Colossians 3:12-17
Please turn in your copy of the
New Testament to the book of Colossians. Our reading will
be Colossians chapter three, verses 12 through 17. Since today is homecoming. I
thought it would be appropriate for us to consider a passage
that encourages us as a family of God, as a congregation of
believers, as a gathered people, how we ought to live in light
of being saved by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so this sermon entitled, New Life and the New Covenant
Community, reminds us that when we have passed from darkness
to light, when we have come from a faithless life to a life of
faith, When we have been transformed by God’s Holy Spirit through
the new birth, we are no longer an old creation, but a new one.
It has implications about the way we live and act. And so let
us hear God’s word now from Colossians chapter three, beginning at verse
12. Speaking of the new man, he says, put on then as God’s
chosen ones. holy and beloved, compassion,
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 also you 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 were
called into one body. And be thankful. Let the word
of Christ dwell in us richly, teaching and admonishing one
another in our wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual
psalms 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. This is God’s word. Let us pray together. Lord, we
pray that in your word that we might learn about you that we
might know ourselves better, and that by your spirit and help,
we might know how we ought to live together in the covenant
community. We ask for your help, your grace, your blessing. Give
us eyes that see, ears that hear, hearts that understand, and give
us joy and thanksgiving, because we have been called sons and
daughters of God, and we are called to live in communion together,
both in this life and in your eternal presence forever. And
we thank you, in Jesus’ name, amen. in our household if we
ask this question, where do we want to go eat tonight? We might
hear five different things. We might hear five guys. We might
hear Moe’s. We might hear Freddy’s. We might hear, you name it. And
so the five of us could split off and go different directions.
But at some point in time, there has to be a little negotiation.
Well, we ate here last time. We ate there last time. I know
mom likes this, or I’ll give a little. And so after a little
negotiation, we say, here’s where we’re going to go. And we sit,
and we eat, and we enjoy a good time together. But you see, if
we did not have that little time of negotiation and understanding
and reasoning things out, we might end up at five different
places eating five different meals by ourselves. And it could be that way in the
church as well. We can say, I wanted the walls
this color, the carpet that color. I want to sing these kinds of
hymns, these kinds of songs. I want this choice and that choice,
my preference. And so in the church, just as
in the family, The choices and the opinions can be so many and
varied that we never can get along or be together as a congregation. And so Christians, by virtue
of who we are in Christ and by necessity, because we have been
transformed, we are no longer a people of our old nature, sinful
and selfish and individualistic, but we are a communal people.
Just by that calling in nature, we are able, we are called, we
are obligated to live new life and new life together in the
new covenant community. And so today, brothers and sisters,
or as our passage calls us, chosen ones, selected by God, holy ones
set apart for God, beloved, loved by the Lord Jesus Christ. God
gives us in this passage five things that we ought to consider
as we live together in community, as we live together as individuals. Yes, with our own opinions, yes,
with their own preferences. but as we live together in the
new covenant community. First thing I want you to think
about is our robes or our clothing. Look at verse 12. And then again,
in verse 14, he says, put on then as God’s chosen ones, holy
and beloved. And then he gives a list. And
then if you skip down to verse 14, he says above all these put
on love. You see, he tells us, he’s reminding
us that as Christians, and you can go back a few verses earlier
in the book of Colossians, you don’t see that as Christians,
we put off our old nature and we put on a new set of clothing. We put off our old ways, our
sinful ways, and we put on something new, something wonderful. Now,
many of us go into various places throughout the week and we see
people wearing uniforms. Sometimes uniforms have name
tags. Sometimes it has the business name, the company name. We see
a person in a white. a shirt and a funny puffy white
hat, and we know that they’re what? A chef. We see a person
at the filling station, and they’re wearing a certain uniform with
grease all over it. We know what it is they do. I’m wearing the
uniform of a pastor today. We go into all kinds of places.
We see people wearing a certain outfit of clothing, and we know
they are dressed for the occasion, dressed for the work that they
are about to do. But we also must understand that
our clothing fits our conduct. You know, something came out
many years ago in the workplace where we went from business dress
to business casual. Maybe about 15 years ago, I was
in a suit store buying a new suit, and they were, of course,
pro-suits because they want to sell suits. But they had this
article up on the counter, and it said something about how productivity
went down. when business casual came about.
And it also spoke about how people were not serious in their relationships.
