Colossians 3:12
Well, we are working our way through Paul’s letter to the Colossians in our study of God’s Word and we are in the third chapter, Colossians 3, verse 12, and you’ll want to turn there in your Bibles, Colossians 3:12. The past two weeks that we’ve been in the study of Colossians, I would just say admittedly, I think they have been unpleasant. Unpleasant two weeks in the text as we’ve studied two vice lists and we’ve seen a catalog of ugly, ugly sins. It’s kind of like we’ve been wading through like this nasty slimy swamp and bog and being reminded of what the muck feels like, what it smelled like when we were in it, how terribly wretched our former lives were.
But in God’s mercy and by his grace, we have been marked out. Praise God, we’ve been marked out for an entirely different destiny, an eternal destiny, one that will never end. We are new creations in Christ and what testifies to the fact that we are new creations in Christ, what gives evidence to our profession, is a changed life. Our lives don’t stay the same.
We don’t continue to wander through the muck of our former life. We don’t continue to live like we used to live. We don’t even live like the common bland unbeliever out there; even just ostensibly moral lives, something has happened to us and we are very, very different people. As God is transforming us in this project of sanctification, he transforms us for the rest of our lives.
With that, look at the texts Colossians chapter 3, verse 12. I want to read those verses. Colossians 3:12 to 17. This wonderful and refreshing section of Scripture. “So as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience; bearing with one another, and graciously forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord graciously forgave you, so also should you.
“Above all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body, and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with gratefulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”
Those verses divide neatly, clearly into two sections, verses 12 to 14, which we will cover today, and then verses 15 to 17, that have these parallel phrases as you heard them, the peace of Christ, the word of Christ, the name of the Lord Jesus. We might take two weeks in that section, but for today, verses 12 to 14.
There’s this pertinent set of commands that offset the vice lists in verse 5, verse 8, this pertinent set of commands to those of us whom God has raised up with Christ Jesus, those of us who’ve put on the new man, God does not stop with reconciling us to himself in position only; praise God for that. God renews us in Christ. He renews the mind and transforms the life.
He wants to change us and conform us into the image of him who has created this one new man, Christ. And this is how we become what we are, verses 12 to 17. This is how we are to become what we are, how we become practically what we are positionally. Our practice is beginning to and continuing to match our position, how the righteousness that has been imputed to us, reckoned to us, starts to be and it continues to be imparted to us how we grow to look more and more like Christ.
And I’ll say this, folks, this is the longing of every true Christian. This is the hard cry of every true believer, to grow more fully into the likeness of our blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
There’s a principle of the universe, principle of all created human beings that we become like what we worship, right? You’ve heard that before. This is an inviolable creaturely principle, and it’s because God made us religious beings. And being religious, we have to worship something; we must.
We recognize we’re creatures. We recognize we came from someone somewhere, and we are longing to worship. So God made us religious and we want to worship, and he made us so that what we gaze at, what we fix, our hope on, what we love, what we pursue, we become like that thing. This is why there’s an inevitable descent into corruption for all idolaters, which Paul alluded to at the end of verse 5. They become more and more like the corrupt idols and the sins that they worship.
Only one way out of idolatrous corruption and that is true worship. True worship from the heart of the true and living God. The worship of God, the one who is most blessed and most glorious, who lives incarnate in the beauty of Christ. That’s true worship, to pursue him, to love him, to long to know him, to be like him, to see his character transform our character.
That’s what we long for and as his righteousness covers us now before God, it is his righteousness that we long to wear as our daily clothing, to put on as our daily dress, to put on as it were, the robe or the cloak that covers us. We long to wear it practically even as we have been covered by it positionally before God.
So in this section, verses 12 to 14 several points to kind of guide us through the text because as Christians, we long to be like Christ. We long to see these virtues in this character formed in us, to change us from the inside out, so that we are people of integrity through and through.
Christ forming us from the inside, working its way to the outside, to be consistently, constantly this way; in our thoughts, our imaginations, our desires, our ambitions, in the priorities we set for our life, but also in how we speak, in every word, every syllable, in how we behave, in the things that we refuse to say and the things that we must say; in the things that we refuse to do, refuse to behave a certain way and the ways we must behave, we long for those things.
God’s commands in Christ are our deepest longing to do his will, like Christ who said it before us, to do his will is our food, it’s our drink, it’s what sustains us, nourishes us. So four points just to guide you through this text, starting with this first one, where Paul is identifying the subjects for renewal.
So let’s say this number one, God blesses and justifies his elect. God blesses and justifies his elect. He’s identifying here in verse 12 the subjects for this renewal that takes place in the new man, and he identifies them as the elect of God, holy and beloved. The elect of God, holy and beloved, if that is not you, then listen, no renewal can happen.
