you have your Bibles with you, or you can use the pew Bible that’s in front of you. If you will turn with me to Psalm 133, where we will have our Old Testament reading. Psalm 133, you’ll find that on page 599. Reading verses one through three. Again, this is part of God’s conversation with you. And this is God speaking from Psalm 133.
Beginning with verse one, Behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity. It is like the precious oil on the head running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes. It is like the dew of Hermon which falls on the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord has commanded the blessing life forevermore. Amen. Familiar passage, I’m sure anytime when talking about unity or a oneness of the Christian community.
We’ll turn to Colossians chapter two for a New Testament reading. And this is our passage for this evening. Page 1139, Colossians two, and we’ll be reading verses 12 through 15. Colossians chapter. You know, I realized I just said two, but and it’s printed as two because I gave the wrong number. It’s Colossians three, Colossians three, verse 12 through 15. So one page over Colossians three, verses 12 through 15. put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness and patience, bearing with one another.
And if one has a complaint against another forgiving each other, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in our ruling your hearts to which indeed, you were called in one body and be thankful. Amen. Today’s sermon is titled held together, held together. Let me ask you a question. to begin this evening’s message.
What holds us and makes us stay with people who are really difficult to love? Right? What holds us and makes us stay with people who are really difficult to love? We’re not talking about strangers, right? Someone close to you. Maybe it’s a fellow church member. But maybe it’s a fellow church member who says and does things that wound you, but they don’t seem to notice. Maybe naively so. Or a friend whose sin against you just never gets acknowledged, let alone repaired or reconciled. Maybe it’s a parent, maybe a child, maybe a colleague at work, an officer of the church. Maybe your next door neighbor, right, someone you cannot simply walk away from, and maybe actually, you don’t even want to walk away from.
But in a very real way, in a very real sense, right, it’s difficult, it’s, you might even say expensive to love this person. lot of times we’re going to handle this notion, right? Lots of times we handle this question, by trying to make maybe the cost the expense of it go away, right? And so we typically will try to manage the relationship. Maybe we’re quietly keeping track of everything. Maybe we build a wall, six inches high, just enough to protect ourselves. And we’ll call it wisdom.
But underneath all of this, right? Underneath all of this is an even harder question, right? Because it’s not just about the cost. It’s not just about the difficulty of loving someone who’s difficult to love. What actually is holding two people together, right? Once the expense has been paid, once the debt of forgiveness has been paid, right? Because on a very real and human level, the relationship could still be very fragile. What keeps a relationship that is difficult, that is fragile from tearing apart?
And what I want us to see in today’s passage is that Paul answers this question with these four verses, and he roots the answer, not in relational techniques, but in the gospel. And so the question today really is this, right? What holds people together who are really difficult to love?
And the four answers to this is what he gives us. He gives us Christ. And so we’ll look at under these four points, we’re gonna look at under four points. And the first point is that we put on what we did not naturally have. So we put on what we don’t naturally have.
And so notice in verse 12, put on then as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. This language that Paul uses here in verse 12, this language of put on, it’s actually a very ordinary word.
It’s a very mundane word. It’s just the word that you use to say, get dressed. It’s what you do with a garment of clothing. But the thing is, you don’t wake up in the morning wearing your coat. You don’t wear what you’re gonna wear tomorrow. In other words, you put on something, you put on that garment deliberately every morning, whether you feel like it or not.
See, Paul’s telling the Colossians that compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, these are not descriptions of a person’s personality. These are not descriptions of a temperament that some people just happen to have a little bit more of. See, what Paul’s describing here is these are clothing that we put on daily, including the days that we would rather just not. To put on this clothing, to put on compassion and kindness, right?
This imagery of putting on clothes, actually, it could take us all the way back. If you think about the first time, this language of putting on clothing, We think about Adam and Eve, right? We think about how after they sinned, they sewed fig leaves on, right? This self-made covering for what? Why did they do that? To protect themselves from the shame that they could not manage.
