Open your Bibles to Colossians, chapter 4. We're going to be looking at verses 2 through 6 for our time in God's Word. This morning, I just got so carried away singing that song after I got to turn my microphone on, but that's alright. Colossians 4:2-6 is what we'll be looking at here today. And over the last year, I've been teaching on finishing strong in our club 65, talking about how we finish the Christian race, running strong all the way to the end. And I don't know if anybody else has been benefited from that, but I have benefited greatly just from studying that myself. And then, recently, something happened that I wasn't expecting, and that is that I was invited to join the Long Beach church plant team. I was thinking I was just going to sit in my backyard and drink sweet tea and call them every once in a while, see how they're doing, but now I'm actually going to be there with them. And as I thought about this opportunity, I thought about finishing strong. What does that look like? And I also thought about some other Scriptures, and that led me to the passage that we're looking at here today, Colossians 4:2-6. So, out of respect for God's Word, let's stand as I just read that passage for us. Colossians 4, starting in verse 2. The apostle Paul writing to a church in the city of Colossi, and he says this.
Continue steadfastly 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 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.
Amen. You may be seated. Let me pray for us as we come to God's Word. Father, we are thankful that we have your Word, that we can be confident that it truly comes from you. This is your Word. It's not men's words. This is your Word, and it comes with the full authority of God. It comes with an inerrancy and infallibility, and it is sufficient for all that we need in this life. So, Lord, I pray you'll help us to pay attention to what your Word says that we might be able to put aside any distractions and give you our undivided attention. And we pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.
You'll notice there in verse 5 that it says, “Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time, making the best use of the time.” Or some translations have it “redeeming the time.” And the context here is about applying wisdom into our evangelistic opportunities to outsiders, outsiders to the church, outsiders to the faith, outsiders to Christ. And the idea is that we should buy up those opportunities to talk to them about Christ. And that's exactly what we're wanting to do in Long Beach. And this is an intense word, indicating that we should seize the opportunities, that we should snap them up. In other words, don't waste your time. And you see the similar thing. Just go back a couple of books to Ephesians, chapter 5, just again, by way of introduction, here talking about not wasting your time, making the best use of it. Ephesians chapter 5, verses 15 and 16 uses the same kind of terminology. It says in verse 15, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise making the best use of the time because the days are evil.” So, same kind of exhortation is given here. And the then verse 15 pushes you back. And starting in verse 8, he's talking about “walking in the light that you have in Christ and exposing the darkness, both by our lives and our message.” And the climax is there at the end of verse 14, the evangelistic call that says, “Awake o sleeper and arise from the dead and Christ will shine on you.”
We don't want to waste our time. We want to make the most of our time. The days are evil. Uh, there are outsiders who need to hear the truth. We need to walk in wisdom. But I'm afraid that too many Christians and too many churches are wasting their time. And if you think about it, to waste your time, to waste any time is to be ungrateful to the God who gave you that time. It's to act like you somehow deserved that time, and you could use it any old way you wanted to use it. That's wasting your time. We all need to address the danger of wasting our time.
And in our passage here in Colossians 4, we're going to see three principles to follow that keep us from wasting our time in serving the Lord. So, let's look at them together. And principle number one comes in verse 2 and into verse 3, and it would be, “Pray urgently.” Pray urgently. Look again at verse 2, which says, “Continue steadfastly 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.” So, making the best use of your time implies that you only have a limited supply of this time. You only have so much of it, and you need to maximize it. You need to maximize your time. And so, Paul says one way to do that is to start with prayer. We need to pray. And you heard Josh announce about the prayer time on Thursday. You can watch on live stream, there will be somebody here, starting at 630 in the morning. Every 10 minutes, there'll be somebody else coming in to pray. You can follow along as you can during the day, and then at 6:30 at night, we're going to meet here to pray. And we're going to pray for a lot of things, but certainly we can be praying for opportunities in Long Beach. And we want to make the most of that time. The time is limited, and so we need to have a sense of urgency about how we use it, what we're doing. And none of us knows how much time we have. Do you know how much time you have? It's not it's not a trick question. No, you do not know how much time you have. None of us do.
