As I look around the room this morning, I see a lot of white and gray hair. That’s nothing to be ashamed of; in fact, Proverbs 16:31 tells us that “Gray hair is a crown of glory”. A “crown of glory”. I like that. My problem is that my crown gets a little smaller every year. By the way, I tried to find a verse in the Old Testament for bald heads, but all I could find were instructions from Leviticus on how to diagnose leprosy, which wasn’t really helpful. But the point is that the Bible views age as a good thing. Something to glory in.
Age brings many blessings. Losses, too, of course. But one of the blessings is the relationships you build through the years, the friendships you make. Over time, those friendships deepen as you go through the various stage of life together. Boys you played sports with in high school are now fathers and grandfathers. Young married couples that you used to invite over to your house for fondue parties, they now have children who are young married couples themselves. Over the years, perhaps you’ve exchanged Christmas letters, and celebrated birthdays, and weddings, and graduations, together. And that can be a wonderful thing. There’s nothing like having people in your life that you can reminisce with, people you have a history with, people you’ve laughed, and cried with, and grown older with. People you are comfortable around, people you can trust.
But long-term relationships can also be a not-so-wonderful thing. Because just as shared happy memories can give us joy and bind us together, conflicts and disagreements over time can drive us apart. And if they’re not mended, then even petty offenses, even minor hurts, can become rifts and divisions. Hearts can be hardened. When that happens, people you’ve known for years, people you’ve been close friends with, people you’ve prayed with, and shared your life with, can become distant, or cold, or even cut themselves off from you entirely. That’s a grievous thing. Not only is it emotionally sorrowful, but it damages the reputation of the gospel.
Because whether we like it or not, people judge Christianity by how they see us relating to one another. In fact, Christ himself said that would be the case. In John’s gospel, chapter 13, verse 35, Christ tells us that “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Our love for one another is a powerful testimony for the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus said it would be a testimony to “everyone”. The love that Christians have for one another is so unusual, so different from the unbelieving world, that it can’t be ignored. But the opposite is true also. When we fail to love one another as we should, then that also becomes known to everyone.
It’s a fact of life that relationships can fray and fracture over time. And that includes relationships in the church; relationships among Christians. The good news is that we have a remedy. By God’s power, we have a way to strengthen relationships so that fractures don’t develop. So that hairline fractures don’t become compound fractures. And we have a way to repair those relationships when they do break.
We find that remedy in Paul’s letter to the Colossian church; chapter three, verses twelve through fourteen. And that’s where we’re going to focus this morning.
12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” (Colossians 3:12-14)
In this brief passage, Paul gives us the secret to harmony in our relationships with other believers. It consists of five parts.
First, we need to remind ourselves of who we are. Paul writes that we are “God’s chosen people, holy and dearly beloved”. God’s chosen people. We were, each one of us, chosen by God to be a part of the body of Christ. That matters because it changes how we see one another. It means that the person sitting next to you isn’t just some random human being who happened to wander into a church. No. That person at your table was specifically and individually selected by God—chosen by God—to be a part of his church. And therefore, it matters tremendously how you treat them. Because if you treat them poorly, as if they had little worth or value, then you are disregarding someone whom God chose to be his. Someone who is personally, and individually, known to God. Someone for whom God has a purpose and a plan. Someone whom God loves deeply. And if God loves them, then we had better love them too, Amen?
Let’s look at a couple of verses from Ephesians which drive home this truth of God’s choosing us.
“3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.”
“11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12 in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.” (Ephesians 1:3-4, 11-12)
What this passage is telling us is that the person next to you was chosen by God for a purpose. They were chosen to be holy and blameless at the return of Christ. They were chosen to be cleansed of sin and free of God’s judgment. They were chosen to be a source of praise to God, chosen to glorify God. If there is another believer whom you’re having difficulty getting along with, someone whose opinions you disagree with, someone whose personality rubs you the wrong way, stop and consider how God sees them. How does God see them? Not as a source of irritation. Not as an opponent on this issue or that issue. Not as someone to be avoided. But as someone he loves dearly and deeply, someone he has chosen and called to himself, someone who one day will be glorified with Christ. It changes your perspective, doesn’t it?