If that description elect holy beloved, does not define you, does not identify you, then you’ve got deeper work to do. You’ve got repentance before God to conduct. You’ve got to go to him and plead for his salvation, that he would justify you, because without justification, without being reconciled to God, none of this renewal, none of this growth is going to take place.
If this is you elect, holy and beloved, thy transformation cometh. Now, there are some Christians, because of the traditions in which they were raised, who balk at the term elect. They’re uncomfortable with it. They’ve been taught to suspect the doctrine of election as if it’s something sinister, as if it’s something to suspect and to resist.
They’ve been taught that the doctrine of divine election turns God into something of an evil manipulator who’s dictatorial and controlling, and that the doctrine of election robs humanity of its chief human attribute, according to them, which they believe is free will. Election, they say, turns people into a little more than automatons, a mere servile robots just doing according to their programming.
Obviously, those views about election distort what the Bible actually teaches about election. Many have been told lies about election. It’s been slandered, it’s been scorned, it’s been maligned and distorted and so they have a tough time seeing beyond the caricature that they’ve received to the truth of God’s Word.
Now just point out that in Colossians, this is the only explicit reference to the doctrine of election. The only explicit reference and yet there is a reference to election. So you’ve got to deal with a doctrine, because the text raises it. Who are the elect of God? If not those who have been elected, who elected them? God. So we’ve got to talk about divine election. I’m not apologetic about that. I’m just identifying there is an issue.
This is the only explicit reference to the doctrine of election in Colossians and yet everything that Paul has been writing about salvation, we need to understand, it’s assumed the doctrine of divine election. It’s been through the text from the very beginning showing that God has exercised sovereign initiative to save his people.
Those people who are saved. He’s now pursuing this program of sanctifying them, where we shed sins, mortify sins, and put on the behavior, the character, the thinking of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s sanctification.
If you go back to the beginning of the letter, let me show you this, starting in Colossians chapter 1, verse 3. Notice there that Paul does not in his opening, does not congratulate the Colossians for their salvation, as if they’re somehow great. They made the choice. They’ve done well by their free will.
He gives thanks to God for their faith in Christ Jesus. He gives thanks to God for the evidence of true faith in them, which is love. In verses 5 and 6, also, in verses 9 and 10, Paul points to this gospel knowledge which was sovereignly revealed by God that’s bearing fruit, multiplying, causing them to walk worthy of the Lord.
It’s the knowledge that God gave that causes them to do right by God to walk worthy of the Lord. Salvation, sanctification, you have to understand, is by God’s initiative, not theirs. In Colossians 1:12 and 13, it’s God who qualifies, God who rescues, and God who transfers us from darkness to the Kingdom of his beloved Son into light. And all this he’s done by His sovereign initiative. And so he gets all the glory.
Colossians 1:15 to 20, notice it’s God in Christ who sovereignly created all things. None of the things that he created asked to be created. He’s the one that brought them into existence. He’s the one that made distinctions between things. He’s the one that gave this creature one gift and this creature another gift.
He’s the one who gave mankind to be his image, by his sovereign initiative, and he is the one, who by Christ also reconciles all things to himself, and some of that reconciliation is a pacification of those who will not bow the knee to God ever and he makes them bow, thus reconciling them to his authority, to his sovereignty.
Others of us, by his grace he reconciles us, in grace he reconciles us in his mercy. He makes us willing subjects of his Kingdom, and we bow willingly, longingly, cheerfully to our God and savior. So he is the sovereign initiator of both creation and salvation. In Colossians 1:22, God is he who reconciled you to present you. There’s a purpose clause here, to present you. It’s God’s sovereign purpose, “to present you holy and blameless and beyond reproach.” That’s his plan.
Down in Colossians 1:26 and 27, it’s God who has willed to make known to his saints, the truths that grant salvation. He willed to make it known to them, not to everyone, to them. And what he has hidden from the masses, he has revealed to his elect.
Colossians 2:6 and 7, God is the one who, firmly rooted his elect in Christ. He’s the one who, “established them in their faith.” In Colossians 2:10, it’s God who filled his elect with all the fullness of Christ. By the Holy Spirit, Colossians 2:11, and at God’s initiative, he performed this intimate spiritual surgery called circumcision. And it’s by his sovereign will and his sovereign initiative that he caused us to be born again; gave new life to us in whom there was no life.
