are the kind of things that we need to learn to seize because God is using that to using the faith that we have in Christ to build us up too. It gives us encouragement when that happens. You know, when I sit down with the international or sit down with anyone and I have a conversation with them and it leads to me inviting them to something or connecting in some way, that means that God is building my faith up. Because I'm taking a part of his plan, his plan. You see, we rely not on our own strength, but the strength of the Holy Spirit. You know, my Burger King thing, I never thought it would last that long. But God has always, you know, seemed fit to bring me somebody. And somebody that's always been receptive. I can't tell you how many people, even today, a couple of the early ones that were with us, that have been with us for a long time, will talk about, oh, I met you at the Burger King. And so it's a little bit more unusual to have those, because many of them have moved on. But still, I still go down there every so often, sit down, And God still honors those opportunities, honors those opportunities. You see, God's Holy Spirit is work, strengthening us. And we're taking part of God's wonderful plan for redemption. It's, you know, when you open yourself up to see your, open yourself up to be available, God will use you. God will use you. You know, Paul, you know, he's opening himself up to be available. He wants people to come and see him in prison. He wants people to come and be given opportunity for him to share the gospel because he can't go anywhere. You know, I heard a story not long ago about a gentleman who had to go in a nursing home. And he was not someone that really wanted to do that. And but what he found out that he was one of the more healthy, one of the more healthier people there. And so he started ministering to people. And he told this pastor, I should have gone in the nursing home two years ago. Because not only did he have a place to minister, but he took care of opportunities that God presented him that he would never have, ever have, if he stayed out. And we have to look for those opportunities and look for how God will use us. So first we've seen that we need to be praying for upwind doors for the gospel. The second thing we need to pray for is that God would give us clarity, wisdom, and grace. Look with me in the rest of the passage here. That I may be clear, which is how I ought to speak. 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. First, we need to pray as we do this that we have gospel with clarity. Gospel with clarity. There are a lot of different gospels out there. There's a gospel of works, there's universalism, there are people who believe there are many ways to God. There are all sorts of different type of gospels out there in our society. And I really believe today that there's a gospel of the left and a gospel of the right politically, too. And we have to be very careful of how we approach people with that. And it's important for us to have a good, clear view of what the gospel is. And that means really knowing what it says and trying not to add our own take to it. When we work with internationals, we have to really be careful about how we present things because they simply do not have the Christian words we do. like grace. I ask an international what grace is, and he has no idea. Faith, they don't know what that is. And then you go to the theological words like justification, and sanctification, and glorification. And eventually, I watched someone one time with an international talk about justification, and I watched the international's eyes glazed over, because he had no idea what the person was talking about. So one of the things we do is we try to make the gospel clear. We don't try to take away from the gospel. We try to make it clear to people what it means. Like, what is grace? Unmerited favor. It's mercy. You know, use all the words. Describe grace. And it's funny, I'll be sitting there talking sometimes to some of my Chinese friends, and I'll notice one will get it and the other one won't. And then I just stop, because I know the other one's going to tell the other one what it means in Chinese. And it happens that way. 100 times a month it happens that way. Because they have to sort of see it in their own language a lot of times. It's helpful when you have somebody that knows the gospel. We have a Chinese Christian now that comes to our group. And he's just very helpful, because sometimes somebody will say something, And there'll be a question in the group and he'll say something in Chinese and all the Chinese go, oh yeah. Oh, I get it. I get that now. But we, even in our own society, we have to be clear because we are in a post-Christian society that people just don't know what we're talking about often. You know, who is Jesus? Oh, he was that guy, that leader, a philosophy leader out there in the Middle East somewhere. They don't know what he is. So we have to be clear with our presentation. And of course, ask God to open the eyes of the people for that presentation. But we also need to use wisdom as we talk to others. You know, it says here, walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech be gracious, seasoned with salt. It's interesting that phrase, seasoned with salt. You know, we need, as we become clear, we also have to be careful about how we approach people, how we introduce people to the gospel. There are times when we can get preoccupied by other issues that keep us from sharing the gospel. Let me just tell you this. I'll tell you some of my philosophy in reaching people. I don't ever lead with You know, God created the world in six days when I share the gospel with people. Now, I have colleagues that they do that a lot, and because a lot of the Chinese are atheists, they're scientists, and they wanna lead with that, and I'm a six-day guy, and I realize there's tons of information that you can give people, but one of the things I realize is this. For them to really grasp what God has done, they gotta know Jesus first. They gotta know Jesus first. Because often, my colleagues will lead with that, and they'll just say, oh, we're not gonna come anymore, because