So, we can't waste the time and think that, well, sometime later, I'll get around to this important stuff. We need to redeem the time and to continue steadfastly. Means to pray intensely, to be devoted to prayer and being watchful, says that you should be alert about what you're praying for. And the reason that's given here, a specific reason for prayer is given here because we need open doors for the Word. You see that in verse 3. Paul says, at the same time, pray also for us that God may open to us a door for the Word that's really important. We want open doors for the gospel. And the reason we're going to pray for that is because only God can open those doors. And so, we're praying and asking him to open up doors of opportunity for the Word of God, for the gospel to go out.
And when you think about praying for Long Beach. You need to know that, as we sit here right now, we have nowhere to meet in Long Beach. We don't have even a physical door to open. We've got nowhere to meet yet, and we need a base of operations from which we can meet together and proclaim God's Word. And as I thought about that, I thought about Paul traveling in the book of Acts missionary journeys. He always had a place, whether it was a synagogue or somebody's house or even a school. In Acts 19, he met in the school of Tyrannus and proclaimed the Word. We need to pray for that kind of a place for us in Long Beach, and we can pray, as it says here, with thanksgiving, because God hears and answers those kinds of prayers. He is committed to building his church, and that means he's committed to providing what the church needs. And so, we want to pray, but I think that we often lack this sense of urgency. And it’s not only Paul that stresses that, but Peter does as well.
Turn with me to 1 Peter, chapter 4. Let me show you something that Peter says regarding the urgency of the time and the need for prayer. 1 Peter4:7. He says it like this, “The end of all things is at hand, therefore be self-controlled and sober minded for the sake of your prayers, for the sake of your prayers, because the end of all things is at hand,” meaning it's near. It's ready to ready to happen. At any time, it's imminent. Then I have to live with a sense of urgency in the light of that reality. Because here's another question for you, do you know when Christ is returning? See how. Make it simple for you, it's the same answer to every question. No, you don't know when Christ is returning, and so that we’ve got to make the best use of the time that we have. And Peter, along with Paul, says that we need to pray. We need to pray soberly. We need to pray alertly, because we need to pray effectively. I can't allow myself to get distracted. I can't allow myself to waste my time. I need to recognize there's only so much of this time. I need to make the most of it, and a key part of making the most of it is praying effectively. The time is short.
So, you need to buy it up, and you need to pray for open doors, for the Word, for the gospel. That's principle number one, going back to Colossians 4. There's a second principle that comes out in the middle of verse 3 and into verse 4 and 6, and that is, we need to proclaim Jesus. Proclaim Jesus. He says, 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 is how I ought to speak.” And verse 6, “Let your speech always be with great be gracious, seasoned with salt so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” Purpose of the open door is to proclaim or declare or to preach Christ. There's no point in having an open door if we're not going to say anything, if we're not going to speak about Christ, we don't want to waste open doors of opportunity by not speaking about Christ. And notice, in both verse 4 and verse 6, there's the word “ought”. And the idea of that word in the original is that this is a moral obligation. We ought to do this. And I think that Paul looked at it this way, as he says it in Galatians 2:20 “He belongs to the one who loved him and gave himself up for him.” And so, in response, he wants to represent his savior. He wants to rightly represent his savior. And this kind of passion is what drove him, and it needs to drive us as well. Listen to the words he uses in Romans 1:14, he says, “I am under obligation to both the Greeks and the barbarians, both to the wise unto the foolish, so I am eager to preach the gospel.” I've got an obligation. My life is not my own anymore. I've been bought with a price. I belong to a savior. He's my Lord, and I'm obligated to speak about him. And more than that, even in 1 Corinthians 9:16, he says it like this. He says, “For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting, for necessity is laid upon me.” Woe to me, if I do not preach the gospel, I get no credit. There are no like bonus points because I went and preached the gospel to somebody. No, that's a necessity. That's what I'm supposed to do. In fact, I'm in trouble if I don't do that, because I have a obligation.
