Thank you, Bruce. That could rival the guy they card out at the Atlanta Braves games in between innings to sing God Bless America. That was truly a blessing. If you have a copy of God's Word, I would ask you to turn with me to Colossians Chapter three. And while you're turning there, just remind us all of where we've been so far in Colossians.
We've been looking at how the emphasis in our study the last few Sundays has been on the truth that true theology leads to true Christian living. The new life that believers have is inextricably linked to Jesus resurrection life as the now resurrected and offended Lord. The life that we now have is through his heavenly session. His life is the source for all of our spiritual life. Because of this great truth, we are to set our minds on things that are above, as Pastor Tim reminded us two weeks ago and last week we looked at how the believer is to put off the old self.
All the habits and the setting sins that once defined your life are to be no more. And now not only are you to put off the old self, but you are to put on the new self. And that is going to be the focus of our passage this morning. And the interesting thing about this new self, as our passage will show us it comes to life in the life of the church. We'll look at different virtues and different ways, ways of living that Christ calls us to.
And this way of living is primarily about how we live with one another. So that is our main truth this morning. It's that true Christian living is reflected in the church. True Christian living is reflected in the life of the church. I hope you found Colossians 3:12 17 so now let us look at it together and hear what the Holy Spirit says through the Apostle Paul.
Put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness and patience bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against one another, forgiving each other, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive and above all these put on love which binds everything together in perfect harmony and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you are were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you, richly admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
May God be praised in the public reading of His Word. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we come to you this morning in the name of Jesus. Thankful that you hear us, Lord. We are truly grateful that we get to sit under your Word.
And Lord, through your word, we ask that your church would be built up. We ask that your church would more reflect the character and likeness of Jesus. Lord, keep me from error and help your church to discern what is true and to hold fast to what is good. It's in your name we pray. Amen.
So a dear friend and mentor of mine once adopted a son from Africa. And they picked him up in Louisiana one year and things were going well with their new son. He was enjoying life and his new family. He asked his now, dad, he said, sir, can I call you dad? And he said, you can call me dad, because I am your dad.
And all was going well for about a month until one evening he stole a snack that he wasn't supposed to have and his sister caught him. And she said, I'm going to tell our parents. And this young boy, thinking that if he got caught in this act, his parents would give him away. So he ran away. He even made it as far as another county.
He showed up at some stranger's door and the strangers knew to call the police. And when the family was reunited, the dad got down on eye level with his son. And this is why he told him. And he said, son, your problem is that you still think you're an orphan. You still think that you're an orphan, but you're a son.
He was acting like someone who was not a part of that family, when in reality he was. And the same is true, the dad realized is true of him. He realized that the reason he still struggles with sin, the reason why he still fails to reflect who Christ is, is, is because he still thinks like he's an orphan. He doesn't fully grasp the truth that he's been adopted into the family of God. So that is the truth that Paul has been laboring to drive home so far in our study of Colossians.
Through God's redemptive work in Christ, people who are now once far off from God have now been brought into his family. The church. Colossians 1:13, 14 says, he has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Likewise, Colossians 1:2122 says, and you who once were alienated and hostile in mind doing evil deeds, he is now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him. So just as this orphan boy thought when he was brought into this new family that he couldn't act the way he could because he would be given away, we too act the same way.
We too need to realize that we've been brought into God's family through Christ. And Colossians 3:12, 17 teaches us how true Christian living ought to be reflected in the Church. As the people of God. We still need to live in such a way that matches who we already are in Christ. So there are three priorities this morning that our passage gives us if we are going to reflect true Christian living in the Church.
Priority number one, pursue virtues that foster unity in the body of Christ. Pursue virtues that foster unity in the body of Christ. Look with me again at Colossians 3:12. He says, Put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness and patience. So to fully understand this passage, we need to consider how these Colossians are addressed.
They're addressed as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved. God has chosen or called them into his family, and that comes with a new identity as the people of God. They're defined as being holy and beloved. They're holy because God has declared them to be so. And the truth about that, friends, is that oftentimes, well, universally so for the people of God, even though we've been declared to be holy, our lives often are not holy, and we are beloved by God.
And. And Peter makes the same point in First Peter. Listen to how he addresses the Christians he was writing to. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for its own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light. First Peter 2, verse 9.
The point is the same. God calls his people to Himself not only to save them from the penalty of sin, but but to transform our lives so that we reflect his goodness in the here and now. So to reflect God's goodness in the context of our passage this morning is primarily through the life of the Church. And Paul tells the Colossians of these virtues that they need in the body of Christ. He names several virtues Here in our passage, he names virtues such as kindness, meekness and patience.
And the thing about these virtues all taken together, is that they all refer to how we are to live with one another. So why should we be compassionate? Why should the Colossian Church be patient? It is defined in Verse there at the beginning of verse 13. So that we may be able to bear with one another in the church.
To bear with one another doesn't mean to merely tolerate each other. It doesn't mean to merely brush things aside. But it means that we're committed to each other's good. Even when it is difficult, even when we're tempted to be low on patience because somebody's getting on our nerves. We're called to have humility and compassion towards our brother and sister in the Lord.
