Introduction:
I. Last week as we looked at “What is Really Important” you may recall that Paul was speaking of his desire to “lay hold” of Christ.
A. Simply stated, Paul’s desire was to be so closely identified with Christ, that when people looked at him, all they could see was Christ.
B. His past did not matter,
C. His present did not matter,
D. And in one sense, even his future did not matter, other than his desire to be like Christ.
II. What I probably did not answer in that message, at least very well was “How”.
A. How do I become more like Christ?
B. What does reaching out for Christ include.
C. I believe our passage this morning will go just a little bit farther in answering the question of “HOW”.
III. Our base verse this morning is Colossians 3:16 - “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”
A. “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you...”
B. The word of Christ is and agent of change, IF we allow it to change us.
C. Hebrews chapter four, verse 12 says, “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
IV. For any change to take place, in any area of our lives, there are some actions on our part that must take place.
A. First, we must realize that a change needs to take place.
1. We must be honest with ourselves.
2. We must realize and admit that something or some quality is lacking.
B. Second, we must seek out the correct sources in order for the best change to occur.
C. Third, we must be willing to apply what we learn to our lives.
1. Applying what we have learned requires effort on our part.
2. We rarely see change as an endeavor we desire to undertake.
3. Over the course of our lives, we become very comfortable, or at least accustomed to the way things are.
D. We may admit we need to change, we may know correctly learn what changes needs to occur, but we often fall short because we fail to perform the effort required to make change occur.
V. I believe our passage this morning is God’s call for change.
A. If we fail to recognize God’s call for action on our part; if we fail to admit we need to continually apply the Word of Christ to our lives it’s a bit like the story of the “Emperor’s New Clothes.”
B. You know the basic’s of the story,
1. The Emperor believed he had on a magnificent new wardrobe, when really he was naked.
2. Because he was the emperor, no one dared tell him that he need to “Put some clothes on” until
3. One day, a little boy blurted out, “The emperor is naked.”
C. Colossians 3, verses 12 to 17 is that little boy, telling us, “You are naked. Go put your clothes on.”
VI. I am reading Colossians 3, beginning in verse 12 from the New American Standard bible.
Clothe Yourselves With The Attributes of Christ (vs. 12-14)
I. If you are reading from the New International Version of the Bible, verse 12 reads “clothe yourselves.”
A. The King James states “put on”
B. Regardless of the translation; the implications are the same.
II. Have you ever been walking around Oxford Valley Mall, observed some young “lady” walking around and said, “She needs to go put some clothes on.”
A. What are some implications of your saying such a thing?
1. Something is missing!
2. Perhaps, something is exposed!
3. Something that should be covered is not adequately covered!
4. She needs to “put her clothes on.”
B. Maybe you have had to say to one of your children, “your not going out like that” meaning,
1. You are a Murphy, representative of the Murphy’s.
2. You are not making a adequate representation of who you are.
III. That is somewhat the meaning of the opening of verse 12.
A. Church, person possessing eternal life through Christ,
B. You have been chosen by God; you are holy, you are beloved,
1. “Clothe yourself.”
2. You need to “Put these things on”
C. And we need to understand,
1. God through the power of Christ,
2. God through the gift of the Holy Spirit
3. God through the written Word of God.
4. God is letting us know that a change needs to take place, BUT WE are the ones that make the change.
D. Why do I say that?
1. Because Paul does not say, “Beloved of God, allow God to clothe you.”
2. Paul says, “Beloved of God; CLOTHE YOURSELF.”
E. Paul then gives a list of attributes with which we are to “put on.”
IV. First, “clothe yourself with compassion.”
A. At it’s core “compassion” means to “feel the pain of someone else.”
B. But compassion goes beyond feeling.
C. To clothe yourself with compassion is, “to do something to alleviate the pain of someone else.”
1. Jesus told the story of a man who had been robbed and beaten,
a. It is possible that the Priest felt sorry for the man, but he did nothing.
b. It is possibly that the Levite felt compassion, but he to passed by.
c. But the Samaritan did not simply feel something, he acted on those feelings.
D. Some of us need to go past the feeling stage, and enter into the doing stage.
V. Second, “put on kindness.”
A. Interestingly, when Jesus said, “My yoke is easy” easy is the same word that is translated as “kindness” here.
B. The basic meaning of the Greek word “chrestos” is “good” or “useful.”
C. In other words, as you put on compassion and act on those feelings for someone else, make your actions “good, useful, profitable” for the object of your actions.
VI. Third we see we need to put on “humbleness” and “gentleness” or meekness, which are two closely related words.
A. These two words essentially mean “to have an accurate perspective of who we are in relation to God.”
1. The humble and gentle or meek person is not someone that shirks back from making their feelings and needs known.
2. Humility and gentleness is not someone that hides who they are relative to others.
B. Aristotle gave this definition to the Greek word we translate as “gentle”
1. “The happy mean or medium between to much anger and to little.”
C. In Galations, Paul states that one of the “fruits of the Spirit” is “self control.”
D. Here, the person that has clothed themself with “humility” and “gentleness” is not “self controlled” but rather “God controlled.”