The doctrine of Spirit baptism comes in the next verse, Colossians 2:12, which is Spirit initiated, Spirit energized, Spirit activated, and this Spirit baptism is what undergirds all the following teaching that we’ve been going through on sanctification. It informs Colossians 2:20 and everything we’ve learned in Colossians 3:1,3:5, 8, verses 10 and 11; everything is undergirded by the fact that we have been buried with Christ and baptism unto death and raised to new life and seated with Christ at his right hand.
Baptism in Christ is everything, and God has done it. He’s sovereignly planned it, initiated it, activated it, made it happen. All this teaching assumes the doctrine of God’s sovereign election, that he chose a people for himself from before the foundation of the world. And the outworking of that sovereign choice is what we find recorded in the history of redemption in Scripture. And what Paul writes about right here and what many of us are personally experiencing in our lives right now. He’s doing a good work in us, and we have the promise of Philippians 1:6, that, he began a good work in us. He’s going to complete it, too.
In the parallel letter, if you’d like to turn over to Ephesians 1, you can see in Paul’s Ephesian epistle he writes a bit more explicitly about the doctrine of election there. But these are parallel books. Colossians and Ephesians parallel one another in their themes and their structures and their form and everything, but he’s more expansive in Ephesians than he is in Colossians. Colossians directed to a particular problem dealing with a threat to the church.
Ephesians is much more of a doctrinal treatise. And he says in Ephesians 1:3 through 6, he says, “blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” Notice he doesn’t say, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and blessed be all of you, because you have really done your part. I mean, God came down and offered you a gift, but you reached up, halfway you met him and now, because of your effort and your faith and your initiative and your goodness, reaching up and meeting God halfway, you’ve got everything in heaven. You’re blessed with everything.
So a little bit of blessing to God the Father who’s done his part, little bit of blessing for you, blessings on everyone. No, he doesn’t say that, blessing be to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and to him alone. He who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ verse 4, “just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world.”
The verb, chose, can also be translated: He elected us. Same verb, same verb form related to the noun eklektos over in Colossians 3:12. Here the verb is epilego, which means to pick out, to choose, to select from, to take from among a number, and to choose that for a specific purpose, which is, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.
In other words, God did not look down the corridors of time, as some people try to explain. He didn’t see those who possess faith. You’re going to turn out okay and then choose them. It’s clear, he says, “he chose us in him,” when, “before the foundation of the world,” that is, before creation, before there was any category beyond God, before anything that is called not God ever was. That’s when He chose.
So before anyone was or had done anything right or wrong, good or bad, exercising faith or rejecting faith, God chose then. The next verb in verse 5, is very explicit, “In love. He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself.”
Very interesting verb there, predestined. Proorizo, translated in various ways as predetermine, foreordain, or just hear predestined. By itself, there’s a, pro, is a prefix and then the verb horizo, means to establish a boundary. You can hear in horizo, you can hear the kind of the word, horizon.
When a truly humble man, humble woman comes around, just their presence exposes those who pretend.” Travis Allen
That’s the etymology of horizon; goes back to this verb to determine by deliberate decision a limit. So determine, fix, set a point. That verb is used in Acts 17:26 to speak of God determining national boundaries. He uses it in Acts 17:31 and Hebrews 4:7, to refer to God setting appointed times, fixing, determining, predetermined plans. According to Luke 22:22 and Acts 2:23, God determines and he appoints all of it.
Add the prefix to horizo, the prefix pro, which means before, to the verb horizo, and you’ve got predetermined, determined beforehand, predestined. And by the way, this is no cold detached mechanical force of the divine will. This choice comes freely. It comes from an ad intra love that unifies the persons of the Trinity and God chooses by his own free initiative, his own sovereign will to communicate that love, ad extra, outside of himself to us.
It says here in Ephesians 1, “in love. He predestined us to adoption as sons.” What is adoption as sons, and I mean we could get into the doctrine of adoption. If you go back into the ancient world, this is the full rights and privileges of a loving family that could never be revoked.
Natural born sons, they could offend the father at to such a degree that they could be cast out of the family, disinherited and set aside even to be called not family. They can never claim the family title, family rights, family prerogatives; adoption: firm, fixed, irrevocable.
So “in love he predestined us to adoption as his children, his sons.” There’s an affection there through Jesus Christ to himself, “according to the kind intention of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved.”
As much as I would love to park it here and unpack all these truths, adoption into God’s family: Unbelievable. How God elects us for himself with his own interests in mind, designed to draw us into the depths of his eternal love. Or the good that accrues to all of us when we sing the praises of the glory of his grace.
When that resounds from our lips, when it’s overflowing from our hearts. That’s a healthy, healthy individual, one who’s praising God, because of these things or for, as this text says, God’s freedom just in being God, his Godness, his prerogative to do whatever he wants. And by the way, whatever he wants is good for us, it’s good for all.