How many Christians are supposed to be making disciples? All Christians are supposed to be making disciples. And I'm pretty sure that's going to be on the final exam, Jesus is going to say, I gave you this responsibility to make disciples. How'd you do? We have an obligation, and why wouldn't we? He came and found me and saved me and brought people into my life to help me learn and grow. Why wouldn't I want to do that for somebody else? And going back to Colossians 4, Paul uses an interesting phrase here. It doesn't say declare Christ. He says, declare the mystery of Christ. Declare the mystery of Christ. The New Testament has several mysteries, which are things that were hidden in the Old Testament but now fully revealed in the New Testament. And in this context, it's the gospel. And more specifically, if you read the book of Colossians, it's that the gospel is for everyone. That's the mystery that was revealed. The Old Testament spoke about a coming Christ, and it did speak about Gentiles getting saved, but the New Testament declares that Jew and Gentile are altogether one in Christ. And that is good news. Look at it, back in Colossians 1:26 he talks about the mystery that was hidden for ages and generations, but now revealed to his saints. “To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this ministry, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” So, that wasn't something that Jewish people were thinking was available to Gentiles. It wasn't something Gentiles were thinking about. But now it's been revealed that those who are in Christ, Christ is in them, and they have the hope of glory. That is good news. That is good news. If you were in the Bible class right now, we'd be saying praise the Lord, Hallelujah, Amen. But you guys are stuffy, stodgy Sunday morning church people. So that's alright but look at it again. In chapter 3, verse 11, he says, “Here in Christ, there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in you all.” That's exciting news. And that little list that he gave there that represented every kind of different group you could think of at that time. And the good news is that all of them come together in Christ and in Long Beach. There are people with different ethnic, social, economic and political backgrounds, but there's salvation for all of them in Christ. We can't waste our time just talking about the surface issues. We’ve got to get to the heart, and only Christ can change a person's heart. And then he brings all of those people together in himself, that's good news. That's what we get to declare to people. That's what we get to proclaim. We need open doors to proclaim Christ. And verse 4 continues the prayer request there in Colossians 4, showing us that there is a way we ought to speak. There is a way we ought to speak. We don't want to waste an open door with an improper presentation. It has to be clear. He says that “I may make it clear which is how I ought to speak.” We're to give a clear presentation of the truth about Christ. And Paul kind of explains this in Acts chapter 20, verse 21 but he talks about what he did in his ministry, and he uses a word that really helps us to understand this a little better. He says in Acts 20, verse 21 that he was testifying both to Jews and to Greeks, of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord, Jesus, Christ, testifying. There are some translations that have it as “solemnly testifying,” because it's an intense form of the Word, and to solemnly testify means to give a thorough and complete presentation. Thorough and complete.
What we need today is a clear presentation of the gospel, especially in a place like Long Beach. I mean, you can imagine most people in Huntington Beach, most people in Long Beach, they live and they die without ever, ever hearing a clear presentation of the gospel. Some of them might have heard something called the gospel, but chances are, it wasn't really clear. It wasn't complete, it wasn't accurate. Our mission is to make it clear, and so people need to know what the gospel is. And we all need to be equipped to be able to tell people clearly what is the gospel, what is our message. So, we have to start with making sure they know who God is, because you can't assume nowadays that when you mention God, people are thinking right thoughts about him and who he is and what he does. They need to be reminded that God is the creator, which means all of us are accountable to our creator, and as creator, he's also holy and righteous. We all are accountable to a creator who made us, and he is holy and righteous. People nowadays have such small thoughts about God, and they think it's okay to disobey him, or to be kind of disinterested in him, and some people just flat out want to disregard him, but God will not be pushed aside. He is the Creator, and everybody's going to have to answer to him.
And then, when you think about us, you think about the condition of man. Man comes into this world, sinful, rebellious and hostile towards God. We're born with a sin nature, and that sin nature and those sins that we commit are worthy of eternal judgment by a holy, righteous God, and that's eternal judgment in hell. There are no vacations, there's no time outs, there's no weekends off. It's nothing but torment, day and night, forever and ever. That's how bad our sin is, and people need to feel the weight of their sin if they're ever going to respond to this good news that we have. And that brings us to the Savior, Christ, the Son of God, who came as a man and died in our place. Died to pay for our sins, our penalties, our debt. He rose from the dead, which is the clincher that he is who he said he is, and he ascended into heaven. And someday soon, he's coming back. And the fact that there is a savior, that God sent his Son to save people, is evidence that he's not only holy and righteous, but he is loving.
