The Perfect Church
Colossians 3:12-14
In my time in ministry, I have heard more than once the statement, “If you find the perfect church don’t join it because it will no longer be perfect.” I’m not sure, but I have a suspicion that something was being hinted at in that statement. What do you think?
Really, many of us at times have found ourselves longing to be part of the perfect church ... the church that is just right ... the church that you have always been longing for.
But we have conceded that no such church exists. Our dreams of ever finding the perfect church have crumbled like a paper moon in our hands and left us falling.
But scripture tells us that the perfect church is a reality. Our definition of the perfect church has just been the problem.
How do we usually define the perfect church? Our definitions of the perfect church are dominated by things like a pastor that preaches appealing and practical sermons, worship music that stirs us, presentations that are flawless, programs that address our felt life needs, or a well-kept, finely tuned facility. Ultimately our definition concentrates more on the programs that make the perfect church, rather than the people who make the church perfect.
And since we have erred in defining what the perfect church is, we further err in determining those things that are really important to the life of the church. We get so busy with programs and the plans and the property and the possessions that we forget that the church is really the people.
Open your Bibles to Colossians 3, and as we begin reading at verse 12, we’ll hear what Paul had to say about the reality of the perfect church. I’m reading from the New International Version:
“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 whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”
Listen to how the New Living Translation renders those verses:
“12Since God chose you to be the holy people whom he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. 13 You must make allowance for each other’s faults and forgive the person who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. 14 And the most important piece of clothing you must wear is love. Love is what binds us all together in perfect harmony.”
“in perfect harmony” … “in perfect unity” … That is Paul’s assessment of what life in the church ought to be like. It is the place where discordant lives are brought into tune, through relationships with a loving community, resulting in a beautiful harmony.
What is the perfect church? The perfect church is the place where everyone is loved. A loving community is a perfect church, a place where nobody stands alone.
Love … holds Christians together in fellowship under the strain of everyday life. Love checks the selfish, hard tempers, which keep people apart and thus militate against the maturing of good fellowship. Here “perfect harmony” is the full expression of love in the Christian community, devoid of bitter words and angry feelings, and freed from the ugly defects of immorality and dishonesty.
Our hearts were made for community. We hunger for the deep, authentic relationships Jesus had in mind when he prayed that his followers would be one. Yet in many churches, and for many in our church, the connection we crave is lacking. How can this church become a place where nobody stands alone? How do we become the perfect church, a loving community?
It doesn’t happen by simply saying we love one another. As any of you who have suffered through a broken relationship can testify, the words often come easy. The perfect church moves beyond the spoken word.
1) The perfect church displays loving conduct.
Look back at vs. 13 – Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
In this verse, Paul understands there are two ways that a loving community must conduct itself.
First, bear with each other – Make allowances for each other’s faults. In our common language perhaps the best way to translate this phrase is “put up with each other” or “cut each other some slack” – which is being patient, even when it might mean enduring possible difficulty.
“Put up with” catches the sense of an acceptance requiring an effort of will because the actions or attitudes in question are immature and tiresome. Such a positive response is of a piece with the practical wisdom (Rom 12:9-13:10)
The present tense emphasizes the continual action. Cutting others slack becomes a way of life.
Mr. Wilson portrays an comical illustration of bearing with each other. In his daily dealings with Denise Mitchell, known affectionately as Denise the Menace, he is constantly put to the test. Denise has made Mr. Wilson his next best friend, and is constantly destroying Mr. Wilson’s next grand design. Although Denise is a menace, and continually puts him to the test, Mr. Wilson has a soft spot for Denise.
The second conduct a loving community displays is forgiveness. “Forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”
Still more demanding than putting up with one another is a situation where someone is at fault and deserving of blame. Such a person must be forgiven. The implication of ‘forgiving each other’ is that there will be more than a few occasions for which such forgiveness will be called. There is a conditional nature to the phrase, “whatever grievances you may have” which recognizes that within community there will be grounds for grievance from time to time, that all members will be in the situation of having to forgive or needing forgiveness at some time or other, and that on many occasions there will be blame on both sides. Only such mutual respect and support, such recognition of mutual vulnerability, such valuing of each other beyond individual hurts and faults, it is also implied, would retain weaker or wavering members who otherwise might find the old way of life too attractive.