He does divine things in a divine way and bestows freely according to his eternal love and his infinite wisdom. This is our God. This is what he does. He exercises his initiative. Each of those thoughts coming from Ephesians 1:3 to 6, kind of merits a sermon of its own.
But we must return, if you would, to Colossians 3:12 and consider further the subjects of renewal, the elect of God, holy and beloved. Three identifying terms that are used here, elect, holy, and beloved. We are elect or chosen by God, and we’re chosen to be holy and blameless, Ephesians 1:4.
And what God chose in his sovereign freedom is to give full expression to his love to his creatures. He directs his father leave love toward us, and by his free and uncoerced choice, he has set us apart as his precious possession, calling us with that affectionate term, beloved. God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ, calling us holy, though we were once not holy, we were not holy, and yet he’s called us holy.
He’s justified us by his grace in Christ. He’s given us faith to trust him and by that faith and through that faith and by means of that faith, God has justified us, declared us righteous. God has dealt with all of our offenses, removing the the guilt of our sins, forgiving us, erasing the debt, and having dealt justly, fully, finally with our sins in punishing Christ on the cross instead of us, he’s meted out the judgement that we deserved on his own son and then granted us the reward of a righteousness that we didn’t deserve.
He granted us a reward that only Jesus deserves, but he’s given it to us as well. What is this, that we would be caught up in it? That God would so favor us that he would condescend and when we have been so offensive to him. If you need a reminder that go back to Colossians 3:5 through 8 and look at yourself.
It’s what we once were and God hasn’t treated us according to his offenses deserve. He’s treated us according to what Christ deserves. What is that? So having identified the subjects for renewal, God goes on and through Paul, he calls us to join him, so that we participate in our own renewal. Think about that.
Just one other comment here. Would any commands be issued to those who are nothing more than automatons, robots that respond to merely programming? No, he’s involving our will. We can choose to obey and disobey, but he’s involving our will and he wants us to come to see the excellencies of his commands, the goodness of what he’s driving us to, the goodness of Christ that he’s put before us. He’s calling us forward and saying, look, don’t you want to.
Those who are truly his? They say yes, and they follow and obey, because they have the internal mechanism for obedience. It’s called a new nature. It’s called being born again. And out of that new nature we long to grow. Oh, and we do grow over time because of his grace, because of his grace working in us.
Those chosen by God’s sovereign initiative, the beloved of his electing grace, they’ve been made members of God’s family. And as beloved children, we get to wear the family crest. We get to display the family seal. His banner over us, we get to display proudly, because we belong to him. We get to dress in the distinctive garments of the people of God, wear his colors. One of those garments worn first by the head of our race, Jesus Christ.
Second point, point number two: God dresses and beautifies his elect. God dresses and beautifies his elect. Paul says again, verse 12. So as the elect of God, holy and beloved, he’s basically saying, look, go into the king’s wardrobe, take out the garments that you find there, and by the way, there are garments with your name on them, and then go put them on. Put on a heart of compassion and kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. That’s beauty, isn’t it?
You like it when people like that interact with you. You like to go and order your food from people that look like that. You like it when people like that are your banker. You like it when they’re your dentist or your doctor. You like it when they are the ones who do the tune up on your car, change your oil, do repairs. You like it when they’re your builder or the person who fixes anything in your house.
You know you like, it even more, you like that kind of a person to be married to you. If you’re a child growing up in a home, you like to have parents who look a lot like that, compassionate, kind, you know, humble, gentle, patient. You know, what’s even better, when you become a person like this and you then get to be the the source and the conduit of God’s blessing to all these other people. That’s even better. It’s even better.
Considering the context of the Colossian situation, the occasion for writing this letter, it’s no wonder that Paul speaks so strongly about the ineptitude of the false teaching to produce anything remotely close to the excellencies described here to the excellencies of Christ; strikes so vehemently against the deceptive promises of the false teacher who promised others freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption.
They offer this false, fake substitute form of sanctification that is so paltry compared to this. All the doctrines of the world, all the philosophies of men, all the systems of thought, all the methods and strategies that we could gather across the span of time and human history.
And if we could go and cherry pick and select only the best of them all from every single philosophy and culture on earth all rolled up into one. Nothing comes remotely even close to the excellence of this renewal; let alone does it have the power to do anything to your life. There’s no transformation power there. There’s no renewal.
And you say, as you read this, you say, yeah, I know a lot of professing Christians who don’t think, feel, speak or behave like that. Well, that is sad, isn’t it? But we ought to be careful about saying these professing Christians who have no compassion or kindness or humility, meekness, patience. We need to ask the question, does God see them as true Christians?