In God’s response to them, they put on fig leaves and God’s response to them is that he sacrifices an animal and he clothes them with garments of skin in Genesis 3.21. See, this first act of grace that he shows Adam and Eve is an act of being clothed. An animal, something died so that their shame could be covered. And we need to see this, Paul picks up here without needing even in a sense to explain it, to be clothed in Colossians 3. It reminds us that Adam himself stood before God in skins that he did not make for himself. The compassion that you put on today is not that natural coat, but it’s something that God has provided you with. Right?
This matters more than we realize, especially when we realize that we practice what we become. More and more people, and this is something that I’ve been reading a lot more about, is discovering with modern neuroscience. Modern neuroscience is actually affirming so much of what Scripture has already revealed more than a millennia ago, right? Millennia ago.
Right, that this idea of repeated pathways, right? Repeated actions, what they do is they form these pathways in our brain. Sometimes you might hear this as neuroplasticity. The brain is not a fixed instrument, right? It’s not fixed in the way it reacts. And so it’s shaped by repetition. And being shaped by this repetition, we respond, we rehearse this response enough times so that the next time it becomes easier to reach. The flip side, of course, is that the more times we practice the opposite of compassion, The more times we practice the opposite of kindness, the more times we practice bitterness, we practice pettiness, our brains start to fix into that pattern.
See, we need to understand that Paul, when he addresses this, put on, to put these on, Paul’s not telling the Colossians, hey, you know what? Do this one time and one time only, right? You just need a little bit of sheer willpower and you can get it.
Paul’s describing a wardrobe that we are intentionally putting on day after day, even when we don’t feel like it. So that compassion and kindness, these attributes, they stop becoming a costume. And they start feeling more like your skin. It is day after day, thousands of mornings. putting on what may not feel natural.
This grace is given to us so that we would be more and more, we would practice and act more and more who we are. And so Paul, again, with this first point here is saying, put on, put on Christ. Again, let me read that first verse again. Put on then as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Put these on, practice them, make that habitual part of your everyday morning, your everyday life. But secondly here, the second thing that Paul shows us is that we bear with and we forgive.
Why? See, Paul isn’t just describing virtues, right? He’s not just describing virtues that even the world would agree. Yeah, it’s good to be compassionate and kind. But he gets even more specific here, bearing with one another. Forgiving each other. If one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other. See, notice what Paul assumes here. Underlying all of this is something, an assumption that Paul makes. There will be friction. There will be friction between you and another person in the community. There will be chaffing, chafing? Chafing of one another.
Right? He uses this word of bearing with, right? This idea of holding a very, very heavy weight without dropping it. That may have been a bird. Right? And you hear that sometimes, right? When maybe sometimes they’ll say, Oh, when I was a youngster, I used to hold 10 books. And if I dropped one of them, then I’d be punished. Right? This idea of holding this extreme weight above you without dropping it. It’s hard to deal with the weight of it, right? It’s unpleasant. No one’s asking for it. No one wants to do that. And Paul’s describing here a community where life is going to be difficult. That’s the reality of it. Especially when you remember the church is a collection of what? It’s a collection of sinners. It’s a collection of sinners that needed God’s grace.
And together we are bearing with one another. We are holding that weight together. But here comes an even sharper word, right? It’s not just that we are bearing with one another, that we are holding this weight together. But as you endure and bear that weight, you are forgiving each other. Right? That language of forgive, it actually comes from the word grace. To forgive in this, in this verse, right? It’s not just some transaction that you’re doing. To forgive. It is to give something to someone who did not earn or deserve it.
And this is where the passage really starts to hit harder, because it’s not just about managing our relationships, managing from a safe distance, but it really gets at the heart of it. When Paul roots this, this command to be compassionate, to bear with one another and to forgive, as the Lord has forgiven you. to forgive as the Lord has forgiven you.