that's not something that I believe right now. But yet, when we lead with the person of Jesus, and get them to understand who Jesus is, And then they introduced him, hey, he did in the next six days. I watched a scholar from China, who was only here a year, became a Christian, and threw evolution out in two weeks after he became a Christian. Because God opened his eyes to what the truth was. And that doesn't mean we don't talk about those things. But to lead with it, can be difficult. That's just one example. And sometimes we can lead with those issues and it'll cloud the gospel itself. And we also need to approach people in humility in order to help them to listen. I try to be very humble around people and try my best not to judge people. Even though, like for example, when I was growing up, before I went to seminary, there was a man in my church who was very evangelistic, extremely evangelistic. But he was also very legalistic, too. And they had a couple move next door to him. And so he went out to greet them. And the first five minutes of the conversation, he found out that they weren't married and they were living together. And he railed against that. I'd like you to, you know, and that was the last conversation he ever had with those people. Now I'm not saying that what they were doing is right, but I'm saying what they're, but approaching it immediately on that context was not right. And he got to be known to do that. And just like, you know, if an international says something to me that I know is not right biblically, depending on what it is, I may let slide for right now, because I know I'll get another chance at it later on. Because he doesn't know Jesus. He doesn't have the faculties spiritually to understand some of the things that you do later on. And I'm an example of that. When I became a Christian, I believed in abortion. And I remember being in a high school science fiction class. And we had an argument about abortion. I was pro abortion. And this one girl looked at me and said, well, you became a Christian last year, didn't you? I said, yeah. She said, well, you shouldn't believe that. And I said, why? And so we talked about it. And I went home and I thought, she's right. I've been wrong. Now, before I was a Christian, we just argued politics. but she took it down to faith, took it down to what the Bible says, okay, for me. So it's important that we ask God's wisdom to be able to approach people, know when to speak, know when not to speak, and to truly let them see the gospel in a winsome way. One of the things we're not there to do is to win an argument. Because I think sometimes you can win an argument and lose the right to speak with people. Use the right to speak with people. I guess I can go down this way. I have a couple friends that they love to debate people over the internet. And I asked them one day, I said, have you ever had anyone change their mind after like eight years of doing this? No. Because all you're doing is throwing words at each other. And I challenged him, I said, why don't you take that time and go out and meet real people? And care for them. And try to show love to them. Because what's missing here is that there's no love on the internet, by the way, guys. I mean, you're just speaking at each other, past each other and everything. So, and sure, maybe somebody has, but the vast majority that I know, you're just arguing with each other. But we're not here to win debates, but we're here to win them for Jesus. And that's a difference there. Because we're not the winners, Jesus is. You know, a friend of mine has a great, definition of evangelism, it's being willing to give the gospel to somebody and leaving the results up to God. That's what we're to do. That's what we're to do. You know, another thing we need to do is also give, you know, honest answers to honest questions. It says here, to be seasoned with salt so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. Sometimes, you know, when I talk with my internationals, most of them have no idea what a trinity is, and we teach them eventually, we go through that, but I'll sit down with them and one of them goes, I just don't understand the trinity, and I say, I don't either. I can tell you what we think, but I'll always lead with this when I talk to them, and I say, well, you know, if God was so simple, he probably wouldn't be God, right? God has to have some complexity with them. One Chinese guy looked at me and said, that makes sense. Because he's a scientist, he understands complexity. Means that there's some matter to it, there's something to it. So one of the things I try to do is really answer their questions honestly. As we share the gospel, in doing that, they can trust us. I never try to hide what I believe. I may not always state everything, but like the other day, I had one of the internationals ask me what I believed about homosexuality, and I told him. And he said, oh, I think that's terrible. And I said, Tell me why. And so we had this two-hour conversation. At the end, he said, well, I can see your point. But I don't lead with that. We had two gays that came to our fellowship for two years apiece. They got the gospel. They're both still in contact with me. They know what I believe. But I didn't lead with that. If I had, they would have left the first meeting. But now, they're friends. They contact me every week. One's from Israel. He contacts me and just talks about stuff and things, and he wants me to come see him. I said, you can pay for it. But we need to ask the Holy Spirit to help us recall things. I've been in situations where they've been asking me a question, and I'm going, I just don't know the answer to that one. But also, I've learned to also say, you know, I don't know the answer to that one, but I'll take you to lunch tomorrow and I'll find out the answer to it. You know, sometimes that, you know, especially the scientists that we have and they can come up with some things that I have to call somebody on the telephone after I get finished with them and say, can you tell me about this? Okay? So how do I apply this? How do you apply this section where Paul is asking for prayer for opportunities? Well, first of