Not only that, but you also were chosen by God; you also are dearly loved by God; you also were chosen for a purpose — to praise and glorify God, to be cleansed of sin and made holy. And therefore, we should all be rejoicing together, and marveling at the incredible privilege we share with one another, as those whom God chose and called to himself.
Having that perspective, and seeing one another in that way, is the first part of the secret to harmony with other believers. Remember, there are five. Here’s the second part. Let’s go back to Colossians three. Paul writes that we should clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. These are the qualities which should characterize our interactions with other believers. When Paul says we are to “clothe ourselves” with them, he’s saying that they envelop us like clothing; like a suit or a dress; they surround us. Wherever we go, these qualities go with us. In other words, acting in this way should be the rule, not the exception. This should be how we conduct ourselves toward other Christians all the time. This should be what is normal for us, to be compassionate, and kind, and humble, and gentle, and patient. And just as we wouldn’t be seen in public without clothing, we shouldn’t be seen in public without these virtues.
But how do we do that? If it were easy, Paul wouldn’t need to remind us to do it, would he? No. The bad news is that these qualities don’t always come naturally to us. The good news is that they do come naturally to God. And he has given us his Holy Spirit.
In his letter to the Galatians, Paul writes this:
“22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. . .
25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:22-23, 25)
Where do these qualities come from, that we are to clothe ourselves with? Not from ourselves. Not from our innate goodness or strength of character. But from the Holy Spirit. They are the “fruit” of our ongoing relationship with God through his Spirit. Our ability to live in this way, our ability to treat other believers in this way, comes from the power of the Holy Spirit, who lives within us. He is the source of our ability to extend compassion to those who are struggling, when we might otherwise be tempted to judge or condemn. He is the source of our ability to treat others with kindness, instead of treating them inconsiderately. He is the source of our ability to relate to others in humility, when we are tempted to be proud or arrogant. He enables us to be gentle rather than harsh, to be patient rather than impatient. And most of all, the Holy Spirit is the one who enables us to do this consistently, not occasionally, not only when other people are watching, not only when we are feeling good, not only when we are at church. But all the time.
What that implies is that, the more we are in close fellowship with God, the more we will see ourselves living out these qualities; not naturally, but super-naturally. That’s what Paul means when he writes that we should “keep in step with the Spirit”. We need to be listening to the Spirit speaking to us as we read and hear the Word of God. We need to be communicating with God in prayer. And we need to be consciously governing our lives according to what God is telling us and showing us. The more we do that, the more “naturally” this will come to us. And conversely, if we are far from God; if we are not in regular fellowship with God, then we will find it virtually impossible to do these things.
We may be able to act compassionate, for a while. We may be able to act patient, or gentle, or humble, or kind. But unless we are in fellowship with God, we can’t sustain it. Because it isn’t coming from the heart.
Let me ask you a question. Is there someone that you have treated differently than Paul instructs here? Someone you have treated unkindly or harshly, someone for whom you have lacked compassion or patience? If so, I urge you to recognize right now that this is sin, and to pray that God will give you his grace to change.
Convicting stuff, isn’t it? But we’re not done yet. The third part of the secret to harmony with other Christians is in the next phrase, “Bear with each other”. What Paul is referring to here is forbearance. Forbearance is distinct from forgiveness. Forgiveness is what is needed when someone sins against you. They’ve done something objectively wrong. But forbearance is what you need when someone displeasing to you. When someone is acting or speaking in a way that you find offensive, or tiresome, or disagreeable. They haven’t necessarily sinned against you, but you just find it hard to be around them. They have habits, or opinions, or behaviors that you don’t appreciate.
Let me be clear: this doesn’t mean they’re doing anything wrong. People are just different. They like different things. They have different ideas. They have different ways of talking, and thinking, and living. That’s fine. Not everyone is like you. It’s true. I’m sorry. And so, when Paul tells us to “bear with each other”, what he is saying is that we don’t try to change other people to make them more pleasing to us. Nor do we avoid them to avoid exposure to whatever it is we find disagreeable about them. We don’t criticize them. We don’t shun them. We simply put up with them. That’s forbearance. Putting up with people, graciously, and with good humor. Accepting people for who they are. Not trying to make them more like us. Not making them feel judged, or belittled, or rejected. Just accepting them, warts and all.