And here, it gets really interesting, because think about even going back again to the Old Testament. The story of Israel, right? The story of God’s people in the Old Testament. God is so patient, bearing with them, a people who tested his patience at every single turn, right? Wilderness grumblings, golden calves, centuries of half-hearted worship.
And yet Moses, Exodus 34, six, asking God, will you show yourself to me, show your glory to me, and what does God say to him? He reveals his character, he reveals who he is, and he says, I am merciful and gracious. I’m slow to anger abounding in this in steadfast love and faithfulness, that God is a forgiving God. Now, understand this, if God is a forgiving God, I want you to add on this other layer here now. Because Peter, when we come to Matthew, in Matthew 1821, Peter actually asked Jesus, how many times are we to forgive? How many times we forgive a brother who sins against me?
And understand, when Peter offers this number, you kind of hear it and you’re like, what? This sounds really small. But when Peter says seven times, he’s saying like 700%. I mean, it’s a large, it’s a very full, it’s meant to be a very full number, seven times. But I want you to notice how Jesus answers it. And it’s very unexpected in the way he answers it, right? Most of us, I think, when we hear, how many times do we forget? Seven times? And then Jesus says, 70 times seven, right?
There’s another, other manuscripts will have the word a 77 times. And then most people, I think they see that and they all know 70 times. Oh, that’s 490. That’s a lot bigger than 77. That sounds a lot more fitting. 70 times seven is so much bigger, 490 times, right? The idea is that you forgive so abundantly. And not that that’s wrong, that’s absolutely true. But I want us to, again, understand where Jesus is coming from when he says, not 70 times seven, but I would submit to you that it’s actually 77.
And the reason for that is that that language takes us back again to Genesis. In Genesis 4, and right after the fall, after they’re clothed, we then are given the story of the first couple of children of Adam and Eve. And Cain, the firstborn, kills his brother Abel. And then we’re told sort of the lineage, right? The lineage of Cain down the line. And eventually we get to the descendant, Lamech. And Lamech boasts to his wives that if Cain is avenged seven times, he will be avenged 77 times. 77 is the number that Lamech is using to symbolize the ultimate number for vengeance, the ultimate number for revenge.
See, Jesus takes that number. And what he’s doing is he’s recasting it so that it belongs to mercy, not revenge, not retaliation. The gospel is not just about in the sense of forgiveness, but it takes the, you might say, the arithmetic, the math of a fallen world that’s built on revenge and vengeance. So that we have Jesus computing it instead, for grace. not seven times, but 77 times, not vengeance, not revenge, but forgive.
See, when we come here to Colossians 3, and this whole notion of bearing with one another, endure with one another, forgive one another. This is not forgive and forget. It’s not the same as this this sense of instant trust restored, right? It’s a decision that you are making in light of the truth and reality of the forgiveness that you have received, that you are making that intentional decision that purposeful decision to show compassion and kindness to bear with one another and forgive one another. We don’t keep track We are not practicing bitterness. We’re not practicing pettiness, but we are practicing forgiving one another. Why? Because we understand what it means to be forgiven.
Well, this takes us to our third point. What keeps us together? What binds us together when we think about the relationships that we have, the difficult relationships that we have? The third thing here is that love binds it all together. And the tension actually is what makes it strong. So in verse 14, and above all, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Again, this language that Paul is using binds things together. It’s actually a term that in the ancient world, it’s used for the idea of ligaments. It’s the connective tissue that holds two joints together.
Paul has used that language already, right, just a chapter earlier in Colossians 2.19, describing the body of Christ as joined and held together through joints and ligaments.
Paul, now as we come to chapter three, Paul is saying, without love, you could have all the compassion in the world. Without love, you can have all the patience in the world. Without love, you can have all this forgiveness for others. But it’s more like scattered limbs. It’s just scattered around, like separated limbs, right?
