Trinity Baptist Church
April 2, 2006
True Values: Grace Driven Authenticity
Colossians 3:12-17
Philip Yancey wrote: "Grace comes free of charge to people who do not deserve it and I am one of those people. I think back to whom I was -- resentful, wound tight with anger, a single hardened link in a long chain of "un-grace" learned from family and church. Now, I am trying in my own small way to pipe…the tune of grace. I do so because I know, more surely than I know anything, that any pang of healing or forgiveness, or goodness, I have ever felt comes solely from the grace of God. I yearn for the church to become a nourishing culture of that grace".
“A nourishing culture of that grace.” When I read that, I thought, “isn’t it sad that people often find more grace and acceptance in places other than church?” Isn’t it tragic that people regularly enter churches and then leave again never finding grace. The sad reality of modern Christendom is, churches and Christian groups are often known more for their rules and musty religious pretense than for being authentic grace-freed followers of Jesus.
It’s common to believe in God’s grace but to be ungracious. It’s also common to preach grace, but not extend it. As people, we claim grace and forgiveness for ourselves, but we often demand performance from others. We need to understand Christ’s heart for His Church.
When we do, we’ll see that Yancey’s right when He describes the best future of the church as being a “nourishing culture of grace“.
We’re spending 8 Sundays thinking biblically about our “Core Values“. We began last time with the first -- “Scripture is foundational“. Today, is the second -- it’s inside your worship folder and on the outline. “Grace driven authenticity“.
The expansion is also there:
Grace-driven authenticity means that "we’re committed to a ’grace gospel’ -- no one earns salvation in any way -- we’re also committed to grace-oriented lifestyles and relationships. We avoid teaching and practicing legalism; we allow God the Holy Spirit to work in peoples’ lives, and we treat each other as God has treated us, with love, kindness, forgiveness and gentleness."
I said last time that our Values are principles we prize, ones which God has begun to build into us. The fact that we identify them as values doesn’t mean that we’ve “arrived”. They’re what we want God to work into us, individually and as a body. This second one, in particular, we need to re-visit again and again. That‘s because tucked inside our human DNA is an urge to not only try to earn God’s favor, but also to compare ourselves and out-perform others.
C.S. Lewis said, “Man is incurably religious.“
Our human pride makes us legalists by nature. We need regular, repeated doses of the Truth of grace to flush that garbage out of our thinking. We also love to give others a good impression. The result is a sort of Christian mushy niceness, but it’s not real righteousness. Grace also will remind us, it’s okay to let others see how much God still needs to work in our lives. Grace and authenticity walk hand in hand.
So what will characterize Christians who pursue grace-driven authenticity? The passage we look at today helps us discover, how to put a “face on grace“. It helps us celebrate grace -- in turn to “grace” each other. This moves us down the road to being real.
Let’s go back to the verses Rich read -- Colossians 3. Paul helps here see the relationship between God’s grace to, and ours toward one other.
First, he says
1. Grace driven people remember their heritage. (3:12)
The pattern here is common in most of the NT letters. First, comes the teaching of Truth -- what God has done -- then comes the urge to live by that Truth.
Let’s begin at 3:12. First, Paul describes the people he’s writing. If you’re a Christian, you can take these words as true about you. So, then as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved…. The NIV calls us God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved. A couple of weeks ago, I called someone, “holy one” and he laughed. But God’s Word uses precisely that language here and elsewhere in the NT, including in the letters to the carnal Corinthians. Before Paul calls us to be radically gracious to others, he reminds us of God’s radical grace that transformed us.
Who are we? First, we’re God’s chosen people. The Bible says, God has set His love on us. He set His intentions on us as His very own. Israel was God’s single chosen people in the OT. He established a covenant with them to be His -- He marked them out to be distinct and unique from every nation on the Earth. When Jesus died and rose, He established a new covenant with a new body of people -- the Church, His Body.
The Church is composed of Jews and Gentiles, from people someday from every tribe, tongue, nation and ethnic group. Every person, brought into a faith relationship with His Son. We’re God’s chosen people. Paul is saying, like the Jewish nation was to be different from all others, holy and set apart for God’s purposes, we’re God’s unique people today. OT Jews and failed God and broke covenant with Him. That won’t happen with us.