all, gospel's opportunities do not depend on your situation. Never say, I don't have any way to do this. If you live in America today, if you walk out your door and you walk among people, there are opportunities for the gospel there. Okay? They're there. And I realize some of you are introverts, and I'm not asking you to go up and grab somebody and sit down with some stranger, but doing your natural walk with people during the week, ask God to give you an opportunity to talk to somebody. It can be something very benign. but give you an opportunity to talk to somebody. Pray that God will give us opportunities to invite and witness in our outreach. Remember, this is about Jesus, not about winning debates. Let the Holy Spirit do that debates. Okay. And I'm not against that, you know, and I know Paul went and spoke in Athens and spoke to the people there. There are places for that. But our society today is so hot politically that sometimes we don't get a right to say anything because we said something that maybe the person will just take off on us. And I hate it that way, but that's the way it is today. And we're not internationals, we're careful. Now we don't back off of who Jesus is, we don't back off who God is or the Bible or anything like that. But we try not to get into the politics. I have an international right now who he wants to speak to politics every day, every time we get together. And he's mad at me right now because I told him he can't. He's from Taiwan. And I keep telling him, you're outnumbered 10 to 1 in our group. And I said, just don't bring up the Taiwanese stuff. And he said, well, I did this and that. I said, well, I'll tell you what, you can do it outside the group, but just don't do it in. because he's mad at me because I won't let him do it right now. But yet, that's one of the things that can become a hindrance to the gospel if you don't watch out. And open yourselves up to the fact that God wants you to be a part of his kingdom, and his kingdom work. To believers, I don't think this is an option. Now I'm not talking, you know, I never thought of myself as an evangelist, any way, shape, or form. but God has opened up opportunities to me to be exactly that where I am. And there are opportunities that you have that God can open up for you. Just pray for him and be available for him. Why don't y'all think about that? Oh, one last thing. Sit down after a week or two and write down two people within your spear. that you think that maybe God is saying, you need to say something to this person, you need to get to know them, you need to share the gospel with them. It doesn't mean you do it immediately, but pray for an opportunity to do so, and you will be, God will frighten your socks off, because all of a sudden, they will appear. You know, one of the things, and I'll close with this, When I first got to the university up here, one of the things I prayed for was someone that could be a friend of mine in Global, which is the group that handles all the international students. And because I knew that being a Christian ministry, Global, they're not anti-Christian, but they sort of look on us sideways. Like, not sure what you are, where you're good for the Iron Nationals or whatever. And so one day I was in the hub and I was supposed to meet an Indian student and he was 30 minutes late. And so I had nothing to do. I was in front of the sitting steps that are in the hub and I noticed a guy was walking toward me with a San Francisco baseball jacket on. And the area I'm from in Georgia, there's a young man named Buster Posey who was the MVP for the San Francisco Giants. He's from a town that was about five or six miles from my house. And a lot of the kids in our youth group at our church went to our church were contemporaries of his. So I knew him when he was nobody, just a kid that couldn't even shave. And so the guy was walking toward me, as my wife will tell people, I will talk to a post. And so he walking toward me and I just look at him and I said, hey, you're a Giants fan. He said, yeah. He said, well, I know Buster Posey. He said, you do? And we started talking. And he said, well, what do you do? And I said, well, I'm with the Christian ministry called RUF. I always have to explain what that means, because nobody knows who we are. They know more now, but still, yeah. And I'm working with international students doing this. And he goes, I said, what do you do? He said, well, I'm one of the main international advisors at Global. And my heart just went right to the floor. Because I knew two things, either this guy's going to really like me, or he's going to make sure I'm not going to be anywhere near an international student. And he looked at me and said, and I'm a Christian. He said, I went to seminary for two years at a Baptist seminary out in San Francisco. And he said, I think you're doing wonderful things. And so we became friends. And since that point, we meet every five weeks for lunch, we pray, we talk about things, about the ministry. He tells me stuff about, and he also is someone, he is an advisor to Bezos. And every time a student in our group has trouble with Bezos, I said, hey, you need to get John Uden, because he's a friend of mine and he'll help you. And these students, they come back and they say, oh, you know things. And know people. And John just helping them has been a wonderful thing for our ministry. And of course, going up there with a name helps in the global, because there are other advisors there. And John always goes to agree with them. So God does answer prayer. And God does give you opportunities. You see the value of some of them. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for those opportunities that we have. Father, there are a lot of times when we're tired and we just don't want to mess with it. But yet, God, you even put somebody on the airplane beside us because there are other important things that you have for us to do. Father, I pray for this congregation as they're without a shepherd. I pray, Lord, that you would continue to give them opportunities. with non-believers to share the gospel, to truly share the love of Jesus. Thank you, Father, for us in Christ's name we pray. Amen.