Well, we are landing a uh our series in Colossians. We've been journeying through over the past couple of months, uh, looking at this letter that Paul writes to this church in Colossae, a church of encouragement, and as we've been looking at, Paul writes, and he said he reminds them of what they are uh called to. They're called to a life in Christ. And following Jesus, living in Christ, requires us giving up some things. In fact, we give up our life, we make Jesus King of our life. But what we get in following Jesus far outweighs what we give. And over the past number of weeks, we've been reminding ourselves that a life in Christ is a life that knows life itself, that knows peace, and that knows freedom. And as Paul gives his final words in this chapter four, as he signs off, he gives a couple of key encouragements about how to continue to live in Christ, how to continue to live in the life and the power of Christ, the power and life of Christ that must bubble up and spill over into the world around us. And so we're gonna dive into just a few verses this morning as Paul writes in Colossians chapter four, his final encouragements to this church in Colosse. So if you've got your Bibles, feel free to open up to Colossians chapter four. The words are gonna be on the screen behind me. I'm gonna be reading from verses two to six this morning. And Paul writes these words 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 message of Christ for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly as I should. Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders. Make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. Paul says that a life in Christ must overflow to those around us. That a life in Christ is life itself, and this life is powerful, so powerful that it will come out and pour out and work its way into our relationships and to our friendships and to the community around us. A life in Christ is a life of power. Three and a half years ago, on a Sunday morning, not too dissimilar to this, I woke up as I did this morning, nice and early before the sun rose to prepare for my Sunday message. But this was a Sunday like no other. That night we'd been hearing uh the noise of cars driving through water. It had been raining all week in Brisbane. And I was, if you've ever been uh in Brisbane around February, March time, it just rained, it can rain and rain. I'd never seen so much water in my life. And so we went to bed with the with the rain still falling, and then we could hear this noise. We're being woken up during the night. And uh Megs and I didn't think much of it, but when I woke up in the morning, I thought I'd better go out and have a look. As I went out and had a look, I could see that there was a large puddle over the street that we were living on, and in the middle was a car that was stuck, and someone was trying to pull it out. Thought, oh, that's interesting. I went to our neighbours who were away, they had quite a large property with an easement, and the water was running up there, but their house seemed to be okay, so I thought, oh well, we should be fine. I went back and started to prepare for my message uh for the morning at church. It kept raining. And uh as as uh dawn broke, you could see actually how high the water was continued to rise until we got to about seven o'clock. I think I've got a photo here where it was about this, and the water had come up to the driveway. Hopefully, we've got a photo. That's a cute, no, not that one, the one before. Uh maybe we don't have that one. There was that the water came up to the driveway. And uh and Meg said at uh at a no, not that one. You can put that one away. We'll get to that one. Bless them up there. Can you can give give give the guys? I know Isaac's doing an incredible job back there trying to figure out what I'm doing. The water was at the driveway, and Megan said, You are not going to church today. I said, Yeah, but we'll be fine, it'll be okay. Um, you know, this just you know, it'll it'll go away. And then she said, No, in her wisdom, she said you're not going. So I had to cancel the service, which was wise because the police car then turned up and just parked right out the side the front of our house, blocking traffic going through. The rain kept falling, and I I was now listening to the radio and to the Bureau of Meteorology, and they said it's only going to rise but by another foot, another 30 centimetres. So it would be okay, but we'll sandbag photo of the sandbags. And there we go. And we uh and so we put we started the sandbag, and we had friends coming over and scouring Bunnings and other parts of Brisbane, getting in, and we stand, but we felt like we're okay, 30 centimetres, it's okay. But at lunchtime, with the rain still falling, and with the dam having to be released at Wyvenhoe upstream, and with the tide rising on the other side, all of a sudden the water began to rise and rise and rise. And by two o'clock, the water came straight over those bags. By the time we left, we're it was up to our knees and we had to evacuate. The