What’s holding it all together, your ability to have this compassion and patience and forgiveness, it’s all held together because of love. right? The way that it’s working in one body, the way that it’s functioning in one body. In other words, you can’t have compassion, you can’t have forgiveness, you can’t have, they cannot be working in isolation, but they’re all working together, because it’s held together by love. And this is what love does within the body of Christ. bearing with one another, forgiving one another’s failures, bearing one another’s sins, covering each other’s sins, a multitude of sins. It does not remove the friction, but rather these ligaments and tendons, love exists because there is tension and to help it work together.
One way to kind of picture this is if you’re and this is because of my kids having learned all this. If your hamstring is tight, it will adversely affect the front, like the growing, the core area. And so what’s happening is it’s pulling and pushing and it’s constantly moving, but it needs to be able to work together. So just because your hamstring may hurt, it could actually be other parts of the body that are hurting more so. And it’s interesting because the older you get, scientists are now saying, realizing more and more, to not neglect what you might call strength training. Because the more that your body, the more you put your body under weight bearing exercises, it grows stronger. When there’s that tension, when there’s that weight that is above you and weighing you down, as you learn to deal with that, you grow stronger.
See, the conflicts that we may have within, because there are conflicts, and we need to recognize there are conflicts. The conflicts that we have within the community of Christ’s people, we may see that as evidence, oh, something is dearly wrong. But you see, when held together by love, when there is intentional, purposeful forgiveness of one another, that tension actually, as we’re undergoing that tension, is actually helping to strengthen us.
Well, let’s look at this fourthly then. Fourthly, because Paul doesn’t end at love, we think, oh, yeah, love, okay, it’s a good place to stop. But Paul keeps going. Because he’s talking about within the community of Christ’s people, it doesn’t end at love, but he adds one more command here.
And it’s a little bit unexpected, because in verse 15, he says, let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And then this last couple words, and be thankful. It helps to understand when he says, let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.
When he says rule, it’s actually a word that’s used in athletic competition. The person who rules, it’s not a king, but the person who rules is actually, in athletic competition, is what you might call an umpire, a referee. A judge, he makes the final call. And so Paul is telling the Colossians something very, very specific. When conflicts arise, when there are competing claims about who is right, do not let your wounded pride be the umpire. Do not let your resentment call the match. Do not exercise pettiness to determine what is a ball and strike.
Instead, the ruling is by the peace of Christ. The peace of Christ makes that ruling and notice why. You were called to it in one body. This is not a private or personal peace that we manage internally. This peace is something that belongs to the entire body. Let the peace of Christ rule, make the final call in the collective community.
When the umpire is Christ’s peace, rather than your own sense of being wronged. Disputes do not disappear, but they stop fracturing what Jesus has already joined together. What God has joined together may no man put asunder. Let that peace of Christ, the peace of Jesus, Let that be the final determination. Paul takes it one step further as he closes this out with the word, be thankful. It’s actually where we get Eucharist. Be thankful, right?
As he ends this verse, immediately after saying, let the peace of Christ umpire your disputes, is if Paul knows that a heart that keeps scoring, that keeps scoring your hurt, cannot be a thankful heart. A heart that keeps score of your wounds, it is a heart that cannot be thankful.
In neuroscience, is affirming that. Neuroscience is discovering that the Bible, what the Bible has written, again, so long ago, is revealed to be true. When you practice thankfulness, your brain has difficulty responding with antagonism and petty scorekeeping. It’s difficult for those two things to occupy the same space in your brain. Gratitude for what you already have been given in Christ turns out to be one of the most practical ways for us to deal with resentment, the resentment that fuels unresolved conflict. Because when you are thankful, you cannot be rehearsing grievances. When you are thankful, you cannot be rehearsing gratitude at the same time.
See, Paul is telling us here in Colossians 3.15, the way of Christ, to put on compassion, the way of Christ, what Paul is teaching us here, as he ends with, be thankful. And he describes in this chapter, in talking about And talking about this, removing this bitterness and pettiness in our hearts. Be thankful.