I’ve had someone look me straight in the eye and say, yeah, I don’t. I just don’t care about people. I don’t love them. I have no compassion for others and get this, he insisted he’s a Christian, in the same breath. Some others have tried to help this man explain himself. Oh, you mean, oh, I know what you mean. You mean apart from Christ, you don’t naturally have feelings of affection, love and compassion, right? And he corrected them and said, nah, I just don’t have those feelings at all. Hmm.
You know what he’s saying? He’s saying I am not a Christian, that’s what he’s saying. Though, he refuses to admit it, his pride won’t let him admit it, and the man is crying out for discipline. He’s crying out for someone to tell him the truth. Please tell me the truth. He needs actual Christians, loving Christians, to tell him lovingly and straightforwardly, without batting an eye, without making any apology. Listen, my friend, you are not a Christian. You need to repent and believe the gospel and trust in Christ and seek forgiveness for your sins, or you will die and you will face God’s condemning judgment. I don’t want that for you, but I cannot go along with this charade. You say you’re a Christian, and yet you don’t even desire to live like this.
Christians look like this, folks. They look like Colossians 3:12 to 17, you say immediately, all at once. You say, no. But look, if you over qualify it, you turn it into no standard at all, and then anybody can claim to be a Christian.
So look, Christians at least long for that, and you see some modicum of that forming in their life, even from brand new in Christ. And you see it continuing throughout a Christian life, growing more and more as the days go by and as the decades go by.
This right here in Colossians 3:12 to 17 is far beyond what the world produces, what bland religion can produce, what philosophy, life coaching therapy can produce, which is what most evangelicalism is offered in the past five decades: Therapy, life coaching, Ted talks.
The majority of professing Christians that I meet today, they act no different than the unbelieving. They’re no different from their non church attending friends, family, neighbors. Not overtly bad people. In fact, they are moral people, make good neighbors. They got good values, strong work ethics. They say the right things. They do the good deeds. They give to charity. Strive to be better husbands, good fathers. Women want to be good wives with their husbands. Mothers want to be kind to their kids. They’re just like us, right? Just like us.
Some may seem on the surface that they are just like us, but at the core, in the heart, if we’re true Christians, listen, we’re not at all like them. We’re not. If we’re regenerate, born again, it means we’re born of God, born from above, and we possess an entirely new nature. They have an old nature. We have a new. The dividing line could not be clearer, and oh time, proves it; time works that out.
We are those unlike the world. We are those who mortify the internal sinful drives and ambitions of our former life, Colossians 3:5. We are those who strip off and shed all of that attendant bad behavior, Colossians 3:8. When we see it, we hate it, we go after it and we want to acknowledge it, confess it, seek forgiveness for it and repent. Putting off, putting on, changing. That’s what we long for.
I know a lot of professing Christians don’t long for that. True Christians do. True Christians long for it and then we just love to put on this new clothing, to put on all these garments, inner garments and outer garments, the inward attitudes of compassionate hearts and kindness, humility, and these outward facing attitudes of gentleness and patience. We love it.
Let’s go through the list there in verse 12. First, Paul starts with what he calls here, what’s translated here is a heart of compassion. It can be translated heartfelt compassion, and it’s a heart of compassion. There are two words in the Greek and the word heart is more suitable for the western ear. It senses more likely to be interpreted accurately by us because the actual word, splagchnon is translated bowels by the King James Version, because it literally medically refers to the internal organs there.
Internal organs of compassion, the viscera of compassion; kidneys, liver, stomach, intestines of compassion is what it’s describing here. This is just how the ancient world spoke of their emotions and their feelings as being kind of felt in the gut, in the chest, in the inward parts here. And we agree with that, right? Because it is right in here. It’s in here that we feel things too, internally, viscerally.
Strong emotions, we know this, that strong emotions, when they are stuffed, when they’re ignored, they can wreak havoc in some on physical well-being. Hurts, sadnesses, sorrows that go unaddressed, biblically, righteously for a long period of time can lead to things that we’ve seen like adrenal dysfunction, hormonal dysfunction, digestive issues, sleep issues.
David spoke of it descriptively, poetically, saying my bones wasted away when I’ve refused to confess my sin, when I refused to acknowledge my sin before you, I wasted way, like it was the fever heat of summer. It’s like he’s baking in Phoenix, out on a rock, and he was withering away, had no energy, no strength. Today we call it fibromyalgia.