E. Feelings, even feelings of anger are still present, but not at the expense of someone else.
VII. Next in verse 13, God says that we are to clothe ourselves in “bearing with one another.”
A. The King James uses the word “forbearing”
B. The idea is a bit like “putting up” with the other person.
1. Perhaps they have done something we disagree with.
2. Perhaps we simply do not like their personality.
3. We can either let them know how much we disagree, or we can accept them, just as the Lord accepts us.
C. I had a meeting with a pastor this week, and as often happens we were discussing the state of our churches.
1. He happened to mention that someone that had been a part of their church for a long time had recently left because they didn’t like the direction the church was going, and understand this church is actually having an impact in their community and seeing renewed growth.
2. I said, “Perhaps when they see what God is beginning to accomplish through this new direction they will change their mind and come back.”
a. Now evidently this person had been a bit vocal in expressing their displeasure.
b. The pastor’s response surprised me a bit, although I am not going to tell you what it was.
3. But considering that we are to clothe ourselves in “bearing up with one another” how would you respond, or even better, how would I respond?
VIII. And finally in the list of clothing accessories comes “forgiving.”
A. The verse says that we not only to forgive, but to forgive just as the Lord forgave us.
B. Let me ask, how does the Lord forgive us when we come to Christ by faith?
1. Without reservation!
2. Without punishment!
3. Without withholding any of His blessings!
a. In Romans 5:8 Paul says, “While we were yet in our sin, Christ died for us.”
b. According to John 1:9, - “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins.”
C. In that we loved by God, we are to clothe ourselves in the attributes of God, one being forgiveness.
1. Without reservation,
2. Without punishment,
3. Without holding back any of our blessings.
4. Just as Christ forgave us.
IX. And over all these other attributes, over all these other articles of clothing; we are to “put on love.”
A. Love, agape love.
B. “Agape” is a verb, an action word.
C. To put on love is a call to action.
D. Agape love does not always give a person what they want, but it does always give a person what they need, and it always GIVES.
E. Think of your child coming and asking you for something that you know is bad for them.
1. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I will do my dead level best to insure that they get it, because I want them to know I love them.
2. We think of love as not holding anything back.
F. Love is an action word, the action of giving in is not always the loving thing to do.
1. Sometimes the loving thing to do is to make known that an action or an attitude is not acceptable, and may not even be beneficial.
2. Sometimes the loving thing to do is to say “NO.”
G. But always “Agape” love is action.
H. And always agape love is the basis for unity. Clothe Yourselves With The Peace of Christ (vs. 15)
15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful.
I. I find it interesting that in our study of the 3:16’s we have often come back to the idea of body life.
II. I seem to be getting the idea that the body of Christ is supposed to somehow be demonstrative of who God is.
A. The Bible certainly speaks to the issue of personal accountability before God, and personal salvation through faith in Christ.
B. But I just have to believe that the church is somehow supposed to be reflective of who God is, and what an awesome responsibility it is to be part of this thing called the Body of Christ.
III. Here Paul writes that the “the peace of Christ” is to rule in our hearts.
A. Peace is not the absence of conflict.
B. Peace is not the putting aside of what is right, for the sake of not entering into a decision which others might disagree.
IV. So what is peace?
A. The key is found in the word “rule”
B. Paul must have been well acquainted with athletics, because the word “rule” if an athletic term which means “umpire” or “arbiter”.
V. The body of Christ consists of individuals with individual desires and temperaments, and so also is every other area of our lives.
A. Whenever you put more than one person in relation with another, conflicts and disagreements are bound to occur from time to time.
B. The question or problem is not in whether disagreements occur but rather in how we seek to solve them.
1. Do we run from the problem?
2. Do we seek our own way, regardless the cost to the relationship?
3. Do we fight or denigrate the other person or persons?
VI. “Let the peace of Christ umpire in your heart.”
A. Clothe yourselves in humility, compassion, kindness, patience, FORGIVENESS and love.
B. Clothe yourselves in these attributes of Christ, and seek a solution that is the best for all parties involved.
1. Divorces do not happen because two people fall out of love, they happen because two people stop acting in love.
2. How often does a fight occur because rather than seek peace, both parties desire only their way?
3. Rarely do church splits happen because one party is right or wrong, they happen when the parties involved cannot sit down and seek Christ’s will and purpose.
C. “Let the peace of Christ umpire in your heart, and be thankful that peace is the goal.” Clothe Yourself in The Word of Christ (vs. 16-17)
16 Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
17 And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.
I. “Let the word of Christ richly (dwell, live, abide, take up residence) within you”
A. Any of those words are appropriate
B. And this verse is not talking about just studying and knowing what the Bible has to say.
II. A couple of us were having a short discussion a couple of weeks ago regarding language.
A. Specifically our question was, let’s say you are angry about something.
1. “If you substitute a less offensive word for an offensive word,” for instance, “O sugar”
2. Is that really better?
B. I believe we decided that the answer is not really, because your heart really knows what you mean.
1. You may have cleaned up the outward expression of your felling, BUT
2. Your inward expression is still the same.
III. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you.
A. I believe what Paul is saying here is “Let the word of Christ so dwell within you that you are transformed from the inside.”
B. When we allow the word of Christ to dwell richly or abundantly within us, we don’t have to fake it, we don’t have to force it.
1. Compassion is not something we think about, it is something we are.
2. The same for humility, kindness, forgiving and all the rest.
C. The problem with most Christians is not that we don’t know enough, but rather that we don’t act on what we already know.
D. Romans 12, verse 2 reads - “And do not be conformed to this word, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”
E. Let the word of God so abundantly dwell within you, that you are transformed from the inside out.
IV. Why? Verse 17; because we are representatives of none other than Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.
V. The closing question for today, “Are You Fully Clothed in Christ?”
