A word spoken at the right moment to the right person can change the whole direction of a life — and Paul says that's everybody's work, not just the apostle's.
Central Image
Bill Easley — a navy seal science teacher with a speech impediment — told a seventh-grader one thing about leg presses and jumping, and Toby is still touching the rim at 52 because of it.
The Turn
The sermon dismantled the assumption that speaking the gospel is a special-assignment task for missionaries and preachers — Paul does it by asking the ordinary Colossian Christians to pray for him the same way he's about to tell them to talk to their neighbors.
Outline
Words Can Go Either Way
Toby opens with the soccer story — goalie, bleeding nose, his whole church watching, and he clears the stadium with one volume-max sentence at the coach. The sermon names itself immediately: he's preaching to himself, not at anybody else. Words get people in trouble and words do good things, sometimes the same person in the same week.
The Text: Colossians 4:2-6
This is the first time in Colossians that Paul turns the congregation toward outsiders — everything before has been internal: theology, relationships inside the body, household dynamics among believers. Now Paul pivots. Be devoted to prayer; be watchful and thankful in it. Pray for us — and the request isn't "pray I get out of jail." It's pray that a door opens for the word, and that I know how I ought to say it. Paul is locked up precisely because of this work, and what he wants is more of it, done better.
Everybody's in This
Paul parallels his own apostolic situation with the Colossians' everyday lives, and Toby names what that dismantles: the youth-event move where every talk ended with an altar call to go into professional ministry, as if serious Christians all become preachers. That's not the kingdom. Every person who believes and is filled with the Spirit of God participates in what God is doing in the world. The stage is different. The spotlight is different. The king and kingdom are the same.
Walk in Wisdom — and Read the Room
Buy back the time. Don't beat your head against the wall with someone who isn't ready to hear it. The Mormon missionary story goes 13 weeks — ice water, questions phrased so nothing technically gets blasphemed, and eventually one of them ends up in what amounts to a re-education camp. Maybe not the best use of a Friday afternoon. Acknowledge the reality of the situation. Talk to people who are ready to engage.
Season Your Words
Paul's language here is food-prep and rhetoric at the same time: don't be bland. Think ahead. The golf ball story from Hookstown — a dying man giving away his collection, saying to strangers in restaurants, *you're precious to me, just like you are to God* — lands as an example of what seasoned, simple, personal looks like. Not complicated. Not a presentation. Something true, handed to a person.
Know Your Person
Paul says "know how you ought to answer each person" — and Toby illustrates it with two people in the room who handle conflict completely differently. Come in hot with one and she gives it right back; do the same thing with the other and she cries for a week. Both are fine people. Neither approach is wrong. The problem is applying one to both. Everybody is different. Engaging well means noticing.
The Landing
Bill Easley — navy seal, speech impediment, seventh-grade science teacher — told a kid one thing about the leg press machine, and that kid took it so seriously that at 52 he can still touch the rim. Easley didn't know he was giving anything important. He just said it. You never know which word is the one that talks somebody off a ledge you didn't know they were on. Say something — something seasoned, something real, something aimed at the person in front of you.
Questions to Think About
- Toby opened with a soccer story — he was already bleeding from a ball to the face, his team was getting demolished, and he just completely lost it in front of 70 people from his church. When was the last time something got under your skin and your mouth got there before your brain did?
- Paul is writing from jail, and instead of asking the Colossians to pray that he gets out, he asks them to pray that a door opens for the word and that he knows how to say it. What does that tell you about what Paul thought his situation was actually for?
- Paul tells them to "buy back the time" when talking to outsiders — not to just go for it whenever. What's the difference between being bold about your faith and just not reading the room?
- Toby said that maybe his 13 weeks with the Mormon missionaries was a waste of time — at least not something he'd repeat. Have you ever pushed a conversation with someone who just wasn't there yet, and what happened?
- Think about the people in your life outside this building. Is there someone you've been meaning to say something to — invite somewhere, ask a question, hand something — and you just haven't?
- Toby named two very different people in this room and said you can't engage them the same way. Who in your life do you consistently come at with the wrong approach, and what's actually stopping you from adjusting?
- As a church, how many of our conversations about reaching people stay inside this room? What would it look like if we actually planned for the outside?
- Name one person you're going to say something to before next Sunday — not a speech, not a gospel presentation — just one thing. Who is it and what are you going to say?