David says, nah, I just didn’t confess my sin. Positive sense, when we walk in this way, you know what we get? Strength, vitality, joy. We’re lifted up, buoyed up, encourage, made strong. Positively, as Christians, we’re equipped with a new nature, which is primed, ready to feel differently, to operate according to positive emotions.
In fact, we must do that because Paul puts this command in an aorist imperative. He calls for us to be putting on heartfelt compassion and when he uses the aorist imperative, he’s saying do it right away, right now, don’t waste any time. He says you must do that, which means, you can do that. That’s encouraging, isn’t it?
What must stir our bowels, what must move our feelings, as Paul is describing here is a tenderness of concern, especially to those in need. Those who face trying circumstances, those who are afflicted with trouble. Those who are hurting or sad or sorrowing or in pain. Those who themselves are afflicted with physical issues or they suffer relational issues. Maybe they’ve lost a spouse, lost a child.
Our guts, or to feel it in our guts that respond with compassion. Attitudes of deep sympathy that drive us to feelings and acts of mercy. Tangible expressions, not just platitudes, not just words, not just sentiment, but real practical action. You know what practical action you can take toward those who are grieving, suffering. And you can do it wherever you are on earth, whether you’re locked in a prison or whether you’re on a mountaintop, or whether you’re on a vacation, or whether you’re alone. You can pray.
The subjects for this renewal that takes place in the new man, and he identifies them as the elect of God, holy and beloved.” Travis Allen
Every Christian can pray for those who suffer. That prayer is driven because of a tender compassion, a heartfelt compassion coming from down here and coming up and coming out of our lips in prayer. And you know how you stir that up? Obviously, the Word of God has to dwell in you richly, but you also need to know people. You can’t expect to do it isolated from one another. Just live in your online life. Just live in your Colorado existence of, you do you, I’ll do me. We can’t do that.
We need to be in each other’s homes, lives, know each other’s strengths, weaknesses, what we’re suffering with, what we’re rejoicing in. It drives us together. If we’re going to be obedient to this, we need to come together. We need to work on growing in friendships. And you know what? This world doesn’t do very well at all? Friendship.
Friendship is at a premium in our day. And you know who ought to be showing how to do friendship well? The church, us. This first command drives us to it. You cannot have affection for tender compassion for strangers. We’re just not wired that way. We’re wired to have proximate relationships, close relationships, get into lives and feel what others feel and that feeling and that compassion generates prayer and all kinds of other practical helps ministries.
Our Father’s divine by this attribute. 2 Corinthians 1:3, He’s called the father of mercies. Same word here. He revealed himself to Moses this way in Exodus 34 verse 6, “I am Yahweh, Yahweh God, and I am compassionate and gracious, slow to anger. I’m abounding in loving kindness and truth.”
Interesting how those attributes that he self-defines in Exodus 34, actually show up in this list, which is another way of saying would be like him; as it is with the father so also with his children, which Paul says in Philippians 2:1, he identifies both of these terms that are used together in Colossians 3:12, splagchnon and oiktirmos. The two terms used together in Philippians 2:1. These are basic to being a Christian.
So if you have none of these, if you have no heart of compassion, if you have no mercy, if you have no desire for that, you know what? You’re not a Christian. But if you have even a modicum of it, if you have even a smidgen of it, just a little bump, a little blip on the screen, on the heart monitor, ah, I’ll just wax that into strength, pour fuel on it, let it fan into a flame, so that your compassion burns for one another.
Christian, put it on heartfelt compassion, affectionate mercy for others, especially for one another. When a church is characterized by this virtue, man, it is such a warm company of friendship. Caring, tender, a very clear testimony to a cold world, that has no concern for others, but is selfish, driven for their own interests, for their own success.
When we come to the second and the third attitudes in this list, they describe the Christian frame of mind in kind of general terms. And so second, the Christian is to be marked by kindness. Kindness which has to do with how we relate to others, generally with all men, but also specifically with particular people like Christians, one another, we’re to be kind.
Our God is a God of, as he said in Exodus 34, God of loving kindness. And Christ is the very incarnation of God’s kindness. He showers all people with loving kindness and tender mercy. See how Jesus treated the vulnerable, the suffering. See how Jesus put people at ease in his presence. No one felt afraid or threatened, because he had such a prickly demeanor, couldn’t be bothered, had a schedule to keep, task to do. Everyone, especially the weak, hurting, flicked, vulnerable, everyone was drawn to him; was magnetic because he was so kind hearted. Look we’re to put that on, too. We’re to put it on toward all men, but especially toward one another.
Kindness is a disposition of graciousness, friendly, affable demeanor, not grumpy, curmudgeonly, judgy, critical. Opposite is the word apotomia. Apotomia, which means severity, strictness, harshness. It’s rude, it’s abrupt. So don’t be apotomia. Let’s put that on a T-shirt, eh? Don’t be an apotomia. Be kind, tender hearted, gracious, forgiving.