So the point is that these virtues are needed so that we would live together and in a way that reflects who Christ is. And the second virtue, big virtue that Paul focuses on, he looked at bearing with one another and now he's going to look at forgiveness. Look at the second half of verse 13. He says, if anyone has a complaint against one another, forgive one another as the Lord has forgiven you. So Paul's not just giving them a list of to dos, a list of things to check off the box.
He is telling them to truly reflect who Christ is. Because these people, the Colossian Church, they have truly experienced the Lord's forgiveness. So consider the gospel. Every person born has owed to God a debt they could not owe. And Jesus, in his great mercy goes to the cross of Calvary and he takes on that debt that you and I should have paid, but we couldn't have paid.
And he fully absorbed it at the cross by suffering our penalty for sin, he paid a debt it would have taken us an eternity in hell to pay off. And here's the point Paul is making. If you truly know the Lord because of the forgiveness granted to you, you will forgive others in the church when you're sinned against. Consider the totality of that language. He says there again after he already says forgiving one another.
He says there in verse at the end of verse 13. So you also must forgive. It's easy to look at things like forgiveness and bearing with one another and showing humility and think, you know, those are the things reserved for the super Christians, for the A team of the church. But the reality is this is baseline Christianity. To forgive others who have wronged you in a legitimate way.
That is something God calls all of us to do. So the word of God emphatically says we must forgive. So what does real Christ honoring forgiveness look like in the church? Imagine you have a major surgery coming up and a close friend in the church says, hey, I'm going to take care of you. I'm going to organize a meal train for you.
And you're going to be taken care of. So the day of the surgery comes, you go into the surgery, you stay a few days in the hospital and you come home. And maybe you're expecting something from the golden arches or a home cooked casserole from your friend, but there's nothing there. Day two goes by nothing. Day three, still nothing.
And nothing ever shows up because of your friend's negligence to, to forget, to bring you food. And that is, you know, real things that cause people to say, hey, those people, those Christians, they don't really claim to be who they say they be. So I'm just going to check out on the church. People have often used that for justifying long and hard resentment. But the Bible is clear from our passage today.
You must forgive if you've truly experienced the forgiveness that Christ offers each and every one of us. So next time you're sinned against, here's how you and I can forgive. This comes from Tim Keller, the late and faithful pastor from Redeemer Church in New York. Here are four things he says must be present in an act of forgiveness. He says, to forgive, then is first, to name the trespass truthfully as wrong and punishable, rather than merely excusing it.
Second is it is to identify with the perpetrator as a fellow sinner than thinking how different he or she is. It is to will their good. Third, it is to release the wrongdoer from liability by absorbing the debt oneself rather than seeking revenge and paying them back. Finally, it is to aim for reconciliation rather than breaking off the relationship forever. If you omit any one of these four actions, and I'd say willfully, you are not engaging in real forgiveness.
So we've been called to bear with one another, we've been called to forgive one another. And the other chief virtue that Paul focuses on is that we would love one another. Look there at verse 14 and it says, and above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. So whatever you do with patience or humility, the real and lasting virtue that drives those things is love. Love for your fellow Christian, love for those who you are committed to in the body of Christ.
When believers do these things out of love, it makes the local church look attractive. It makes Jesus look beautiful. Consider the new commandment Jesus gave to his followers shortly before he was crucified. From John 13:34, 35, Jesus reminded his disciples, a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. You also are to love one another by this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.
The result of such love that bears itself out in forgiveness and bearing with one another is seen here in verse 15 as well. This was the result from all these things, from the love, from the forgiveness, from bearing with one another here in verse 15. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful. So the result of everything that Paul's mentioned so far in the life of the Colossian Church is peace. The one body, growth and godliness is dependent on living with other Christians together in committed relationships with one another.
I hope this passage awakens in all of us a need for God's work in us as the people of God at First Baptist Church, Selma, to grow in godliness together while we must be on mission in our city and in our state and around the world. None of that matters if we don't have love for one another. If we don't have love one another, we've missed the ship. Because whatever God wants to work in us outside these walls, he primarily wants to accomplish inside our hearts first. God wants to work through you before he through your heart, before he does things outside.
God wants to change us on the inside before he accomplishes anything with us outside of these walls. But how does that happen? How does that happen among us? And priority number two will reveal that. Priority number two.
Commit to speaking to one another the Word of Christ. Commit to speaking to one another the Word of Christ. Consider verse 16 and 17. Let the word of Christ dwell in you, richly teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. So what is the Word of Christ?
At the time this letter was written, the New Testament was still being written. There were oral traditions of what Jesus had done, and then there were the very words of Jesus himself being preserved. So these people, this Colossian Church, was encouraged to take this oral tradition that they had heard about Christ and about what he said and to encourage one another with those words. And, and now today, 2,000 years later, we have both the completed Old and New Testaments, we have the full Word of God, and all of it is the Word of Christ. Because Christ is the author of all of Scripture, and all of Scripture bears witness to him.