I don't think that the church and Christians are doing very well at being biblically clear and accurate with the gospel. Too many outsiders have not had this clearly explained to them. You know what? What's often presented today is, hey, are you lonely? Do you feel aimless? Is your life messed up? Well, come to Jesus and he'll fulfill all your desires. That is not the gospel. What the gospel is is about reconciling your sinful, hostile, rebellious life with a holy creator God, which God accomplished for you in his Son, out of his love and grace and mercy. That's good news. That's the good news that we have to tell people about, and people need to respond to that. We need to call them to respond. And you see that Paul said that their repentance toward God and faith in our Lord, Jesus Christ. If anybody's going to come to real faith in Christ, they need to know the facts like we've just laid them out, and they need to acknowledge that those facts are true, but it doesn't end there, but I'm afraid that's where a lot of people do end. I know the gospel, and I believe it's true, and they think they're okay, but that knowing the facts doesn't save you. You must commit yourself to the person of Jesus Christ. I am going to follow him for the rest of my life. I am following him. That's what it means to put your faith in him. And some of you might be thinking, well, that's not me, because I've repented, too. I've repented. Well, I'm here to tell you your repenting doesn't save you either. Only Jesus saves you. Yeah, you need to turn repentance towards God. In other words, I was running away from God, now I'm turning to God, and the only way to come all the way to God is by putting faith in Jesus Christ. He's the one that saves you.
We need to present that to people. Tell them that Jesus is a willing savior. Anybody who comes to him, he won't turn away. But they need to know what it means to come to him. I think too many Christians… Well, look at verse 6 back in Colossians 4, because there's another “ought” here. Not only should we make it clear, we ought to make it clear, but we ought to speak with grace. We ought to speak with grace. Gracious words. That's like what they said about Jesus in Luke 4:22, when he went back home to Nazareth and preached in the synagogue. It says the people were marveling at the gracious words that were coming from his lips. That's how we should do it. We're trying to win people to Christ, not just blast away at how bad they are. Our speech needs to be seasoned with salt. It needs to be flavorful. Too many today, and you see this all over social media, they spend their time condemning the outsiders for how bad they are. And, well, those people need to remember that Jesus condemned the self-righteous religious people who were looking down on everybody else. Our words need to be noticed. It says, there, let your speech always be gracious. Means that this has to become the developed habit of how you talk to people. And we need to know how we ought to answer each person. We want to say the right things, but we want to say them in the right way. So, we need to develop this habit of gracious speech, and not just condemning people. Doesn't mean we overlook sin, but we're trying to win people. Outsiders need more than anything else to learn about Jesus Christ. If we're going to redeem the time, we’ve got to spend it proclaiming Jesus.
You know, I'm encouraged as I think about this church plant, I'm encouraged as I read the book of Acts and seeing how effective they were with no resources, but they had an incredible impact. In fact, in Acts 4:28, the apostles are brought before the religious leaders there in Jerusalem and who had previously told them to knock it off, quit this preaching about Jesus. And of course, they didn't do that. And now they call him and say, hey, you have filled our city with your doctrine. Wouldn't that be a great goal for a church to fill Huntington Beach, to fill Long Beach with the teaching of the gospel, so that anybody could pull off the 405 freeway and pull up and talk to somebody and say, hey, can you tell me what the gospel is? And they would say, Well, yeah, I could, but you really should go talk to those people at Compass Bible Church, because that's all they're talking about all the time. And we all know it. Wouldn't that be cool? That would be way cool. That's what they did. With no resources. They filled Jerusalem, the city that not too long before that had killed Jesus, they filled it with the truth about Jesus. And then later, as they move out and they start going around the Mediterranean, they get to Thessalonica. Paul and his coworkers get there, and in Acts 17:6, they're accused of turning the world upside down. How awesome is that to be accused of turning the world upside down? Today, I think the world's turning the church upside down. They turned the world upside down, and it says, here’s what they made against the accusation that they made against them. They're proclaiming that there's another king, and his name is Jesus, which tells me they made this message crystal clear. Yeah, even our opponents are understanding what we're talking about. Yeah, there is another king, and his name is Jesus, and they're saying, you guys have turned the world upside down. That's our mission to the 450,000 souls in Long Beach.
So, we need to pray for open doors, for opportunities where we can proclaim Christ. But there's one more principle that is very important. Go back to Colossians 4 and it's just something that's kind of tucked away in the text. You might not notice it if you weren't looking carefully. But it says there in verse 3, this is the same time, “pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the Word to declare the mystery of Christ.” And here's the phrase, “on account of which I am in prison.” If we're going to make the most of our time, one of the things we're going to have to do is put aside idols.