People were not serious about their work and how they treated
one another. And so they were saying, bring back the suit,
bring back the business attire that’s appropriate and fitting
for the workplace. I’ve thought about that. That’s
something I’ve noticed that I’ve not easily forgotten. But you
know, we dress, we dress for the character that we have. We
dress for the occasion where we are entering the presence
of certain people or for a certain event. We put off, we put on. And so as Christians, our robes,
our clothing is important. Our uniform, our conduct must
match. And so in this couple of verses
here, in these verses, we read that we are to put on certain
things, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience,
and above all, we are to put on love. Now, some of you, as
you were getting dressed this morning, may have laid your clothes
out on the bed. For me, there was a tie, there was a shirt,
there was a t-shirt, there were my socks, shoes, all these sorts
of things. And lying there on the bed, they
don’t look that good. In fact, it looks like a pile
of laundry I haven’t put up. But when you put everything on,
you tuck it all in, you button it all up, you knot your tie,
you cinch your belt, you tie your shoes, You see, it all fits
together and it looks tidy and neat and fit and finished. And you see in the dress of the
Christian. We’re to put off our old ways, our filthiness, our
selfishness, our immorality. We’re to put off all those things.
And we’re to put on compassion, kindness, humility, meekness,
patience. And above all, we put on love. I want us to think about that
for just a moment as we put on compassion, kindness, humility,
meekness and patience. And we above all put on love.
It’s the gospel. It is the love of Jesus. It is
the love of Christ that is the finishing touch. Maybe some of
you men put on your necktie and it sort of pulled your outfit
together. Some of you ladies, you took a scarf and you did
what you do and you tied it and your outfit is just right. It
was the thing needed to finish it. And brothers and sisters
of the Lord Jesus, the gospel, a Christian love is the thing
needed, the thing necessary for us as Christians to put on above
all things. And it pulls our outfit together
in such a way that the world knows who we are, who is our
king, and that we have put on new clothes and that we are living
for the Lord Jesus. One other interesting thing to
think about this list, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness,
patience, and above all, love. It begins to ring a bell in our
minds of, oh, there’s other list about the fruit of the spirit.
For to the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness,
faithfulness, self-control. These are lists in the scripture
that help us understand our new character in Jesus, things we
should strive and pray for. And so the Bible says something
about those who are new creations in Jesus as we live new life
in the new covenant community. It says something about our robes.
Second thing it speaks of is our relationships. Look at verse
13. Verse 13 says we are to bear
with one another. And if one has a complaint against
another, forgive each other as the Lord has forgiven you. So
also you must forgive. If we live in any sort of relationship
with other people, there’s going to be friction. There’s going
to be a mess, there’s going to be a Disagreement. There’s going to be a problem.
There’s going to be something that we have to work through.
And it’s as little as you left your socks. You left a mess in
the kitchen. You didn’t take out the trash.
You never vacuum or on and on it could go. It can be petty,
but it can be big. You’re inconsiderate. You’re
mean. You’re rude. You’re loud mouthed
or whatever the case may be. But if we’re in relationships
with other people, there’s going to be friction. and we have to
unfriction those relationships. We have to work out those things
with one another. And so as people who are dressed
in the robes of the Lord Jesus with compassion, kindness, humility,
meekness and patience and love, we are not allowed as Christians
to be cold and to be unloving and unkind and unforgiving, but
we must bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit. And so dressed in
compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience and love,
We are not arrogant, we are not selfish, we are not self-seeking,
but we bear with one another and we forgive one another. The
wise person is able to understand a situation and understand temperaments
and understand sin patterns. And we are able to navigate the
stormy seas of relationships. And oh yes, things do need to
get resolved and fixed. And sometimes we confront and
we, confess and we repent and we forgive and we move along
those hard relationships. But the Christian is called to
bear with and to forgive. And so, dear brothers and sisters
of the Lord Jesus Christ, we must be Christ like toward others. We must be willing to forgive.
We must be willing to restore relationships. We must be willing,
like the prodigal son’s father who stood at the door and he
waited for his son to come home. But, you know, today in our economy,
we say, oh, the person is people. We must be forgiving. We must
be forgiving. We must be ready and willing to forgive. But there’s
a two sided coin to that. Remember the son in the prodigal
story, he was willing to go to his father and say, I’ve sinned
against you. I’ve sinned against heaven and
earth. Forgive me. And so it’s a two way street. It’s. It’s
repentance, but it’s also forgiveness and bearing with one another.
So there’s something about our robes, our relationships. The
third thing we see in this passage, we find in verse 15, and it speaks
of our rule. Verse 15 says, let the peace
of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called
into one body and be thankful. It is absolutely astounding. We have to see it that way, that
we have peace with God. Because since Adam and Eve were
in the garden and Satan entered and tempted them and they ate
the fruit and they rebelled against God, all mankind proceeding from
Adam and Eve by ordinary generation have been in rebellion against
God. We’ve been an enmity with God.
We’ve been at odds with God. We’ve been estranged from God.