power was turned off, and the power of the water had overwhelmed us. We lifted as much as we could from the first level to the second level and had to leave. Let me tell you, it's a strange. I don't know if you've ever had to do this, but you're having to think, what am I going to take? Unsure of what uh what is gonna the damage is gonna be in the coming hours. But that was the decision that we made, and we all evacuated out of the house. Well, that water continued to rise and rise as the water continued to rain. And I've got a photo of the house here the next morning. It actually went a meter and a half into our house. The power of water, the water falling from the sky, the water coming from Wyvernho Dem, the tidal water pushing up Brisbane River was unable to be contained. Pushed right into our house, and we're so grateful that our you can see a car there uh just in the corner. Someone did an insurance job. I was actually in the house that night, someone just drove it straight into the water and walked away. There you go. When it breaks its banks, when it comes over the top, you can't contain it. It gets everywhere, it goes everywhere. Paul says that when we have access to the life and the power of Jesus, it should overflow and spill out everywhere. Jesus himself said, I am the living water. In a conversation he is having around a well, sitting with a Samaritan woman, they begin to talk about water and drinks of water. And Jesus says this to this Samaritan woman as they continue their conversation. He says, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks for you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. He goes on to say, Everyone who drinks this water will never be thirsty again. But whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life. See, the presence of God is living and it's overwhelming. It can pour out, but it's living. You cannot overwhelm it, it overwhelms us and spills over. That is the power and the life of the living water that we have access to. And Paul says to the church in Colossae, you have access to power and overwhelming power that spills out. Paul says, a life in Christ, firstly, the first encouragement is firstly, if you are to know this overwhelming power, this overwhelming life, then it must be sustained through prayer. A life in Christ must be sustained through prayer. You see, we all need water, don't we? We can live 40 days, maybe more, maybe a little bit less without food. But without water, three days. Water is what is required for us to live, it is the ultimate source of life. We need water to live. Ironically, last year, living in the same house, we ran out of water. After being inundated with thousands and thousands of liters, we came to a moment where we had no water. It was an old house, and the pipe had blocked and collapsed in, and so all of a sudden there was no water in the tap. We turned the faucet, there was nothing that came out. We get in the shower and there was no water, we would go to the toilet. And there was no water, let me tell you, when there's no water, things get desperate in a whole range of different ways. And so we were on the phone very quickly to get that sorted. We had to last a couple of days without water coming out of our tap. We realized very quickly that we are so reliant on water. See, water is life. Perhaps you are feeling in this season disconnected. Perhaps you're feeling lifeless in your spiritual journey. Perhaps you're dragging yourself to church. Maybe you're asking questions about who God is and where is he and all of these things? And my question to you is have you become disconnected to life? Have you become disconnected to the source of life? Is there a clog in the pipe? Is there a lack of flow? Have you become disconnected? And Paul says here as he writes to the church in Colossae, he says, you must be connected to the source of life. In these verses, three times, he says, pray. Pray. See, prayer is the way in which we stay connected to the source of life. And he kicks it off by saying, Devote yourself to prayer. Devote yourself. Devotion is a strong word, isn't it? It's almost obsession. It's consistent. It's planned. It's something that you think about all the time. So I've moved to Melbourne. There are there are two devotions that I sense and see: coffee and sport. There is a devotion here to coffee and sport, which is all well and good. I just wish there was a little bit more devotion to fixing potholes. That would be lovely. Do I hear an amen? Things that we think about, obsess about, orient our life around. Paul says, be devoted to prayer. Devote yourself. Commit yourself. Be consistent to prayer. I've learned over the years that if I'm to live a vibrant spiritual life, if I'm to walk in the ways that God has called me to, if I'm to fulfill the purposes and the plans that I have for my life, then I must pray. I must be connected to the source of life. I don't always get it right, but I certainly know when I'm not. I feel a dehydration in my spirit and my soul. And I've learned to identify a