That would be our third principle, “Put aside idols.z’ And there are many idols that could distract us and waste our time, but this text, I think, provides a warning about a particular idol, and we'll call it the idol of comfort. The apostle Paul is in prison. He's in a prison in Rome. As he writes this letter, he doesn't ask for an open door out of the prison. He asks for an open door for the gospel. That's an amazing statement. If you're in prison, you're sending a prayer letter to your friends, and you don't ask for them to pray for you to get out of prison. That would be very unique, unusual. And this all started. Paul was arrested in the city of Jerusalem, and they wanted to try him there, but it wasn't safe to keep him there. There was a threat made against his life. Some men made an oath that they weren’t going to eat until they killed Paul. And so, they had to move Paul from Jerusalem up to Caesarea, where the Roman governor would live. And so, Paul goes there, and he has to stand before two of these Roman governors, Felix and Festus. And they really didn't know what to do with him, but they were afraid of what the Jews would do if they didn't do something. So, they just kept him in prison there for two years. For two years, he's been unfairly accused. He's being unjustly treated for two years. And then Paul, because he was a Roman citizen, appeals to Caesar, which was the right of every Roman citizen, which means they'd have to send him to Rome. And so, you know, Festus is going good. Let's get rid of this guy. And so, they put him on a ship headed for Rome. And you might think, well, this is great for Paul. He gets an all expenses paid trip across the Mediterranean. This is awesome. But if you read the book of Acts, it was an incredible storm, a two-week storm, so bad they couldn't even see where they were going, and at the end of that, they have a shipwreck. And so, they had to endure that along the way. And even when they shipwreck on the island of Malta, he's trying to help out. He's collecting wood for a fire so they can warm up and dry off. And a snake pops out of the sticks. You remember this story. Have you read the book of Acts? And it's a poisonous snake, and it bites Paul, and all the natives thought, well, that's it for him. He's going to die. But he didn't die. God spared his life. But even at that, you’ve got to think, I bet that bite hurt. I don't know, a snake bites me, poisonous snake, it probably hurts, even if it doesn't kill me. So, he's got to endure that. And then finally he gets to Rome. And when he's in Rome, the book of Acts ends saying he's been there two years in prison. So, this thing has gone on for years for the apostle Paul, where he's being unjustly accused, unfairly treated, all these things are happening to him. And my question for you is, how would you be handling that situation? What would you be thinking sitting in that cell in Rome. What would you be doing for Paul, as it must be for us, it's got to be about the advance of the gospel, not my personal comfort.
If we're going to redeem the time, it's not going to be convenient and it's not going to be comfortable, but it can be fruitful. And so, let's get a little insight into Paul in prison in Rome, and go back to Philippians, chapter 1, which he also wrote from Rome. And in Philippians 1:12-14, in chapter one, he describes his prison experience, he says, and he's concerned. The Philippians are concerned about him. They know he's in jail. They've sent somebody there with a gift that you know, to show their love for him. And Paul knows that they're concerned, but he doesn't want them to be concerned. So, he says this says, “I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole Imperial Guard into the rest, that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers here in Rome, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.” Paul is saying, I am having a great time in prison. Don't you worry about me. This is working out great. This is better than I could have ever imagined. Why didn't I think of this earlier? This has given me opportunities I would have never even thought of before. I mean, he sounds genuinely excited about being in prison because it's providing for him this unique experience to advance the gospel. Because, see, he talks about the Imperial Guard. He would have had a Roman soldier, a guard, Imperial Guard, Praetorian Guard, which are like Caesar's Secret Service guys. These are the top guys. He would have had one of those guys chained to him. They would have changed them every six to eight hours. And so, what do you think Paul's talking to that guy about for six to eight hours and that guy can't go anywhere. For the apostle Paul, this is like a dream come true.
What are they hearing from you? If you're in that situation, I’ve got to listen to six hours of you griping and complaining. Are you going to see this as an incredible opportunity. I need to buy up this time. These people would never come listen to me down at the synagogue, but now they have to listen to me. He was truly excited about that. And if you look at the end of the book, chapter 4, verse 22 as he's saying his farewells, he says, “All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar's household.” Yeah, some of those guards, they're getting saved. They're now part of the saints. Paul saw this as just a way of God putting them in a position that he couldn't have been in otherwise, to have a unique opportunity to tell the gospel. Paul's desire was to see outsiders won to Christ. That's what he lived for.
