Above All: A Study in Colossians
Colossians 3:12-17
Pastor Jefferson M. Williams
Chenoa Baptist Church
07-24-2022
Are you in the Right Place?
When I was in college, I lived next to a guy who played in a band called, “Momma Tera.” It was a hard rock band and he invited me to come see them at one of the bars on Beale Street.
It was Saturday night and as I walked into the club, I noticed that many of the people there had on spandex or black leather. There were Mohawks and chains hanging from their belts. It was a heavy metal crowd.
Everyone in the place was sharing at me. I’m not sure why. I had on what I usually wore at that time in my life - penny loafers with the penny in them, pink socks, pink and white stripped shorts, white dress shirt, and I may or may not have had a sweater tied around my shoulders. I went by the name J. Michael Williams and fashioned myself after Michael J. Fox. I was the ultimate preppy.
A guy wandered over and asked if I was in the right place. I assured him that I was friends with the lead singer. Then another guy walked up to me and whispered in my ear, “I think you may be lost. The gay bar is around the corner.”
He totally misread me because the way I was dressed. It’s been said that the clothes make the man/woman.
We can even identify people just by their clothes.
Examples [pics] : Nurse, construction worker, soldier. Pic of Elton John in the Donald Duck outfit.
Paul is making the point in Colossians 3 that we have taken off the clothes of the old nature and now we are to put on the clothes of the new nature. People should be able to tell by our behavior that we are different and follow Jesus.
Paul begins with the fact that since we have died with Christ, have been raised with Christ, are hidden in Christ, and will appear with Him in glory, we should set our hearts/affections and minds/wills on things that are above.
“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” (Col 3:1-4)
He then gives two lists of behaviors that we are to put to death or take off. The first list consists of sins of desires: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed and the second the sins associated with our words: rage, anger, malice, slander, filthy language, and lying to one other.
These actions and attitudes are like wearing pink socks to a heavy metal concert. They just don’t fit.
This is not just about individual sanctification. He makes it clear that this is about being a new creation, the Body of Christ, which Jesus is the head. And in Christ, we are one body. The racial, religious, social, and cultural distinctions no longer matter. In this new body:
“Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.” (Col 3:9-11)
I believe that God planned this very text we will study today for this exact time in our church. As we move toward the Eastview All In sermon series, we will have to live the verses out in order for the five weeks to make a real difference.
There is neither old or young, those who have coming here a long time or short time, those who live on this side of 24 or the other, male or female, rich or poor, white or black. We are one body and the next verses will give us our marching orders as to how to live that out well.
Turn with me to Colossians 3:12-17
Prayer
Identity
“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, (Col 3:13a)
Paul begins with “therefore,” pointing back to his words about Christ being in all and all in all.
He then goes back to their identity in Christ. He describes these Gentile Christians as: “God’s chosen people, holy, and dearly loved.”
We can’t really feel the weight of that statement but Paul, who was Jewish and trained as a Pharisee, knew exactly what he was saying. These are three of the ways that Israel was described in the Old Testament:
“For you are a people holy to the Lord your
God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.” (Duet 7:6-7)
Paul was making it clear what he had just written - there is no Jew and Gentile divide in the church anymore. Gentiles were chosen, made holy, and were as dearly loved by God as Jewish people.
This would have been scandalous to the false teachers in Colossae but it would have incredibly encouraging words to these Gentile believers.
And to us to today? Some of you need to hear these words with fresh ears.
If you are in Christ, then you have been chosen. You didn’t choose God, He choose you, from before the foundation of the world. He didn’t choose you because of anything you did or didn’t do. You didn’t earn it and could never deserve it. It was simply because of love.
“For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.” (Eph 1:4-6)
The result of God’s choosing us is that we holy, set apart for God to make a difference in His kingdom.
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” (2 Peter 2:9)
And the basis of this new identity is that we are loved, dearly loved. And that will lead us to love others.
“We love because he first loved us.” (I John 4:19)
Paul begins his letter to the Roman Christians with the same focus on our identity:
“To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people…” (Romans 1:7)
Sometime this week, remind yourself of this truth - you have been chosen by God, He is in the process of making you holy, and He loves you, not for what you do but simply for who you are.
Attire
What’s the difference between a man in a tuxedo on a unicycle and a man in a bathing suit on a bicycle? Attire!
Paul picks up on the clothing metaphor again and instead of telling them what to take off now he will give some fashion advice:
“…clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.”
Just like he gave two lists of five vices now he lists five things that should characterize us as Christians.
Compassion - in Paul’s culture, the bowels were thought to be the seat of emotions like love so your translation may read “bowels of mercy.” This is love characterized by mercy or heart-felt compassion.