But here’s where all four of these points, it all comes together with this final point here. As we conclude, Paul is not using Colossians 3 to give us simply good advice and techniques, essentially saying, just try harder. Paul in Colossians 117 earlier, a couple chapters earlier, has already told us how everything is held together.
He is before all things and in him, all things hold together. Not only is it that Jesus is what holds the universe together, but we see that he is the very thing that holds the body of Christ together. Jesus is not only the example of compassion that we are called to imitate. He is the one holding the compassion, the kindness, the whole fractured world together by the word of his power. But not just the word of his power. Jesus is the one who actually lived these virtues perfectly. He’s the one who bore with sinners his entire life. under that weight of sin, dealing with people who sin, right?
Up into the very point when people are mocking him. Can you imagine being there? A hood put on top of you, and then punched in your face and your body, and being told, hey, can you prophesy who hit you? To be spit upon, to then be put a crown on top of your head to make fun of you.
We think of all this in the word, the first words that come out of Jesus’s mouth when he is hanging on the tree, forgive them, forgive them for they don’t know what they’re doing. We see there on the cross, Jesus 77 times worth on Calvary, expressing forgiveness.
That same cross where we see his body broken, torn open so that a new body, the church, could be joined and held together in him, right, the ligament that binds us to one another, that was purchased by Jesus by our Savior, whose own body was torn, so that ours could become whole. And it is that same Christ Paul tells the Ephesians, who is our peace, who has broken down the wall of hostility that once divided us from one another, and also from God. That piece of Christ that Paul tells us about now again here in Colossians, it is ruling in our hearts.
It is the umpire of our disputes. It’s not a technique to stay calm. It is Jesus. He is the ligament that holds the body together. Right? When we, again, maybe it’s here in the room, right? Maybe you turn around and you see your spouse, your kids. Maybe your kids see your parents. We see the face who reminds us again the difficulty of loving someone. We’re not trying to generate compassion. We’re not trying to generate compassion out of nothing.
You are called because of what Jesus has done for you. You are now being called to put on a garment that he provides for you. God has provided the garment of compassion, has provided you with the garment of kindness at the cost of his own Son. Forgiving one another, bearing with one another, because you have been forgiven.
The relationships, the difficult relationships that we have with one another, under that tension when love brings us together, the love of Christ, what he has done, when that brings us together, that tension and that weight actually strengthens us. This peace, again, is what rules. This peace is what brings us, as we were reminded of what brings us together. This is the body of Christ.
And as we continue to think more deeply about this, and as we Think about this, and we make it an everyday practice that we live day after day, intentionally, intentionally making this a part of our life, conscientiously, consciously making these decisions. so much so that they do become habitual for us. They become part of what we do every day, a part of our life, so that as we look at one another, even if it is a difficult relationship, it is easier more and more when we practice that life of daily being compassionate, daily being kind, daily, forgiving, and bearing, and looking at that person, and seeing, again, the beauty of what Christ has done in bringing that person together with me. This is a congregation that, generationally, has done so, and continues to do so, and pray that it would be faithful towards that end. That as a light and witness here in this city, it would continue to be that. that that would be a prayer that we continue to pray for this congregation, for our entire presbytery, for our entire denomination, that we would be a church faithfully witnessing that Christ has brought us together.
Let’s pray. Father in heaven, we are so grateful. We express gratitude and thanks to you for bringing us together. through Christ Jesus, through His Spirit, through the love of Jesus, binding us together as part of your body. And that even when there may be tension, that through that love that Jesus has given, we are growing, that we are being strengthened, that we are exercising, that we are stretching, and we are under the strength training, that we are growing in this way. Lord, we are just so grateful that not only do we see that work here in this church at Westminster OPC, we see your work faithfully being done throughout the world. May this congregation be faithful, give this congregation strength, give this congregation patience and perseverance. Lord, use this congregation greatly and mightily for the purpose of building up your church for the purpose of building up your kingdom. We love you so much, O God. We thank you that you first loved us. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.