And so, if there is another believer who can’t stop talking about that vacation to Greece that they took twenty years ago, you don’t avoid them on that account. And when they start talking about Athens, again, and how awe-inspiring the Parthenon was, again, you listen graciously. If there is someone who is just over the moon about Pickleball, and who tries to convert everyone they meet into a Pickleballer, and you have no interest in Pickleball, you don’t tell them that Pickleball is a Communist plot to overthrow America. Instead, you let them talk about their love of Pickleball. Or let’s take another example: politics! Yes! If they think Biden is doing a great job, and that Trump should be in jail; or if they think the opposite, that Trump did a great job and Biden should be in jail, you don’t shun them on that account. You accept them, whether or not you agree with their political opinions. That might be the hardest one of all for some of you.
How do you do this? By reminding yourself that there are probably things about yourself which not everyone cares for. I know it’s hard to get your mind around, but it’s true. You are probably not everyone’s cup of tea. You may have opinions, or habits, or ways of speaking or acting, that some people find off-putting, or even offensive. And if you keep that in mind, it will be easier for you to put up with the quirks and eccentricities, and the just flat wrongheadedness of other people. Remember that you probably look the same way to them.
Not only that, but God puts up with you, doesn’t he? Yes, he loves you and he forgives your sins, but he also puts up with all of your weirdness and imperfections. Perhaps you think that, like Mary Poppins, you are Practically Perfect in Every Way. God knows better. And yet, whenever you come to him in prayer, there he is, ready and willing to hear you. He never avoids you, or shuns you. He tolerates your wrong opinions. He accepts you in spite of all your quirks, and peculiarities, and eccentricities. He never grows tired of your company. All this in spite of the fact that the difference between the absolute perfection of God, and you is far, far greater than any differences between you and any fellow believer, no matter how strange they seem to you. So give them a break. God is certainly giving you one.
The fourth secret to Christian harmony is here: “forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” This one is more difficult. This isn’t for the times when you find other people irritating or tiresome. This is for the times when another believer sins against you; when they have clearly wronged you. You have a legitimate grievance against them. When that happens, you are to forgive them.
What does that mean? It means that you:
• Don’t hold what they did against them
• Don’t treat them with anger, or contempt
• Don’t shun them or cut them out of your life
• Don’t take vengeance on them or try to get back at them
• Don’t attempt to harm them or harm their reputation
• Don’t take any action toward them that has any malicious intent
Instead, you are to seek their good.
No problem, right? This one can seem impossible, depending on the nature of the offense. And I don’t want to imply that it can be, or even should be, immediate. It can take a long time to fully forgive someone who has deeply wronged you. It can require lots of divine grace. But you have to start. You have to try. And you have to keep trying, keep wrestling with it, until you can truly say you have no malice toward them, even if it takes years.
I know that sounds hard. That’s because it is hard. But we do it because that kind of forgiveness is what we have received from Christ. And that is the kind of forgiveness that Paul is telling us we must extend to one another, because we are to forgive as Christ forgave us. What does this mean? What does it mean to forgive as Christ forgave us?
First of all, it means that we are to forgive BECAUSE Christ has forgiven us. His forgiveness of us is the motivation and the reason for us to forgive one another. As we reflect on the fact that God has forgiven us all of our sins — all of our disobedience, all of our selfishness, all of our lies and falsehoods and deceits, all of our lust, and greed, and envy, and gluttony, and pride, and anger, and hatred; all of the secret sins that are lodged deep in our hearts, all of the sins of our past — as we consider that God has forgiven all of these sins, then we realize that we have absolutely no reason to refuse to forgive the sins that others may commit against us. If God can forgive everything we have done, and said, and thought, no matter how vile, or destructive, or shameful, then we can forgive one another.