whole range of different things that point to the clock drain, the clogpipe, the lack of connection. At the beginning of the year, I spoke about the prayer chair. Do you remember that? There's a chair that I go to every morning or every day to sit and be with God. A place where I connect and sit in his word and pray. And I've learned over the years that I need to do it. I'm desperate for it. I have to do it. I need to sit in his word. I need to sit with my journal, expressing my prayers and my thoughts, my inner world as I allow God to speak to me. Perhaps you found your prayer chair. Maybe you've got your chair or your place or your space that you go in. And perhaps in this season it's fallen off. Perhaps you've stopped praying. Perhaps today is just that encouragement and that reminder. As Paul writes to Colossa, as he writes to us, be devoted to prayer. Why? Because prayer engages us with God's power. It engages with God's power. Paul writes, and pray for us too, that God may open a door for our message. He says he understands that that prayer opens things up. He understands that when we pray, things on the outside, the outer world are impacted. He understands that God has the power to influence situations and circumstances. He understands that God has the power in prayer to change people's lives, to open hearts and minds. And as he invites the church in Colossae, he says, Pray so that God may be at work in those that we are ministering to, even though he is in chains in prison in Rome. Prayer engages God's power in our world, but it also engages power in our hearts. He says in verse 4, pray that I may proclaim it clearly as I should. Pray for me. Pray that God's power would fill me. Pray that God's power would overwhelm me. Pray that God's power would equip me and enable me to do the things that He's caused me to do. Pray that God's power would spill up and over so that when I speak, his good news would be known. That the message of Jesus Christ would be known. See, Paul writes that prayer is the key. It is the source of life in which we access his power and it must spill in us outwards. See, a life in Christ, secondly, the second encouragement that Paul says is firstly, it's to sustain through prayer, but secondly, it's to allow the power of God, the life of Christ to spill up over to those around us. To spill over. See, when we're filled, when we're filled with his joy and his life and his freedom and his peace, all the things that we've been looking at over these past few weeks, how can we press it down? How can we keep it down? It must spill up and out in our lives in every way. When I was in my 20s and I was working as a a sales manager, I was doing a lot of travel and I kind of got out of shape a bit. And my mum, I don't know how she got it, it would or whatever, it was this uh this this uh practice that she she heard that would be very good for cleansing yourself and and being healthy, and that was every morning to drink eight large glasses of water before you do anything else. And I thought, I can drink water, I can do that, and so I went through a season of every morning waking up and forcing myself to drink eight large glasses of water. Can I just say, just before we go any further, that's actually quite dangerous. Don't do it. We found out later you can desalinate your body, so don't do it. But I was doing it for weeks, and I was forcing it down. I was drinking once I got to five and six, I had to go outside onto the balcony because it literally I was filling up, and I was forced my seventh and eighth glass, I'd put it down, and there'd be water coming out my nose and out my ears and out my mouth, but I was filling up to overflowing. So stupid. You know what happened for the next two hours? Yeah, every 20 minutes. I'm going to the toilet, I was full to overflowing. My boss came up from Sydney to uh and we were driving around during this season and we were seeing different clients. I was driving every 20 minutes. We're doing this driving, you have to pull over and run off into the bushes. He he just said, Andrew, you are an idiot. What are you doing? I'm surprised I kept my job. When we fill up, it must overflow. And Paul says that when we are filled with the life of Christ, it spills out. Firstly, it spills out in our actions. Verse 5, be wise in the way you act toward outsiders, make the most of every opportunity. I love this. Paul says, be wise. Have wisdom in the way in which you interact with, present yourself to those on the outside. Watch the way you act, be wise in your actions, be wise in what you do. Be wise because people are watching. They're watching. I remember during that season as I was working for Castrol, a young guy trying to make his way. I knew very quickly because people noticed that I didn't swear and I didn't enter into dirty jokes, that there was something different. They found out that I was a Christian very quickly. And all of a sudden, once you know people know you're a Christian, they're watching, they're looking, they're observing. And I was very aware of this. I love