Third attitude here, Christians are to put on an attitude of humility. Humility. This isn’t how you think about others, it’s how you think about yourself. Isn’t it humility? And this isn’t like an inordinately low view of oneself, always putting yourself down. Oh, I can’t do anything right. Oh, I’m not that great. Oh, I’m not, I’m not that gifted.
No, it’s an accurate biblical view of oneself. Paul wrote to the Romans, Romans 12:3, “For the grace given to me I say to each one among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think.” Many people stop there and just try to walk around with this kind of faux humility, but they don’t keep reading. He said, No, “don’t think of yourself more highly than you ought to think; but think so as to have sound thinking,” sober judgment about all things, including yourself.
This is not the faux humility that false religion puts on, like putting on a humble front, wearing the mask of humility, which is how Paul has used the same term when he talks about the false teachers and false teaching. That kind of humility, that kind of mask, that kind of parade and virtue signaling is just like this distorted caricature of the real thing, but it is clearly not the real thing.
It’s like today, men who dress up as drag Queens, they distort what women are really like. When homosexual men think they’re able to mimic female voices as they distort their own and talk to you and take your order and all that stuff or they prance around the room, as if women do that.
I mean, these men turn women’s looks and mannerisms and voices into these monstrous caricatures which have nothing at all to do with real femininity, no connection with actual womanhood. If you have any question about that, ask the women in the room. Does that guy dressed up like that and prancing around like that, does he represent you?
Most women are and ought to be offended by that, just as we ought to be offended at false religion that parades itself with a mask of humility and tries to put on virtues like gaudy eye makeup and extra-long lashes and looks nothing like the real thing.
We ought to be offended by that kind of religion because it’s offensive to God. It’s a stench in his nostrils. Those who are truly humble, like the apostle Paul, like the Lord Jesus Christ, their true humility manifesting an inward humility in a spiritual virtue that cannot be reproduced in the flesh. When a truly humble man, humble woman comes around, just their presence exposes those who pretend. Their kind of humility, their brand of humility that doesn’t draw attention to itself, it just rips the mask off of false humility.
Those who practice hypocrisy and try to put it on, Paul’s is saying to the Colossians, look, don’t pay any attention to those guys, those false teachers, all their disciples, all of them pretending that their doctrines produce religious virtues, look to Christ. Look to Christ and Christ alone and by the instruction of the Spirit in the Word, put that on.
Put on humility. Refuse to be self-seeking. Don’t be boastful. Don’t parade your strengths, virtues, accomplishments. You don’t need to be a walking resume of yourself. You don’t need to put yourself forward. Instead, exercise self-restraint, self-effacing, associate with the lowly. Give yourself to humble tasks, since you really consider that there is nothing beneath you.
You serve others faithfully, cheerfully, because you’ve already put on heartfelt compassion and kindness, and you love others, and so you do what unites the church in showing care. You serve where you need to serve. You serve where you’re asked. You don’t serve where you’re not asked. You just humble yourself. You submit.
The last two words here, gentleness, meekness. Gentleness, meekness, really the same idea, same word here, and impatience. These terms kind of describe our bearing in general, our disposition, but they’re really known when they’re tested, aren’t they? They’re really known in times of provocation.
So forth, let’s talk about the attitude of gentleness and I do prefer the term meekness. I think it better captures just in our age, this sense of the adjective, praus and the noun that’s used here, which is prautēs. It’s a quality of a kind of a gentle friendliness. Meekness is like a consideration of others and accommodating your own strengths to other people’s weaknesses. And by the way, when you do that, you don’t make them feel it either.
This is the opposite of harshness, brashness, roughness, severity, arrogance, all of that being paraded around as real manly these days. Crushing opponents in debates, putting him down, making him look stupid, that’s not meekness. It’s laughable that any Christian would talk like that and, and advocate for that.
Someone going to be strong and capable, but if he cultivates a gentle demeanor in a mild manner, he’s moderate and reasonable, using his strength to serve other people. You have any questions as to what this looks like practically study your savior Jesus Christ, because you’ll see in his meekness a strength that’s under control. You’ll see true spiritual strength which is carefully cultivated, disciplined, wisely deployed, not for the aggrandizement of himself, but for the good of others, always for the good of others.
I preached a sermon a couple of years ago on this virtue in Christ called the meekness of Christ, the meekness of Christ. So if you want to, you can find it on our website. Hopefully you’ll get some benefit out of it, but it just tries to expose the meek heart of Christ and his behavior, his actions, his words. It’s something that’s so lovely to look at. And then when you look at that and it casts a light on your life, you see a lot that’s lacking.