‘Forgiveness’ is not the common word for remission or forgiveness but one of richer content emphasizing the gracious nature of the pardon. There is nothing the offending party has done to merit favor, yet the debt has been freely cancelled.
In 1982, Stephen Watt was a sheriff’s officer with the misfortune of pulling Mark Farnham over in a routine traffic stop. What he didn’t know is that Farnham was speeding for a reason—he’d just robbed a bank. Farnham shot Watt five times and left him for dead.
Watt recovered, but lost sight in one eye, and still carries a bullet near his spine. As you might expect, Watt became bitter towards Farnham. His anger grew until his wife intervened. She encouraged him to forgive his assailant, if he was ever going to be a true Christian.
In 1986, Watt attended a revival service at the prison and spotted Farnham across the room.
He walked over to Farnham and hugged him. Watt says, " I had basically been dead from the time I got shot until 1986." When he forgave Farnham, Watt says, " It was just like God picked up a semi-truck right off me and I actually started living." From all appearances, the forgiveness was complete; today the two men are best friends.
In 2002, Republican Stephen Watt was a candidate in the Wyoming gubernatorial campaign and had promised that if elected, one of his first acts would be to release Farnham from jail.
The point, however, is to reinforce the interdependence between forgiving and being forgiven. The two evidently go hand in hand. It is the experience of having been forgiven which releases the generous impulses to forgive others, just as it is the refusal to forgive which betrays the reality that forgiveness has not been received, that the individual has not even recognized the need for forgiveness. A community has hope of holding together and growing together only when the need for forgiveness is both offered and received.
This is part of what has been described as “conformity” – teaching in which the full impact of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is set forth as a example of the lifestyle to which the believer “conforms”.
What allows these actions to be exhibited? Living in a society that sees it has a divine right to fight back, whether it be with harsh words, flying fists or blazing bullets, over any perceived injustice, what would make a person choose to cut others some slack?
This conduct does not occur in a vacuum. Loving conduct springs from loving character.
2) The perfect church exemplifies loving character.
Golfer Tiger Woods is a head-to-toe Nike man. He wears Nike footwear, clothing, gloves, and hats, and now uses the Nike Precision Tour Accuracy Ball," said a recent article.
The apostle Paul told the church in Colosse that as God’s chosen people we must dress "head-to-toe" in Christ’s wardrobe. "Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience."
Here, in a list much like Paul’s defining the Fruit of the Spirit as love expressed through joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control, Paul gives us another list of character traits that are to be worn within a loving community.
Compassion – mercy and concern with the implication of sensitivity and compassion. With the adjective that does not appear in the English translations the full idea of this term would be gut wrenching concern, concern that rips your heart out.
Secondly, kindness that extends tangible benefits to the other person
The headline of a 2001 magazine “What happened to courtesy?” spawned a follow up story on ABC’s 20/20 and World News Tonight. The observation that was being offered in the article and the TV program is that we, as a society, have lost the simple graces of courtesy and kindness, and replaced them with rudeness.
The owner of a drive-through coffee business in southwest Portland, Oregon, was surprised one morning to have one of her customers not only pay for her own mocha but also for the mocha of the person in the car behind her. It put a smile on the owner’s face to tell the next customer her drink had already been paid for. The second customer was so pleased that someone else had purchased her coffee that she bought coffee for the next customer. This string of kindnesses—one stranger paying for the mocha of the next customer—continued for two hours and 27 customers.
Third, we have humility, modestly viewing ourselves
It is well known that in profane Greek literature the term humility occurs usually in a derogatory sense of servility, weakness or a shameful lowliness.
Convicted for possession of drugs, lead singer of rock band Stone Temple Pilots, Scott Weiland, talked to Rolling Stone about how being in jail impacted his life:
Weiland keeps repeating the word humility.
"It’s not me thinking less of myself," he says. "It’s me thinking of myself less. A lot of my ways of thinking have backfired on me. My stubbornness. My pride. My arrogance. The difficult thing is that those defects of character become assets in my business, the rock and roll world.
"It’s great being a rock star," he crows. "But you know what? Being a rock star doesn’t give you the license to view yourself as more important than anybody else. And if I am to become a better man, a man who has some compassion and humility instead of just expecting people to understand me, that doesn’t make me less of a rock star."