the fact that I had opportunities with Joe, my boss from Sydney, as we were driving around. He was Lebanese, and we had great opportunities in between me running in and out of the bushes, going to the toilet. I had him in my car, he was literally a captive audience. And we were able to talk and ask questions and share. I love some of the conversations I had about faith and Christianity with Joe. Paul says, be wise in your actions because they will provide opportunities, they will provide opportun opportunities, will come. Paul says a life in Christ will spill out in wise actions. And secondly, he says that a life filled with Christ will spill out in our words. Verse 6 Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. I love this idea of conversation. Paul says conversation. He doesn't say speaking at. It's not a one-way thing. I think sometimes we feel like evangelism, we feel like preaching the gospel is speaking at people. Here's my opportunity. Oh, I've got to make this opportunity. Here's the opposite, whatever it is. Bang, I just need to fill them with everything I know about Jesus. Take him through the Roman road. Take him from Genesis to Revelation. Get it all in there, just God. And that's my job done. Sometimes we think that that is what evangelism is, and I'm here to tell you it's not. It's a conversation. And what does a conversation require? Well, it requires listening. It requires responding. I'd suggest that actually requires more listening than it does responding. I take my cue from none other than Jesus. Jesus was asked 183 questions of which he directly responded in only three occasions. Conversely, Jesus asked three hundred and seven questions. Showing interest in people's lives, in their stories, in their family, in their needs, is a beautiful way of presenting the gospel. As Paul says, as we converse, it must be filled with grace. Full of grace. Full of understanding. Full of seeking to see how the other person receives, experiences you and your life. Not only is it to be full of grace, but it is to be seasoned with salt. Oh, who loves seasoning? Anyone loves seasoning here? Anyone love chicken salt? Oh, chicken salt's the best. Like I've been trying not to try to cut back on carbs. Last night, Meg's made a whole bunch of hot chips and then put amazing. I don't I don't know if it was chicken salt or normal salt, sweetheart, but but it was good. I mean, I just went to have one. Which it turned into two. Which it turned into thirty. Season with salt. Don't you want those conversations and those interactions with people? You want them coming back. Not just for one. Or for two. That's what we're invited into. To live a life and to enter into conversations that are full of grace and seasoned with salt. And I want to speak life and encouragement to us. If I was speaking 10, 15 years ago, my words now would be different. There would be a more of a sense that we're on the back, back foot, having to really be out there. But I want to say that we are entering a season and a time where there is great openness. I see it. I see it here. I celebrate how often, and we celebrate as a team. I celebrate with you. People are walking through the doors of the church like never before in my ministry experience, hungry, longing for meaning and purpose, walking through the doors of the church, wanting to meet and find purpose, meet who is this God, who is this Jesus? Maybe that's you here today. Or maybe you've you've started coming to church, and it's so good to have you. This is a great place to find out grace, to find out who Jesus is, God who stepped down from heaven to earth to release his love and his life into our hearts. What a joy. And there is a growing hunger and thirst for spiritual things. Last year, the researcher McCrindle released a report on the undercurrent of faith in Australia. This came out last year. Here are some of the key findings. Firstly, there's a growing openness to changing beliefs than there was 10 years ago. More and more people are open to exploring faith. 45% they found are extremely or very open to spiritual conversations. High numbers of older Australians, that being over 50, that's what they said, not me, are moving from no religion to Christianity. Growing and great, there is a greater, growing, there is a growing and greater openness to spiritual conversations amongst the younger generations, Gen Y and Gen Z, who are longing for meaning and purpose. And here's the interesting counter. Live with grace. And when we live out the grace, when we live in the life of Jesus, when we are connected to the source, when we are spending time with him, when we are being formed and shaped by him, it must spill out. Now I want to encourage you to say you don't need to have all the answers. You don't need to have the Roman road memorized or have all the whole great story of scripture there at your fingertips when someone asks you, I've noticed something about you. You said you go to church. Why are you a Christian? Now I I don't know how if someone came to you at work, a family, a