In the New Covenant, Jesus met every requirement Himself. That’s implicit in verse 12.
You are God’s chosen people, holy…. We don’t earn the description of holy and acceptable. If we’re in Christ, God declares, we are. We also don’t earn or keep God’s love; we are God’s beloved, literally, the dearly loved ones of God -- dear to the heart of God. You’ll never discover a more powerful and motivating personal Truth in life than that you are acceptable in Christ, and God’s beloved child. He loves you deeply. You can’t lose sight of that. It’s foundational. You need to know who you are, what heritage is yours in Christ. That new identity lays the foundation for how you can function with other Christians. The point is this: when you know God’s grace-work in you, you become free to express grace to others.
If you don’t know, or if you forget God brought you to faith in His Son, by mercy and grace, and forgave your sin, you won’t forgiving and grace-filled with others. Yancey called himself “tightly wound” before grace. People who don’t understand grace are never free to pass it on.
And religion and legalism will never provide grace-filled relationships, because religious people are trying to earn or keep God‘s favor. Grace driven people remember their heritage, and celebrate God’s grace.
Second, 2. Grace driven people reflect grace. (3:12-14)
He says, because you’re God’s chosen and God’s beloved, verse 12: put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving each other, just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.
He reminded us of our heritage, and in reality, of our resources. Then, Paul uses one a favorite phrase of his: put on. And this isn’t put on like we’d say if we meant “faking it“. Up in verse 10, Paul used the same phrase to tell us, God’s grace gave us a whole new self. If you’re a Christian: if God’s grace has invaded you life, you’re a brand new creation in Christ, you have a new person, new character, power and resources to live out this new identity.
So you’ve also got new ways to extend yourself to others -- and he describes it like a new wardrobe. God never makes an assignment without providing us what we need to carry it out. He’s said in chapter 3, put off the old man; that means lay aside, just like you’d put off some grimy old worn out clothing. Now he simply says, put on something to replace it.
It’s like getting up in the morning and going to the closet to make a choice. We’re free now to make a choice of what to wear: either the old nasty stuff or the new gracious stuff. Because God has been gracious and forgiving, because God has touched us, and we’ll never be the same -- we have a description of habits of relating to put on as we interact with one another. Here’s your new approach. Here’s how you can speak, react, respond to others: your spouse, your kids, your parents, to anyone who’s a fellow believer.
These characteristics contrast with what used to be. The old ways were already mentioned in chapter 3. Paul said, lay aside, take off, anger, rage, slander and filthy language.
He’s told the believers, no longer lie to one another. We say old habits die hard. God says, by the power and Truth of grace, put them off! And put on some new ones. Sarcasm, cutting remarks, rudeness, sour attitudes don’t match God’s glorious grace work in your. Put them off.
Instead, put on new qualities. Let God’s transformation and power inside show up on the outside. Beginning in verse 12: Clothe yourselves with,
put on a heart of compassion…
The Greek term is literally "bowels of sympathy." Greeks thought that the emotions originated in the bowels. We come close with phrases like, "I’ve got a gut feeling."
It’s a deeply felt heart of compassion God wants to be visible in us -- to feel what others are feel. Instead of assuming the worst, and jumping to conclusions, put on compassion. When you deal with your spouse or your kids, approach with compassion. When you come to worship or your small group, come ready to show compassion. The Bible says that God’s compassion toward us is like a mother who cares tenderly for her children. Put on compassion.
Put on Kindness…. that’s action that grows out of compassion. Every once in a while, I get urges to demonstrate compassion to people. Those don’t come from me, they come from the Holy Spirit. The sad thing is, I often let them pass. Paul says, allow actions to flow from the Spirit’s work inside you, out toward someone‘s needs and hurts. The NT calls us to kindness with the identical term it uses to describes God’s kindness. It says, God’s kindness draws us to repentance. Imagine how demonstrating that grace encourages and motivates people.
You can be kind by just listening, sharing Truth from God‘s Word, praying with somebody on the phone, passing out hugs, offer to help someone in practical ways.
Put on humility…. Humility flows out of remembering God’s grace to you. In Romans 12, Paul says, through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. Don’t come at others in the body with an attitude, come ready to serve.
Wear gentleness… This word is the same word as meekness -- it‘s the opposite of rudeness and abrasiveness. It’s strength under control, it’s real strength, it doesn’t need to show off. Gentleness is willingness to waive your rights and your preferences, for the cause of Christ.