Turn with me to 1 Corinthians, chapter 9, and listen to him explain that. 1 Corinthians, chapter 9, starting in verse 19. We've already seen in verse 16, where he talks about the necessity to preach the gospel. And here's kind of how he went about it. He recognized he's talking to different people different situations. He doesn't want to be unnecessarily offensive to any of them, because he has a goal in mind. And here's what he says, “For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all.” That alone, right there, that statement, right there, is amazing enough, a servant to all. Why? That “I might win more of them to the Jews. I became as a Jew in order to win Jews to those under the law. I became as one under the law, though not being myself under the law, that I might win those under the law to those outside the law. I became as one outside the law, not being outside the law of God, but under the law of Christ, that I might win those outside the law to the weak. I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel that I may share with them in its blessings.”
See, it's a mindset. I've only got so much time. I have a mission. I'm going to buy up the time, and my goal is to see people won to Jesus Christ, that's all he cares about. And he saw those souls, those people, as his reward, as his crown. Look at what he says in verse 24 and 25. He says, “Do you not know that in a race, all the runners run, but only one receives the prize. So run that you may obtain it.” Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable now. What's the imperishable reward that he's talking about, these souls that he's seeing won to Christ, that are going to be with him forever in eternity? That's what he's living for. And so, he disciplines himself. He says that you’ve got to exercise self-control. And in verse 26 he says, “So I do not run aimlessly. I do not box as one beating the air.” In other words, “I'm not wasting my time, but I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest, after preaching to others, I myself should be disqualified.” He's all in with this mission that he has. He's got to focus on seeing people won to Christ, on making disciples, and so he's not going to waste his time on other things that aren't going to contribute towards that. And there's nothing convenient or comfortable about this. Just ask Olympic athletes if their training is convenient and comfortable. There's no Olympic athlete who hasn't gone through inconvenient and uncomfortable training to get there. Jesus calls us to think this way.
Let's go to Luke, chapter 16, the very interesting parable there about a man who lost his job, and apparently he wasn't doing what he should have been doing, and so he made arrangements with some of the people that his business dealt with so that maybe he could get a job with one of them afterwards. And a lot of people have questions about how he went about it, but actually he was commended for being wise in that way. And fact, Jesus says in verse Luke 16:8, “The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons, listen to this statement. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light.” That's kind of a rebuke to us in the church. But then he says in verse 9, “And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth or money, so that when it fails, they may receive you into eternal dwellings.” He's saying, if you don't want to waste your life, you need to be investing in things that matter for eternity, and you need to be using your money to make friends for eternity. It means you might have to sacrifice some of your own personal comfort and some of the money you might have designated for your personal comfort, you're going to use it to invest in reaching people for eternity. And Jesus warns about living for the comfort of this world. In Matthew, chapter 6, I'll just read these verses to you. You're familiar with them. Verses 19 to 21. He says, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal.” In other words, that's a waste of time. There's no certainty in that. “But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys nor thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is there, your heart will be also.” Wherever you put your treasure, whether it's in things of this world or things in heaven, that's where your heart's going to go. Your heart's going to follow your treasure. He's not saying don't save up for future needs. He's not talking about that, but he's warning about laying up treasures on earth where I'm just accumulating stuff to make my life more comfortable.
Now, you know, Jesus never apologized for talking about money, because this is the real issue. The real decision in life is not between heaven and hell. The real decision in life is between heaven and this world. And Jesus hit that over and over and over again, because if asked, yeah, I'm picking heaven over hell, that's a no brainer. But now you say heaven over this world, well, now that's a whole different situation. And I don't want to wind up like the like the man described in Luke, chapter 12. Look at that with me, Luke, chapter 12, where Jesus gives a helpful parable in response to a common question. Luke 12:13, says someone in the crowd said to him, said to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” So, they were having problems with dividing inheritance back in those days, too. And so, this man asked Jesus to settle it for him, but he said to him, man who made me a judge or an arbiter over you? And he said to them, “Take care and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” And he told them a parable, saying, “The Land of a rich man produced plentifully. And he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? For I have nowhere to store my crops.’ And he said, I will do this, I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store my grain and my goods. And some people would say that is a really wise financial move right there. That's really preparing yourself for the future. Verse 19, “And I will say to my soul, soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years, relax, eat, drink” and play golf. I just Americanized it a little bit. Play golf. But God said to him, “Fool, this night, your soul is required of you and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” And the answer is, not yours. And then he says this in verse 21, “So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” In other words, I'm more concerned with my own comfort, my own desires, than I am with serving God.