friend, what you would say. But if I encourage you with one thing that you can say, other than perhaps responding with that's a really interesting question. Why do you ask? Share your story. Why has Jesus changed your life? How has Jesus changed your life? What has he done in you? We've been reminding ourselves over the past three or four weeks about what Jesus does. He gives us life, he gives us freedom, he gives us peace, he changes us from the inside out. What has he done for you? How has he changed your life? Share your story. And perhaps if you're sitting here and going, I'm really, I'm not quite sure how Jesus is changing my life, then perhaps the invitation for you afresh and anew today is to connect back to the source. Be reminded again of what Jesus has done for you and the life that he offers for you. A life in Christ spills out. Allow your story, allow your experiences of Jesus to spill out of your life. Paul gives two encouragements. Firstly, be sustained in prayer, and secondly, allow the life of Christ to spill out from you in word and deed. There's one more thing that I want to pick up in this passage very briefly before I land this morning. And it's an implicit warning. It's a warning that Paul gives, it's an encouragement that he gives, but actually it's a warning for us. Let me skip ahead to verse 16 for a moment. Now I'm jumping a whole bunch of greetings and names that Paul gives, and we're going to come back to that in a couple of months' time. In a few months' time, we're going to have a thank you Sunday, and we're going to celebrate all that God has done. We're going to celebrate those who have served as in as uh team members and volunteers here. So we're going to come back to that later in the year. But I want to just skip ahead to the final words of Paul here in this letter as he signs off. He says, This after the after this letter has been read to you, see that it is also read in the church of the Laodiceans, and that you in turn read the letter from Laodicea. Tell Archipus, see to it that you complete the ministry you have received in the Lord. I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand. Remember my chains, and grace be with you. Paul says as he signs off, remind Archipus. Tell him, complete the ministry that you've received in the Lord. Archipus, keep going. Don't get distracted. God has called you, he has filled you. You have a task, you have a ministry. See that you fulfill it. Don't get sidetracked. Do the job that God has called you and empowered you to do. But there's another verse here, which some of you may have pricked where it's Laodicea. Oh, I've heard that before. Paul says, once you've written the letter, once you've gone around, you gotta understand that Colossae was a whole bunch of different house churches. So the letter would have done the circuit, it would have gone and been read aloud at different uh places and different homes, churches in Colossae. And Paul says, Once that's done, I want you to go up the road to Laodicea. Now, where's Laodicea? Well, Laodicea is not too far from Colossae. It's in the same area, it's in the Lycus Valley, a lovely, fertile valley, and Laodicea is a growing city. I've got a map here that I stole from Lance, who shared this during the week at our small group Connect. Um, and uh it's a picture of where Colossae is and where Laodicea is. Now, as you can see, Laodicea is at uh at a crossroads of two major trade routes. Laodicea was a growing city, not too far away. Paul says, I want you to take that letter and read it there. The words that we have been sitting in today, as we've been sitting over the last two months, would have been read at the church in Laodicea. As many of you know, another letter was written to Laodicea later on. It was a letter written by Jesus through John, who had a revelation. And these are the words that Jesus writes to the church in Laodicea, years later. In Revelation chapter 3, verses 15 and 16, Jesus says, I know your deeds that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other. So because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I am about to spit you out of my mouth. That's not a good thing, is it? That does not sound like a good thing. I mean, I was spitting a whole bunch of water out of my mouth when I was loading up with eight glasses. It's that kind of thing. I just spit you out. That's disgusting. Now there's a bit of context going on, some of you may know this. In that region, that area. Can we go back to that um to that map again, Isaac? Just for a moment. And in this map, you see actually there's there's there's a few cities. You've got Colosse to the south, you've got Heropolis to the north, and then you've got Laodicea. Now, Heropolis was known for its hot springs. It was a it was a uh a fault-line area and hot springs, hot mineral springs would come up. Heropolis was known as a place of healing, these healing pools. Think of the Mornington Peninsula and going to the hot springs down there. The place that people would go to to relax and to be healed. Colosse to