Put on patience… Literally, that means putting up with people’s exasperating conduct without responding in kind. It’s a negative term. It means holding back and restraining yourself from being upset or speaking harshly to people who, humanly speaking, deserve it! There will always be other Christians whose conduct you find exasperating. Put on patience as you remember how patient God has been with you.
These graces toward others lead to two concrete actions -- in verse 13: forbear and forgive. Forbear is an old word that we’d translate today with, put up with. As we get to know other Christians, things happen. We rub each other the wrong way. Rough edges show up.
None of us always behave out of our grace identity. God’s Word has an answer for this reality. Forbear. Put up with them!
And forgive. Two reasons to forgive others: First Whoever has a complaint against anyone. Someone offended you, spoken against you, hurt or disappointed you? Forgive them. This is Christianity 101. Forgiveness is distinct from confrontation.
Confrontation may become necessary; sometimes it works, sometimes not. But forgiveness is always fundamental. And forgiveness isn’t the same as reconciliation. Reconciliation may or may not happen.
But forgiveness demonstrates that you’ve been freed by God’s grace. That’s the second reason Paul gives us to forgive: If you’ve experienced God’s, forgive like He did you: fully, freely, graciously. Period.
Verse 14 says, Over all these virtues, put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. That them is hard to identify, but it likely refers to believers. It’s believers who become perfectly bound together by love. The commitment to love means we will go the distance in relationships; not write people off or avoid them.
This is where we have to get real and stop making excuses: the way other Christians act and relate doesn’t determine how I act and relate. When we know who God has made us to be, then our character can reflect Christ’s.
Don’t think I’m suggesting that grace should make us doormats, or the recipients of abuse by other Christians. Of course, there is the time to speak the Truth with love. To challenge believers who are hurtful to also walk with God and reflect His grace. To tell them to start letting Christ’s grace and character mark their habits of relating. To become authentic.
But, grace driven people mirror God’s grace.
Third, 3. Grace driven people demonstrate Whose they are. (3:15-17)
There’s a lot in verses 15-17, but the context is still relating in the body. Look at the heart of three commands, each one of which relates to Whose we are: to Christ.
First, Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. Paul first talks about unity in the fellowship. To rule means to umpire or govern. Peace isn’t just an individual experience here, it’s corporate. The tone of our interactions as a body must embrace Christ’s peace. That describes then how we approach each other, talk to each other, and about one another.
Grace people choose let Christ’s peace rule them.
Then, let the Word of Christ richly live in you. Christ’s followers should allow Scripture to permeate our lives and our community life. We need to know God’s Word well and we need to help each other live it. There’s no substitute for the Truth of Scripture, and our body life is dependent on how well we know it and live it. One overflow of knowing it well is that we will teach each other. We’ll remind, challenge, encourage and warn each other from it.
One role you have is getting His Word into you enough that you pass its wisdom and principles on to Christians around you. Paul relates the ministry of music to teaching one another. Worship music, should flow out of hearts filled up with Scripture. We encourage and lift and teach each other with that kind of truth-based worship.
Finally there’s the name of Christ. Whatever you do" -- that means all of life -- here, addressing how we treat each other -- all of it should align with Christ’s Lordship in life.
Christians don’t live in two worlds -- our faith life and our social life -- we are to be moved by
the Truth that we are His, by His grace in our lives, and therefore, to honor Him in how we how we behave toward other Christians. Remember Whose you are.
Steps I need to take
Author Steve Brown writes, “Once you know two things -- His unconditional love and the truth about yourself -- you will rest easy.” In other words, you’ll be free to be who God intended you to be all along. I don’t know about you, but I get very weary when I do the “let‘s pretend to be religious“ game. I get real tired when I try to keep a religious mask on tightly. Galatians says, Christ has set you free. Don’t let your freedom in Him be taken away from you.
Would you stop with the pretending and start letting grace press you toward authenticity?
Are you becoming a person of grace? Do you celebrate your heritage? Do you remember where you were when God found you? Does His costly grace toward you, when you did not deserve it, press you back to Him again and again? Would you mirror grace in your interactions and relationships with other believers?
Trinity is a place where you can be real. Let’s help each other get there.