You know, in a lot of old school liberal thinking, you will hear the sentiment, I like Jesus, but don't give me none of that Paul guy. And what that truth is saying is that we don't accept Paul to be authoritative and divinely inspired. But the truth, friends, is that all 66 books are the inspired Word of God. And as a Southern Baptist church, you know, that part isn't the hard part for us. Thankfully, there was a time in the 70s and the 80s when maybe it would be.
But we as a denomination had made a conservative resurgence in the 80s and 90s that held fast to the Word of God as the infallible and inerrant Word of God. So today, that's really not hard for us to get. Here's the part from the passage that may be challenging us for us today. He says, let the Word of Christ dwell in you, richly teaching and admonishing one another. So it's important to clarify here who does the teaching and admonishing?
There's a way of thinking that maybe, you know, it's only the job of the paid professionals in the church to do all the teaching and all the admonishing. It's the job of the paid pastor and the paid staff to do all that work because, well, what are we paying you all to do anyway? But what Paul is envisioning for the Colossian Church is that every member is a minister of the Word of God. Every minister is called to minister the Word in some capacity or another. And this is something that we, as evangelicals, we have missed largely.
We're really great by valuing the public preaching of God's Word. We have strong pulpits in our churches, and we also rightly prioritize the private study of the Word of God. You know, we prioritize having a quiet time and having your devotional. But the area we often miss out is the interpersonal one to one personal ministry of the Word of God that we teach in. Admonish one another with the Word of Christ.
So what does it mean to teach and admonish? Teaching is positively imparting information about God, his world, and how to live in it. And the admonishing part is how to warn somebody when they're going astray. To warn somebody when you notice patterns of behavior that are not true of a faithful follower of Jesus. So how do we do this in our relationships with one another?
One practical and, I hope, valued way of doing this, and let me make a plug for this as the youth minister, is to disciple our children, to disciple our children in the truth of God's Word. So whether it's a Tuesday morning on the way to school or around the dinner table or in the car after practice, use these times to personally minister the word of Christ to those that God has entrusted us with for a season of time. God has given us our families so that we would disciple them and that we would speak the Word of Christ into their lives continually. It's as simple as asking a fellow church member at lunch, what did you think of the sermon? What did you get out of the sermon?
There are ways we can interpersonally minister the Word of Christ to one another. So priority number two, commit to speaking to one another, the word of Christ. And also don't want to leave the choir out because this is yalls verse, you know, if the choir has a verse, it's this one. Singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts. You know, our lives are to be totally wrapped around the Word of Christ.
We're to preach the Word, pray the Word, sing the Word, make the Word the central focus point of our lives because it is God's revelation to us. So commit to speaking to one another, the Word of Christ, and finally resolve to do all things for the glory of Christ. Verse 17. Let's look at it together. And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
So this general command is a catch all command. It's very general. It summarizes everything that Paul is saying the Christian life should look like with the people of God in the church. Everything should be done in the honor of Christ, whether it be word or deed. So word or deed, what is that referring to?
It refers to the totality of one's life. Every part of your life is under Christ's lordship. Your finances, your relationships, your marriage, your parenting, your vocation, your extracurriculars, it's all under the lordship of Christ. And all of it is to reflect who he is. And that's because we have been bought in, brought in to the name of Jesus.
From verse 17 when it says do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus. And that's not just some throwaway statement. To do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus is to realize that we now bear Jesus name. That is how closely and how intimately we've been called into our relationship with God. Consider your last name.
Your last name is an indication of who you are, who your family is. And this carries on as far as human history has gone. If you think about even the Jewish culture, you would hear of somebody and their name would be David ben Jesse. And that was essentially saying David is the son of Jesse. Like they didn't have last names back then.
That came somewhere along the lines with the English, you know. But they didn't have last names and they were known primarily in the name of their Father. So too is it with us, with Christ. We bear the name of Jesus, and all of our life is to reflect that great truth. So this passage, it calls us to remember who we are in Christ.
It calls us to remember that we have been brought into the family of God, that everything is to be under Christ's lordship, and that all these virtues mentioned in this passage all speak to the supremacy of Jesus Christ. We are to bear the forgiveness of Christ, we are to have the peace of Christ, we are to speak the word of Christ, and we are to do all things to the glory of Christ. So what is our response then? Paul in 2nd Corinthians 13:5 says, examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith and what Paul is saying there. He's not calling you to doubt your salvation or to constantly be down, but he's calling you to soberly consider your life, to see whether your life as a pattern bears out these virtues.
And if you've been convinced that you're a Christian, but none of these things are evident in your life, then a message like this could be grabbing ahold of you to say, hey, examine yourself and see this as the mercy of God to truly repent of your sin and to trust in Christ to see that Christ offers out forgiveness for everyone, as this passage reminds us. But also it reminds us of our commitment to one another. To grow in godliness isn't to do it alone, but it's to do it in the context and the life of the church. So if you would like to make a decision about any of these things, if you'd like to consider the gospel and repent and believe the gospel summons all people to turn from their sin and trust in Christ. I'll be down front, and if you want to talk about joining the church or baptism or any of those other wonderful things, I'll be down to meet with you as the choir comes to sing and to lead us in our invitation.