the south also had springs, but these were cold springs. I've been to Dalesford in that area. I've drunk out of springs up there that are beautiful cold crisp water. Colossae was also near some mountains where uh the snow would mount and beautiful cold water would come down that they would drink. And these two rivers, these water streams, would work their way to Laodicea, but by the time they got to Laodicea, it was minerally lukewarm water. And Jesus is saying to the church in Laodicea, do not become like that water. It would have been real for them. From the time that the letter that Paul writes to Colossee and to Laodicea had been written to the point where Jesus writes his letter to Laodicea, something had slipped. Something had shifted in the church in Laodicea, they had forgotten. They'd become disconnected from the life and the source, they'd become distracted, they'd become lukewarm. And Jesus says, I'd rather you be cold or hot. Get full on for me. Give it all up for me. You become distracted, you become disconnected, and I'm calling you back to myself. I'm calling you back to to be filled with me afresh. And just as Jesus says to the church in Ladicea, find your life in me. And just as Paul says to the church in Colossae, be filled up in the life of Christ, so too we are reminded from Paul and from Christ today, not to be distracted, not to be disconnected, but to be connected to the life and the source of Jesus and to be filled up. Be continue to be filled up to overflowing in the life and the power of Jesus and his Holy Spirit. Paul writes to the church in Rome, he says in chapter 15, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. May we be filled with the life of Christ. May we be filled with the life of Christ that overflows, that overflows in everything that we do, in everything that we say, and that as we together filled up in this place, have an overflowing spirit, may that turn into a waterfall that spills out to a flood, that works its way out the doors of this church, out the doors of our hearts and lives wherever we go, in order that there would be a flood of the Holy Spirit in Blackburn North, in Melbourne, in Victoria, in our nation and the world. Can I hear an amen? May we be a water flow. May we be a waterfall that is filled up as we as we come and find our life in Christ. It's an invitation for us, it's an encouragement for us. And this morning, I'm gonna create a moment and opportunity for us all just to remind ourselves of Christ's infilling power. The front of the stage, we've got a whole bunch of water bottles with uh the Colossians branding on it. Gimmicky, I know, but but I actually want it to be a reminder for us. I want us to take these, take a bottle and sit it on the bench of your house or in your office, or take it to work, or put it next to your prayer chair, and let it be a reminder that we have actual access to life itself, an overflowing source of life that is founded in Christ. May it be a reminder that we're called to live wisely and to use our words that are seasoned with soul to those who are watching on. Maybe there are people in your life right now that you're praying for. May this be a reminder of the conversations that you get to have with them or the conversations that you need to have with them. May it be a reminder that we are desperately reliant on the source of life that is Jesus Christ to do everything that He's called us to. I wonder whether we can stand this morning. And we invite the prayer team and the pastoral team just to be scattered around this space at the front and around the sides and the back. And here's what I'd love for us to do. As we worship and as we sing and as we remind ourselves, I invite every person to come down and to take a bottle. Take it back to your seat and take it away with you. And if you would like to receive prayer this morning, our prayer team are available as well. And what I've asked them to do and to be available for is just to pray a prayer of blessing over you. If you would like just to receive a prayer of encouragement, a prayer of blessing this morning, come and grab your bottle and just make your way to one of our prayer teams scattered around that got the lanyards on and say, Will you pray for me? Would you just pray a blessing over me that I would be filled afresh in a new? Would you pray for me that I would know the power and the presence of the spirit? Let me encourage you if you're feeling dry or dehydrated in the spirit. Just receive prayer. Just a short prayer of blessing. You don't have to. I want every person to walk away with the bottle this morning. But if you would like to receive prayer, our team would love to bless you and pray for you. So, worship team, why don't you come? Can we invite you to calm the bottles or uh just on the on the wings at the front? Come when you're ready. Come and grab a bottle, receive prayer if you would like. Come and see how the things gathered around the room. Let's allow God to remind us afresh. Renew us afresh with goodness and his grace. How and how? Let's see.