Jesus is our example. Again and again, the Gospel writers tell of Jesus’ compassion:
“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” (Matt 9:36)
Kindness - this is the opposite of harshness. It’s showing the goodness of God in our actions toward others. In the Bible study on Wednesday morning, Ken said that sometimes our kindness stands out in this culture because there is so little of it.
Jesus is our example. When a woman anointed His feet with perfume (and her tears), Jesus showed amazing kindness to her when others did not.
We also need to remember that God’s kindness can change a hard heart:
“Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?” (Rom 2:4)
humility - in that culture, especially by the Romans, this trait was viewed negatively as cowardice. But, to the Christian, it’s the opposite of arrogance and pride. It’s not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less.
Jesus is our example. At the last supper, He took off His outer garment and took up the towel to wash his disciples feet.
We also see it in the Christ-hymn of Philippians 2:
“Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Phil 2:6-8)
Gentleness - this is the opposite of rough and ungracious. It isn’t weakness but meekness, power under control.
Ray Stedman writes: “It is real strength, but it does not have to display itself or show off how strong it is.”
Jesus is our example. When He rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, he could have arrived on chariot like a king. But he fulfilled prophesy by riding in gently on a donkey.
Patience - opposite of rage, anger, and malice. This term is focused on patience with people that might otherwise drive you to lose your temper.
Jesus is our example. Look at how He dealt with His dense disciples. He was loving and patient again and again.
How does this patience play out? Two ways:
“Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” (Col 3:13)
Bear with one another -
In the body of Christ, there will be people that look different, think different, and act differently than us. This is a good thing. God delights in diversity in His body.
But that means that there will be times that people will rub us the wrong way or just, honestly, drive us crazy. How are we to deal with those kind of people? Avoid them? Talk about them to others? No, we are to bear with them. The word means to put up with difficult circumstances and, particularly, difficult people. This is a challenge sometimes. There is a little poem that goes:
“To live above with saints we love. That will be a glory.
To live below with saints we know now that’s a different story.”
Paul wrote the same thing to the Ephesian believers:
“Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.” (Eph 4:2)
Forgive one another
Another way we exhibit the fruit of patience is by forgiving others.
C.S. Lewis once wrote that “that everyone thinks that forgiveness is a lovely idea until they actually have something to forgive…”
Graham Staines was an Australian missionary who serve 35 years among the poor in India. He served as the Director of the Leprosy Mission and helped translate the New Testament into language of the tribe he lived among.
In 1999, while attending an annual camp, he and his boys, Philip (ten) and Timothy (6) were sleeping in their jeep. Just after midnight, Hindu extremists smashed the windows , fill the jeep with gasoline, and set it alight. The next morning, the three charred bodies were found embracing each other.
Graham left a wife, Gladys, and a 13 year old daughter, Esther.
In 2006, at a missions conference, she made it clear that she had forgiven the people that had murdered her dad and brothers and that she prays for the them daily to come to Christ. She ended with these words,
“I don’t know how, or where, or when, but it my desire to return to India to speak of the forgiveness offered in Jesus Christ.”
This kind of forgiveness isn’t natural, it’s supernatural. And we see it again and again. How?
Paul gives us the answer - forgive as the Lord forgive you!
I’ll quote C.S. Lewis again:
“To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”
Forgiven people forgive people. This is a mark of a healthy church.
These virtues come from the inside out. You can’t fake it till you make it with these. Apple trees don’t try to make apples. If they are healthy and connected to the water source, they will naturally make good fruit.
They are a result of a changed heart, a heart that beats for the things of God. They are a consequence of having died, buried, raised, and hidden with Christ. It is as if we are putting on Jesus Himself.
“…clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.” (Romans 13:14)
The overcoat that we put on over all those virtues is love:
“And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” (Col 3:14)
Love is the most important attribute of a Christian. In the love chapter, Paul ends with the declaration:
“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” (I Cor 13:13)
Alistair Begg gives us some way that we are to love one another:
Intelligently
“Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other.” (I Thes 4:9)
Sacrificially
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. (John 13:34)
Continually
“Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters.” (Hebrews 13:1)
Increasingly
“May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.” (I Thes 3:12)
Purposefully
“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” (I Peter 4:8)
Our example is Jesus:
“Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Eph 5:2)
On Friday, I was able to attend (virtually) Angel’s brother-in-law’s celebration of life. He was the president of a motorcycle club and those big burly guys have loved each other through this tragedy better than most churches do.
Two more Characteristics
Paul then gives two more characteristics of a healthy church body:
“Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.” (Col 3:15)
First, he gives a command to let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts. The word rule means an umpire or judge. The peace of Christ is to have the final say, it helps to decide what the right thing to do.
Churches are notorious for a lack of peace and, at times, can argue over the most ridiculous things.
Thomas Rainer helps churches through conflict and he recently listed 25 of the things that he has see church fight over. I’ll give you five of them:
A heated argument at a business meeting over the length of the worship pastor’s beard.