Next … gentleness of attitude and behavior in contrast with rudeness, or harshness in one’s dealings with others. In the Septuagint, gentleness was used to designate the poor in Israel, those without property, many of whom were victims of unscrupulous exploitation. The ‘poor’ are the defenseless, those without rights, who are oppressed, cheated and exploited.
Yet, gentleness is not to be confused with weakness, but contains the elements of (a) a consideration for others, and (b) a willingness to waive one’s rights.
In the movie, The Horse Whisperer, Tom Booker, played by actor Robert Redford, employs his special gift of "gentling" horses.
A tense, New York magazine editor can’t believe her eyes as she witnesses the gradual transformation of her daughter’s horse from traumatized to tamed. In one telling scene, the horse, frightened by the editor’s ringing cell phone, gallops off into the far end of a large pasture. Booker walks into the pasture and sits down, where he waits for what appears to be hours. The horse, drawn by its curiosity, inches closer and closer. Finally, it cautiously approaches close enough to touch the "whisperer," and allows itself to be led back to the safety of its stall.
That’s the way it is with the people of God, as we "gentle" the untamed or traumatized people who run among us.
Lastly, there is patience, a state of emotional calm in the face of provocation or misfortune and without complaint or irritation, contrasting with resentment, revenge or wrath. It denotes that longsuffering which endures wrong and puts up with the exasperating conduct of others rather than flying into a rage or desiring vengeance.
Such virtues (or graces), particularly as in the combination here, can appear to encourage a ‘milksop’ weakness as in people whose calling in life is to be a doormat for others – at least as those caught up in the cut and thrust of the rat race count strength. But in fact to live out such a character calls for a strength, which is rarely seen in the marketplace. And without such an attitude toward others no group of individuals can become and grow as a community, with a proper care for others and willingness to submerge one’s own personal interests.
Someone just told me this week that she feels disconnected when she is here at church. The people that she was connected with are no longer part of the church body, and she has not been able to experience that connection with any others. It’s not that she feels rejected. It is more that she feels she is alone.
It should also be noted that none of these character traits are really fully exhibited during the Sunday morning worship gathering. It is not enough to simply be a warm, and welcoming congregation. If you think that your investment in relationships at regular events is enough, you are terribly wrong. A loving community will never be built on Sunday relationships.
It is in the depth of relationships outside of Sunday gatherings that these loving traits are exemplified. Which simply means this – in order to be the perfect church, an authentic loving community, we must constantly be investing in building loving relationships with one another outside of our regular gatherings.
What produces this extreme character make-over? In one phrase – the love of God.
3) The perfect church reflects a loving God.
Loving character flows from our relationship with a loving God.
As we retreat, one last time to the first part of vs. 12, we see the essential foundation of a loving community. I love how this verse begins in the New Living Translation. “Since God chose you to be the holy people whom he loves…”
Wrapped up in that verse are the foundations thoughts that Paul had already shared with those in Colossae. Paul could just as well say, “Since God sent Jesus as a sacrifice for your sins...” “Since Jesus died to remove your problem with sin...” “Since you have been set free from your sins to live a new life in Christ…” “Since your old nature has been replaced with Christ’s nature love the way God loves you.”
The unselfish, sacrificial, compassionate love we are to have for one another is inherently and irrevocably tied to the love God has for us. The perfect church is the place where the perfect love of God is perfectly refining the relationships within his body perfectly.
There’s a story about a traveler making his way with a guide through the jungles of Burma. They came to a shallow but wide river and waded through it to the other side. When the traveler came out of the river, numerous leeches had attached to his torso and legs. His first instinct was to grab them and pull them off.
This guide stopped him, warning that pulling the leeches off would only leave tiny pieces of them under the skin. Eventually, infection would set in.
The best way to rid the body of the leeches, the guide advised, was to bathe in a warm balsam bath for several minutes. This would soak the leeches, and soon they would release their hold on the man’s body.
When I’ve been significantly injured by another person, I cannot simply yank the injury from myself and expect that all bitterness, malice, and emotion will be gone. Resentment still hides under the surface. The only way to become truly free of the offense and to forgive others is to bathe in the soothing bath of God’s forgiveness of me. When I finally fathom the extent of God’s love in Jesus Christ, a loving relationship with others is a natural outflow.