There has not been peace, but friction and not just any small
friction, but cosmic, eternal, deadly, deathly friction. And so we have to understand
that if God and Christ went to such great lengths to save us
and to reconcile us to him, and if we are to be godlike, we should
be reconcilers between ourselves and others. We should be peacemakers. We should seek to pursue and
promote peace as far as we are able in our relationships. And
so the rule that is given to us, we find in verse 15, let
the peace of Christ, rule in your hearts, to which you are
indeed called. You see, we are called out of
our warring spirits, out of our litigious spirits, out of our
loitering up spirits, out of our demand my right spirit. And now we say, let Christ rule,
let Christ bring peace. What does that look like? Well,
Think about the word Shalom. It’s an Old Testament word and
it means all-encompassing peace. It doesn’t just simply mean an
absence of war. There’s no natives restless around
us. The Greeks aren’t rising. It’s
that God has brought us peace. There’s food on the table. The
crops are growing. There’s rain on the land. Relationships
are right. Babies are being born. Things
in the household of God are going well. And so as Christians, oh,
life doesn’t always go rosy. But we can let the peace of Christ
rule in our hearts and we don’t get upset when the world goes
crazy. We know that it goes crazy. We
know that it is backwards and dark and strange and odd, but
we let the peace of Christ. His reign of heaven, His kingdom
principles rule in our hearts and minds so that while the world
gives way and grows dark and the earthquakes and shakes and
the tumults of war and the loud mouths of politicians and the
pundits of our television all do their thing, we keep our eyes
fixed on Jesus and we walk forward to heaven. And so the rule in
our life is the peace of Christ and peace with others. It’s the
reality of the gospel shalom. And he adds a little statement
to this rule, and be thankful. Think about how often our fear
and our ingratitude leads us to friction. We get scared. We
get in a panic. And so in that fear and in that
moment of panic, we we we we don’t let the peace of Christ
rule. And it brings tumult into our relationships. It brings
tumult into our families or our church relationships because
we’re not thankful. We’re not letting the peace of
Christ rule. You know, it’s amazing to us. It ought to be. that God in Christ
has taken us who are far off and has brought us near and that
peace with Christ is now possible through the cross. And so there
are robes that we wear, there are relationships and the rules
that are in, there’s this rule, the peace of Christ. There’s
a fourth thing that we look at in this passage and it’s God’s
revelation. Revelation, we find in verse
16, it says, let the word of Christ Let the revelation of
Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in
all wisdom, singing psalms, hymns and spiritual psalms with thankfulness. There’s that word again, with
thankfulness in your hearts to God. You see, we ought to live
a word centered life. You know, a lot has happened
this week. There’s a lot of it. When we go to the next room and
have our lunch, we can chit chat over. And I would hope that on
Sunday, as spiritual people, our chit chat would be what God
in Christ has done for us, what God in Christ has done for this
church, what God in Christ has done for me this week, what he’s
done for you this week. Or if one of us says he hasn’t
done much or it seems not so, we might encourage one another.
You see, that’s what the community of faith is supposed to be like.
Now, there’s a really hot topic we can talk about today at lunch.
We could talk about how good Duke played in football yesterday.
And, you know, we love to chitchat about sports and what what what
our teams have done. We love to talk about what we
saw at the grocery store or what road they’re paving. We love
to chitchat about that. But, you know, on Sunday and
there’s nothing evil about that. But, you know, on Sunday, we
talk Torah, we talk law, we talk the scripture, we we center our
lives together as a covenant community around the things of
God. And oh, we can talk about the
Tar Heels and the Blue Devils and we can talk about what’s
on sale at Harris Teeter. All that is fine and good. But
you see, there’s an emphasis here on the Bible that when Christians
are together. We let the revelation of God,
the word of God dwell in us richly, and what are the actions it seems
to call us to take? Verse 15 or 16, it says, Let
the word of Christ dwell in you richly. We’re to teach one another
part knowledge. We’re to admonish one another
or challenge or warn one another in all wisdom. We’re to sing
psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. We’re to be thankful.
You see, Jesus and his word gives us our marching orders. We are
Christians called out of darkness from into this marvelous light. And so his new covenant creatures,
new creations in Christ were to live by a different rule than
others. Oh, yes, we can talk about the Tar Heels and the Blue
Devils and how green the grass is and the autumn leaves and
their beautiful colors changing. All that is under God’s wonderful
hand of creation. And some of those topics are
rather important to us. But you see where the meat is.
You see where the church is to be word-centered. It is to be
word-saturated. It is to be full of wisdom and
song and thankfulness. Now, it doesn’t mean we’re like
the Benedictine monks who walk around and, you know, in a dull
voice say, hello, brother, hello, sister. Isn’t the Lord good?