A deacon accused another deacon of sending an anonymous letter and deciding to settle the matter in the parking lot.
A dispute about whether to install stall dividers in the women’s restroom.
A dispute that almost became a fist fight about whether to purchase a weed eater. It took two business meetings to finally decide.
Some church member left the church because one church member hid the vacuum cleaner from them. It resulted in a major fight and a church split.
Those outside the church would think these are made up because they are so outrageous. But, those of us who have been in church very long know these situations are real and not rare.
We are members of one body, we are family, and we have been called to peace. We have peace with God, which leads to the peace of God, which should naturally lead to peace with others.
The second command Paul gives is to
"Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.” (Col 3:16)
In order for Christians and churches to be healthy, we must be focused on the most important thing - the Gospel. This message cannot be something that you interact with only on Sundays. We are to let the word of Christ dwells in us richly. This means deep study and meditation on the Word.
This is what David meant when he wrote: “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” (Psalm 119:11)
Rosario Butterfield was a brilliant professor, in a committed lesbian relationship when she was befriended by a pastor who challenged her to read the Bible.
For several years, she continued in relationship but started reading the Bible on a daily basis. This is what she wrote:
“After years and years of this something happened. The Bible got bigger inside of me. It overflowed into my world. And then one Sunday morning, two years after I first met Ken and his wife, and two years after I started reading the Bible for my research, I left the bed I shared with my lesbian partner and an hour later showed up in a pew at Syracuse Reformed Presbyterian Church…I kept going back to hear more and more sermons. I had made friendships with people in the church by this time and I had really appreciated the way that they talked about the sermons throughout the week, how the Word of God dwelt in them, and how they referenced it in the details of their days.”
Warren Wiersbe wrote:
“The Word will transform our lives if we will but permit it to ‘dwell’ in us richly. The word ‘dwell’ means ‘to feel at home.’ If we have experienced the grace and the peace of Christ, then the Word of Christ will feel at home in our hearts. We will discover how rich the Word is with spiritual treasures that give value to our lives.”
It’s not just the pastor’s job to teach (proclamation of the truth) and admonish (warning against error). It everyone’s job. But you can’t give away what you don’t have.
How do we teach and admonish one another? By teachers others what we are learning in the Scriptures and by singing!
Yes singing. This is a command - singing to God psalm, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts.
When we sing together, even if you are just making a joyful noise, you are encouraging the one’s around you to express their love and thankfulness to God. That’s why we encourage you to be here in person on Sunday mornings.
The three terms are nearly interchangeable. Psalms are Old Testament songs, hymns are songs about Jesus, and spiritual songs are spontaneous acts of worship.
We are called to proclaim the glories of God through song with reverence and rejoicing. We sing to an audience of One.
I remember a man came up to after a service once and told me he didn’t like the songs. I told that was okay, we weren’t singing them to him.
Paul said the same thing to the Ephesians:
“Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Ephesians 5:18-20)
Notice that thankfulness and gratitude are in three last three verses. They are in the present tense, which means “keep on giving thanks.”
Matthew Henry, the 17 century Bible commentator was robbed and he wrote about in his journal.
I’m thankful:
I’ve never been robbed before
Though they took my wallet they did not take my life
I didn’t have much to take
That I was the one robbed and not the one doing the robbing
This is what musical worship is all about. It’s simply saying thank you for what God had done for us through Jesus.
Whatever You Do
Paul ends this section with one of my favorite verses in all the Bible:
“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Col 3:17)
When I moved from North Carolina to Mississippi to attend seminary, I thought my days of waiting tables were over. But I ended up being a waiter again at Red Lobster. I was very frustrated that I couldn’t find another job yet.
It the top of my little black pad that I took the orders on I wrote this verse to remind me that whatever I am doing I represent Jesus and I’m called to do that the best I can in my words and my deeds.
This emphasizes again that Paul isn’t interested in having us follow a bunch of rules. He gives a principle. When you are confused about whether or not you could or should do something, you can simply ask, “Can I do this in the name of the Lord Jesus?”
This isn’t just for us individually but, as the Body of Christ, we represent Jesus in this community. Let’s make this verses more than just something to be memorized. Let’s encourage and challenge each other to live it out in a dark and dying world.
Let’s let the words of the prophet Micah be our rally cry:
“All the nations may walk in the name of their gods, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever.” (Micah 4:5)
Pastor Mark Clark writes:
“Humility will actually draw people to Jesus in the post-Christian West. Because their big thing is hypocrisy in the Church.
They say, “The church acts like it’s perfect and talks about all kinds of rules. But it’s full of hypocrisy.” You have to lead the church to have a posture of humility that says, “We are all beggars looking for bread, and we’re going to help each other get it. We are so dependent on the grace of God that He’s the only way we can wake up in the morning.”
Ending Video: Nobody (Casting Crowns)