Comfort has become a real idol. We believe contentment is found in circumstances and possessions. What we see in Paul is that real contentment is found in Christ and in redeeming our time, in serving him. We need to think more this way. We need to think more in line with what we see here in the Apostle Paul and in Acts 20:24 as he's on his way to Jerusalem, and he's being warned that, hey, bad things are going to happen to you when you get there. He says this in in Acts 20:24, he says, “But I do not account my life of any value, nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.” He says, my life isn't the issue here, it's me fulfilling the ministry that I've been given to testify about Jesus Christ.
What will you do with the opportunities that you have? Will you snap them up? Will you make eternal investments? Let me just give you some information that will help you as you think about Long Beach and what we're wanting to do there as a church. Here's some information you need to know if we're going to start off renting facilities, like renting a place on Sunday, renting a place during the week to do some midweek ministry, renting offices if we're going to do that, along with the other costs of supplies that we're going to need to do the ministry and pay a staff, we figure that for the first year, that's going to cost about a million dollars. A million dollars. But there is an opportunity that we're looking at that is a possibility to get a permanent place, a warehouse place, similar to the ones that you see around here. But then if we do that, in order to get that building and to and to then do the improvements that we would need to turn it into a usable church facility, the price tag goes up from a million to over three million. So, we're just wanting you to know that we're asking you to pray and to pray for opportunities to make the name of Christ and his gospel clearly and completely known in Long Beach. And then, just to give as you're able to give. But we need to remember that there are consequences and there are important decisions that need to be made.
You know, when I think about this decision for myself, I think of a friend of mine. In fact, he was a seminary professor of mine, many, many years ago. His name's Wayne Mack. We have some of his books for sale in our book nook. Wayne Mack, for decades, was a pastor, a teacher, a trainer, an author, here in America, and when he was my age, about 20 years ago, when he was the age I am now, he and his wife decided to go to South Africa, and they've been in South Africa for a couple of decades now, doing the same thing, pastoring, teaching, training, writing books. And when I think about that, and I've been to South Africa. And you think it's not safe to go to Long Beach, you should go to South Africa. I've been to their house in South Africa. Every house there has a big concrete wall all the way around it with an electronic gate. There's only one way in and out. They have bars on all their windows. They have razor wire on top of those walls. They have an alarm system, and they have a dog, and everybody's been robbed. When I think about them at my age, going to South Africa, I think, yeah, going to Long Beach is kind of wimpy by comparison. I mean, what am I talking about here, you know, but they're an example to me of somebody that wanted to finish strong and wanted to make the most of an opportunity, that an opportunity was presented to them, and off to South Africa they've gone. You know, people are perishing. People are perishing. We have the good news.
I don't want to waste my time. I want to redeem the time and use every opportunity to advance the gospel. Are you wanting to redeem your time for the glory of God? That's what we're thinking about here today. And so, in a minute, the ushers are going to come to take an offering that we've been talking about and preparing for. If you're here as a visitor today, you're our visitor. We don't want you to feel any pressure to give to this. This is something for us as a church family, something that we're praying about and preparing ourselves for. And if you're not prepared to give today, like Josh said, there is a QR code on the back of your bulletin, so you can do that anytime at your convenience.
But just to wrap things up today, I just want to tell you one thing that I read recently as I was thinking about all of this, and it's a question. It's a good question for all of us, and this kind of sums up all that we've talked about here this morning. The question is, what are you doing today? What are you doing today that will have an impact for eternity. What are you doing today that will have an impact for eternity? Let's pray.
Father, we're so thankful for this day that you've given to us, and we want to be faithful to you today to make the most of the time that you've given us. We thank you so much that we've had this opportunity to come here this morning and to worship you and to hear from your Word, to fellowship with one another. Lord, we thank you for how good and gracious you've been to us to provide this opportunity. And Lord, we know that you are continually providing opportunities and open doors. And we want to be people who make the most of those opportunities. We want to be people who are faithful to you. We don't want to waste our time. So, Lord, I pray for all of us that we would think carefully about the things that we have talked about today. Maybe for some of us, it's even wondering if we really are following Christ for others, it's we're examining our lives and what we're doing with our time and resources to make the most of our opportunities to proclaim and advance the gospel. So, we're just praying that you'll work in all of our hearts and that you'll use us in ways that we might have never imagined in the past, but you'll use us to bring glory and honor to your name, and that Jesus Christ would be exalted above all, for we pray this in his name, amen.