And, you know, quote verses to each other. It’s not that we
have this boring, monotonous, monk-like life. But as we live
together, we speak of the Lord’s goodness. We speak of the Lord’s
goodness in our lives and in our spiritual growth and in the
family life of this church, the family life of our loved ones
and who are related to us. We talk about all these wonderful
things, but you see the revelation of God. is to be the center of
who we are as a church family. And we remember, we remember
the importance of the scripture. Paul tells Timothy, all scripture
is breathed out by God. It is useful for teaching and
rebuking and correction and training and righteousness. Righteousness
so that the man of God is thoroughly equipped to be a son and daughter
of almighty God. We remember that the scripture,
the scripture is good for us. It tells us who God is and what
he’s like and what he requires of us. And so as we live the
Christian life, are we people with the Bible on the tip of
our tongues? Are we people who, because the
word of God is dwelling richly in us, the word of Christ is
dwelling richly in us, is that what oozes and ekes out of us
and is on the tips of our tongues? Well, there’s a final thing in
this passage, and it’s a reminder. It’s a reminder that we see in
verse 17, and it says, whatever you do, In word or deed, do everything
in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father
through him. This is one of those catch-all
verses. Whatever you do, whether you’re at Lowe’s or at the Harris
Teeter or at the doctor’s office or in your community, your neighborhood,
at the workplace, wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, whatever
you’re saying, whatever your hands are accomplishing, whatever
you do, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving
thanks to God the Father through him. What a wonderful reminder
this is. What a good general principle
this is. By now you’ve heard me pray the
pastoral prayer for two and a half years, and I say some of the
same things over and over. And part of that’s on purpose. One
of the things we pray for week after week is that we would bear
witness to the power of the gospel of Christ in our everyday living. You know, sometimes we think
we have to become a missionary and go to Timbuktu to be effective
for Jesus. Or we think we have to raise
all this money for world missions and send people, send people,
send people, send people. And that’s all well and good.
We love missions. We love foreign missions. We love setting apart
and sending and supporting gospel missionaries. But we forget sometimes
that every one of us It’s called by God to live as a new creation
in Christ and to go faithfully into all the places we go throughout
the week and to simply live a gospel centered, word saturated life
and just be faithful. And when given the opportunity
to speak of Jesus. We do so and we do it faithfully
in a little verse like this, verse 17, whatever you do in
word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord. Jesus reminds
us that our constant everyday normal faithfulness is God’s
simple calling on our lives. You know, I’ll never be a Billy
Graham and I don’t want to be, but I have three children. And
they can hear the gospel from me. I have neighbors who are
hungry. They’re searching. They’re looking.
And I can simply be a good neighbor and set a good example. And when
the opportunity comes, as we’re talking about the Tar Heels or
Duke Blue Devils or whatever, I can be sure to speak of the
Lord Jesus. And on and on it can go in the
doctor’s office, the workplace. And see, we simply simply live
a faithful, quiet Christian life. And God does his work in us and
through us. And so that verse is a good reminder
that we live for Jesus by his word. And so what are all these
things say? What are all these hours, roads
and relationships and rule and revelation and reminder? What
do they tell us as a Christian church family? It tells us that
this is how to be a well oiled machine. It tells us this is
how to have a harmonious covenant community. It tells us this is
what the world needs to see because the world is embroiled in chaos
and in darkness. And we need to be an outpost
of heaven shining brightly to the world around us saying, this
is what’s in heaven. And heaven has come down to earth
through the person and work of Jesus. And at his cross, he saved
a bunch of us. And by his word and spirit, he’s
making us like himself. And so we are here to shine brightly
and harmoniously as children of God who have been blood bought,
spirit changed, new creations in Christ. You see, the church
is an outpost of heaven. A church is not a group of people
who live like the rest of the world, but just do it under the
roof of a sanctuary. No, we live out of the values
and the realities of heaven itself. And you know what our number
one goal is? It’s a church. It’s to make what is invisible
what’s in heaven. visible or manifest on Earth. And you see, these verses teach
us how, as new creations, we can live new life in the new
covenant community before a watching world. And they may, they may,
by God’s grace, see Jesus and come to faith in him by our work
and our labors and our faithful ministry. Pray with me. Our Lord
and God, we thank you that you are at work in our lives. We
give you thanks that there are ups and downs, that there are
two steps back and three steps forward. And sometimes we fall,
we have bruised knees, we have broken bones, we have wonderful
days, we have hardships. And all of these are the Christian
life under the sun. And we thank you that Jesus has
saved us, that his spirit is at work in us, that you’re making
us fit for heaven, that you’re calling us into conformity, the
conformity of the life of Jesus. Help us in that. Help us to live
faithfully as Christians, to put on the right things, to put
off the wrong things, to forgive and to bear with one another.
And we pray that our new covenant community here in this place
might be a gospel witness to the world and to the ends of
the earth. And we ask and pray all this
in the strong name of Jesus, our great savior. In his name
we pray. Amen.