Christ-Centered Communication

To the hypocritical religious leaders of His day, Jesus said: “You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34).

How many of you know that your tongue will tattle on your heart? Your tongue will expose what holds the preeminent place in your heart; the idols of your heart. And depending on what holds the supreme place in your heart, your tongue can do a lot of good or a lot of evil. It can bring a lot of healing or it can bring a lot of hurt.

The breakdown in our relationships, whether at home, in the workplace, or in the church, is often a breakdown in communication. What and how we communicate is absolutely vital to the health of all relationships, especially our relationship with God.  

If we desire Christ to be exalted in our hearts and lives, we must first and foremost communicate in prayer faithfully. As Paul brings his letter on the preeminence of Christ to a close, it is no accident that He exhorts believers about how to communicate, beginning with how to communicate with God. Paul writes:    


Again, often the breakdown in relationships is a breakdown in communication. And this is also true in regard to the most important relationship of all, namely our relationship with God. God is always communicating with us, and He’s always listening and ready to respond to our communication. However, we are are not always listening to or communicating with Him.

The Apostle John refers to Jesus as the Word, the logos, because He is both Creator God and the revealer of God. And Jesus, the Word “became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

The heart of God is to make His fullness known to us in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus came so that through His life, death, and resurrection all who believe might know God and come into a relationship with Him.

But in order to grow in the fullness of this relationship with God in Christ, who is full of grace and truth, we must be in constant communication with Him. For this reason Paul writes to believers: “Continue steadfastly in prayer…” (Col. 4:2)

To continue steadfastly in prayer means that we must be faithful and devoted to prayer. We must pray when we feel like it and when we don’t feel like it. In fact, when we don’t feel like it, that’s when we need to pray the most.  

In Luke 18, Jesus gave a parable about a persistent widow to teach His disciples about the need to persist in prayer. Before sharing the parable, Jesus gives the principle behind it first, namely, “that they ought always to pray and not lose heart” (Luke 18:1). That is, to keep from becoming weary in our spiritual lives, including becoming weary of prayer, we must persist in prayer.

We don’t become weary of prayer because of persisting in prayer. We become weary in prayer when we don’t persist. Prayer fuels more prayer. Therefore, it’s when you don’t feel like praying that you need to pray the most.


There’s another reason why we may grow weary in prayer. Although we may be persisting in prayer, we may be doing so with the wrong motivation.


What’s your ultimate motivation for prayer? I appreciate what Daniel Henderson says: “The most enduring motivation for prayer is that God is worthy to be sought.”

Concerning David, the great Psalmist of Israel, the bible describes Him as “a man after God’s own heart” (Acts 13:32). David certainly poured out his heart to God, but what his heart desired most was God Himself, to know His heart, to do His will, and to exalt His name.

Prayer is more than communicating what’s on your heart to God. If that is all prayer is in your life, you will not only lose heart in prayer, your prayers will be powerless. Prayer is more than one way communication. Prayer is talking to God about what’s on His heart.

How do learn to talk to God about what’s on His heart? Pray with an open bible, or with the scriptures in your heart and let God start the conversation.    
Prayer is about knowing and responding to what’s on God’s heart. And when you know God’s heart you will worship Him, surrender to His will, and trust Him to meet your needs.  

After Paul’s exhortation to be faithful in prayer, to “continue steadfastly in prayer," he adds, "being watchful in it with thanksgiving” (Col. 4:2).

To be watchful means to stay alert and vigilant in prayer. Don’t pray sleepy insincere prayers. Give your best energy to prayer. Stay awake in prayer. Don’t just go through the motions. Be alert to how God is providing opportunities to share the gospel with others in answer to prayer.

Moreover, in addition to being faithful and watchful in prayer, Paul exhorts us to do so with thanksgiving. Remembering to be thankful in prayer not only exalts the Lord in your life, it brings to your mind God’s goodness and faithfulness. And often simply recalling God’s goodness and His track record of faithfulness in your life is the greatest benefit of prayer.

When you recall His faithfulness in prayer with thanksgiving, especially in difficult times, you can say in faith, “Lord, because you brought me this far, I have every reason to trust you to carry me the rest of the way.”

When Christ is exalted in our hearts through prayer, a primary result will be the desire to communicate the gospel clearly.


After Paul, who was in prison at the time, exhorted believers to be faithful in prayer, He asked them to pray for him. What was the most urgent desire of His heart? Amazingly, it wasn’t for prison doors to be open. Paul asked them to pray that He might have open doors of opportunities to preach the gospel and that he might do so clearly.

The desire and prayer of Paul’s heart was to know Christ and make Him known. He knew such a fullness in Christ that he was more focused on others hearing the gospel clearly and being saved, than returning to a more comfortable lifestyle.  

How is God working in you during these unprecedented times? What I see as I look at this world and my own life through the lens of God’s word, is that He wants to tear us away from the idols in our hearts that are taking His place. 

And He wants to tear us away from the idols that shape us and snare us so that we might know His fullness and make it known. But this will not happen until we prioritize prayer first in our individual lives and for one another.

Now, once again notice that Paul, knowing the power of prayer and the gospel, asked others to pray for open doors to preach the gospel and to make the gospel clear.

If the Apostle Paul needed the prayers of others to effectively communicate the gospel, how much more do we, how much more do Pastors and missionaries, especially in times like these? We must communicate in prayer faithfully for ourselves and for one another so that we might communicate the gospel fruitfully.

There’s another vital way that we, as representatives of Christ, must communicate. Paul exhorts believers to communicate to all graciously.


When Paul says to walk in wisdom toward outsiders, he’s referring to a believer’s godly conduct before a lost world. To be an effective witness, our conduct, which involves our speech, must be in line with the wisdom of God’s word.

People come to know us, and we come to know others through communication. This requires making the best use of the time, (v.5), especially when God is clearly providing an opportunity to share the gospel. How are we to approach those opportunities? Paul continues: “Let your speech always be gracious...” (Col. 4:6)

If Jesus, the Word, who is full of grace and truth, is filling our lives, He will be manifested in our speech. Our speech will not only be filled with the wisdom of God’s word, but with winsomeness and grace.

What’s more, in addition to our speech being gracious, Paul writes that it should be "seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” Salt was used as a preservative and for taste. Our speech should have both a purifying and redeeming quality. When we communicate with others, our ultimate aim should not be to win an argument, but to win a person to Christ.

Remember Jesus said, "from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" (Matthew 12:34). What are you filling your heart and life with? Paul wrote that we are to "let the word of Christ dwell in us richly...” (Col. 3:16). When His word is filling our hearts and is transforming our minds, the words from our lips will flow out with grace and truth.

May we communicate in prayer faithfully so that in the fullness of Christ, we communicate the gospel clearly, and communicate to all graciously to the glory of Jesus.

In His Service,
Pastor Marco