Because all sin is committed first and foremost against God, as our Creator and Lord. He is the One to whom we owe ultimate obedience. And so when we sin, great or small, we are sinning against Him. And yet, all of those sins he has forgiven in Christ. Therefore we must also forgive one another.
But what if we don’t? What if we refuse to forgive others their sins against us? What if we choose to hold on to our grudges and resentments; what if we nurture our pain and hurt rather than turning it over to God and asking him for the grace to forgive those who caused it? Then we will not experience the joy that God desires us to have. Then resentment and unforgiveness will be like chains dragging us down. We will never be free of them. But there is an even more serious consequence of failing to forgive.
What does the Lord’s prayer say? “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors”. When we pray the Lord’s prayer, we are praying as Jesus taught us to pray. And Jesus taught that we should ask God to forgive us as we forgive others.
Jesus makes this connection between our forgiveness and God’s forgiveness even more explicit in the verses immediately following the Lord’s prayer; Matthew chapter six, verses 14-15:
“14 For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” (Matthew 6:14-15)
Let that sink in. That statement makes the need for us to forgive very real. Forgiveness isn’t optional, or a nice-to-have, it’s a matter of life and death. “If you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” In other words, forgiveness is essential to who we are as followers of Christ. And if we refuse to forgive, then Christ is saying that we are not his followers.
Let me pause here. I want you to stop, and look into your heart, and reflect. Are there those who have sinned against you, who have offended you, who have hurt you? Yes. The answer is yes, for every person in this room. To be alive, to be a human being in relationship to other human beings, is to be sinned against. Second question: have you forgiven them?
To help answer that question, let me be clear about what forgiveness is not.
• Forgiveness doesn’t mean the hurt goes away. What it does mean is that you give the hurt to God, rather than seeking revenge or trying to make them pay for what they did.
• Forgiveness doesn’t mean that what they did was OK. Or that you somehow deserved it. Or that you admit that you were in the wrong. No. You can say that you didn’t deserve it, that it wasn’t OK, and that they were in the wrong, and still forgive.
• Forgiveness doesn’t mean that you can’t take steps to protect yourself. And it doesn’t mean you have to trust people who have shown themselves to be untrustworthy. Sometimes you need to establish boundaries to protect yourself from repeated harm. But you can still forgive.
• It also doesn’t mean that they deserve to be forgiven. They probably don’t. But that’s OK. Neither do you.
So what, then, does it mean to forgive? It means that you are:
• not holding what they did against them
• not treating them with anger, or contempt – even in your mind
• not shunning them
• not taking vengeance on them or trying to get back at them
• not attempting to harm them or harm their reputation
• not taking any action toward them that has any malicious intent
Now, by that definition of forgiveness, can you honestly say that you have forgiven them?
There’s a lot more I could say about forgiveness. But for this morning, I’ll make just one more point. We are to forgive not only because God has forgiven us in Christ, but in the same way as he forgave us. And how is that? In one word: completely.
13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.” (Col. 2:13-14)
Jesus forgave all of our sins. Every single one. Sins large and small. Sins past, present, and future. Sins public and private. What does the prophet Isaiah say? It’s one of my favorite verses in the entire Bible:
18 “Come now, let us settle the matter,”
says the Lord.
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
they shall be like wool. (Isa. 1:18)
That is how God sees us. Spotless. Blameless. Without even the slightest hint of guilt or shame remaining. Because those of us who have trusted in Christ for salvation have been forgiven by him; fully and completely. And so let’s make it our intention to forgive one another in the same way. Not grudgingly, or partially, but willingly and completely.
And finally, we come to the fifth and last secret to harmony in our relationships with other believers. Let’s look again at our text, Colossians 3:12-14:
12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” (Colossians 3:12-14)
“Over all these virtues put on love.” That fifth secret, then, is love, which is the glue that binds together all of the rest. That’s the core, the central unifying principle. If we love one another, as we are loved by God, then our relationships with other believers will be characterized by love, and joy, and harmony as we serve him and worship him together. Let’s pray that God will give us the grace to do just that. Amen?