Finally, a fifth virtue, a Christian is marked by patience. Patience, which is the opposite of the vice of anger. In Colossians 3, thumos, patience is makrothemia, so makro and then thumos, makrothumia. They sound at first like a lot of thumia, a big anger. But the actual sense of the word is to kind of portray someone who takes a long time, macro time to heat up, get angry, lose his cool, lose his self-control.
The idea in this patience is that no one needs to walk on egg shells around you. People don’t always need to be careful about not to set you off, always concerned that they’re going to somehow offend you, irritate you, bug you, because you wear the very patience of Christ when provoked by people.
Oh, and by the way, he dealt with the worst of sinners, with the worst provocations. He dealt with the jealous, the violent, the powerful, the spiteful, malicious gossips, slanders, those who tried to butter him up with flattery and then pretend friendship as a cover for their entrapment.
He dealt with the arrogant, the disdainful, and yet always patient, always. When provoked by circumstances, our Lord considered every interruption, every detour, every unplanned encounter as the direction of his father’s wise providence. That’s how he took it. He patiently submitted to every change, followed the spirits leading, calmly, patiently. He kept cool at all times, on every occasion, in every circumstance. Can you imagine that?
I mean, I’d just like to, I’d just like to watch it. I haven’t even seen that. I only see it in Scripture. On the other hand, when I say, can you imagine it and have you seen it? You probably have and it’s just passed you by because it’s the people who lose their cool and lose their patience who get attention, the people who keep their cool and are always patient, you don’t even notice.
Probably have seen it. You can imagine it too, Beloved, because this is describing you as Christians. You may not be quite there yet, but just let me encourage you. You will, because God intends to form Christ in you. He intends to shape you into the image of his beloved son.
In fact, this is what Paul meant in Romans 13:14 when he says we’re to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, making no provision for the flesh to obey its lust and desires. We’re to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what he’s talking about. Put on these virtues, beloved. Wear his garments. Not because you’ve taken them from him, stolen them. They’re not rightfully yours. Because he’s invited you into his kingly wardrobe, the royal wardrobe and he says take your pick. This clothing belongs to you. Every one of them, beautiful. There’s one with your name on it. It’s got my crest. You wear my seal. You’re my beloved elect. Holy beloved, this is how we get to look. It’s how we get to dress, because it’s who we really are.
You can bow with me in prayer as we prepare our own hearts for communion. I’ll ask the Lord’s blessing on the elements, and I’ll wrap up our time here in the Word.
Our Father, we thank you so much for sending us the Lord Jesus Christ and for granting us life in him. We thank you for the perfections, as we as a church have had the privilege of studying through the Gospel of Luke, to follow him on his journey from Galilee to Jerusalem and Jerusalem to the cross, to see him endure every circumstance and every provocation with patience and kindness and humility and gentleness.
He operated with a heart of compassion that is unparalleled. He was the very incarnated compassion of you, father. The way he is, is the way you are, and the way you are is how you intend all of us to be. Father, we thank you for doing the great work of removing our sin from us as far as the East is from the West.
Thank you for covering us in the righteousness of Christ, clothing us with his righteousness in your presence but father, we we ask that you would continue to do as you have prescribed in your word, that what we are positionally, we would also be practically, that the righteousness you have imputed to us, reckoned to us, accounted to us, that you would impart to us. Help us to be willing participants in this project of sanctification as you renew our minds and transform our lives so that we become more and more like Christ.
Our father, we love you. What can we say but thank you. We ask that you would bless our time right now around the Lord’s table as we remember what he has done for us. We do ask, father, that you would bless the elements that are before us, the the bread and the cup. And as we think and pray through this time of meditation around the Lord’s table, that we would be very mindful of the love that you have shown to us in Christ. The love that Christ has for us, which he demonstrated by sacrificing himself for us on the cross for our sins.
We thank you, father, for joining us to Christ and baptizing us into him by your Spirit. We thank you that we are under the head of a new humanity. You have united all of your people into one body, that we might live with you and for you forever. It’s by his body that was offered for our sins, his blood shed for us, that we’ve become participants and fellow shippers around the Lord’s table.
So we thank you for uniting us to Christ in this new covenant. We thank you for your grace. We thank you for uniting us to one another in this one body. And we pray that you would feed us with the spiritual food and satiate our thirst in this spiritual drink, that you would do all of your good work in us, satisfy us completely. Make our hearts holy and content and very happy in him as we partake of this meal, the spiritual food. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.