Colossians: Love Begets Unity, Encouragement, and Gratitude

Well, this fall we're studying our way through the book of Colossians.

We've been asking the question: how do we live and grow with Jesus?

Colossians is a great book to tell us about this.

What we have seen is in the middle of Colossians, there's a shift.

With chapters one and two, there's a shift going into three and four.

In chapters one and two, we have the indicatives.

These are all of God's promises that are indicated to us in Jesus.

Chapters one and two are just lavish promises, everything you have in Jesus, all this full forgiveness in Jesus, full righteousness in Jesus, just promise after promise after promise.

So Paul is rooting us deep into Jesus.

And then going into chapter three, there's the shift over to the imperatives, which means like because of all those promises in one and two, how should we live?

What should our lives look like?

And so a couple weeks ago I said, it's kind of like a faith F-150 truck.

We all have this truck, and you have a gas card that is provided for you by the Heavenly Father, and you can gas up this truck anytime you want.

It is paid for, it is covered, but the truck only runs on the fuel of Jesus.

And so often all of us, including me, we're trying to pour other things into that truck, into that tank.

And then we wonder, why like why is it not working?

Why is it not driving?

Why don't I have peace?

Why do I lack peace?

Why do I lack wisdom?

Why do I still feel so needy for other people's approval?

And we can't move on to chapters three and four without living more deeply in one and two.

So we're not supposed to leave one and two to move on to three and four.

We actually root all the more in one and two.

Here's how we've been saying that.

We live the imperatives, that would be three and four, through the indicatives, that's chapters one and two.

Meaning how we should live is fueled by what is already true about us in Jesus.

Who we are in Jesus fuels how we live for Jesus.

And if we miss the first half of that sentence, who we are, and we just try to live for Jesus, we become more exhausted, more arrogant, and we live in more despair.

But if we can put all this together like Paul gives it to us, we have quite a life.

We have freedom, we'll fail some, we confess more, we repent more, and our lives can be an expression of Jesus' love for us.

Let's look at this.

Colossians 3, 14.

And above all these, so this is connected to the preceding verses, and above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

Point number one is this we root into God's love for the source of all godly values and actions.

Well, how do we get godliness in our life?

Well, we root into God's love all the more.

Verses 12 and 13, we're called to compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness.

And you're going, fantastic.

That would be an amazing life.

Well, how do I do that?

Well, Paul says love binds all these together.

Love is actually the hub, the source.

It's sort of like an image of a ferris wheel.

Image of a ferris wheel, and it that the hub is the middle, right?

And coming off of that is the rest of the pharaohs wheel.

That middle part's the hub.

Everything's structured and powered by it.

And the point, Paul's point, is that love is the hub that binds everything together.

If we connect verses 12 and 13 and 14 together, it's sort of like this.

Love is this hub.

And from God's love to us, God's love through us, comes these other godly ways of living.

Patience, compassion, kindness, meekness, humility.

A few weeks ago, uh we had some friends fly to Las Vegas to see a killers concert.

Do you remember the band, The Killers?

They're still around, they've been around for a while.

The band now has a residency at Caesar's Palace.

And so, my friends, they love the Killers.

That's their band, obviously, because they bought plane tickets, hotel room, just to go see this one concert.

This band, The Killers.

It's their favorite band.

They love this band.

And they got there early, they got their seats, they watched the show, the opening act to wait for the big show, and they sing and they dance.

They loved it.

Now, what they did not do is they did not come in late, buy some merch, you know, get like a hot dog, watch a song, and then leave.

Well, that would be absurd, right?

Why?

Because they love this band.

And if you love a band, you you are you're soaking it all in.

You're not leaving, you know, you're not leaving before the encore.

Like you're staying the whole time, right?

When you love something, we slow down for it.

We bask in it, we sit, we rest.

We don't just move on in a hurry.

This is what Paul's, by the structure of Colossians, this is what Paul's teaching us.

To live out chapters three and four.

We rest all the more in chapters one and two.

Paul connects God's love to us and our God's love that goes through us to others.

Because you can't really love other people until you stop judging them.

And you can't stop judging other people until you realize you too are a sinner in need of grace.

And if you can realize that, there's a great freedom there for you, and then love can begin.

Because when you see something in somebody else's life, you don't move straight to judgment.

Maybe you do a little bit, but you can go, ah, I'm not perfect either.

I'm also a sinner.

You can begin to love people while they're still messy.

That's powerful.

And humility and belovedness, the Holy Spirit uses this to love others.

And then we see these ideas of 12 and 13, this you know, gentleness and patience with others.

That could be so hard, can't it?

Well, it comes from love.

And where does love come from?

God's love to us.

Verses 15 through 17.

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, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Point number two is this re-root into Christ to live a grateful and encouraging life.

These verses are calling to us to a grateful and encouraging life.

A few years ago, Chahuli, the artist, was on exhibit at Atlanta Botanical Gardens.

So he does glass sculptures.

Here's a picture of one of those glass sculptures.

I couldn't get any good pictures of his exhibit at Atlanta Botanical Gardens, but we went down to that.

We walked through, and there's all these glass sculptures like in the garden.

It's amazing.

I mean, it's just like it's amazing.

It's just it's sort of crazy and bizarre, and at the same time, like you're just kind of captivated by it.

You're not sure why it's amazing, but it's amazing, and it's amazing, it holds together.

And to do this, Trihuly, way before we see this end beautiful product, he's he's in a shop, a workshop somewhere.

And he is warming this material, and he is turning it, he's shaping it, he's blowing into it, right?

Piece by piece, he envisions, he forms, he crafts.

See, this is the image of how God works in us, and it's the image of Colossians 1 and 2 and 3 and 4.

Colossians 3 and 4 are sort of like that sculpture.

This end product, what you're called to be.

But in order to get there, our heart has to be warmed by the gospel.

And it is God's heart.

God's heart is for you.

He desires to breathe new life into you and form you.

He wants to help all those cold, dead places to become warmed and formed, to have a life that looks a certain way.

And he does this as we dwell in him and we allow him to be our ruler, is what these verses say.

Verse 15 says that the peace of Christ, this is how the verse breaks down, the peace of Christ will rule our hearts.

And then what happens when this internally is happening?

What happens externally?

Unity with others.

Verse 16, the word of Christ internally dwell in us richly, and then what happens?

What comes out of us?

For encouragement to others.

The internal moves to the external.

Verse 15, the peace of Christ is linked with Christian unity because the rule of Christ is the rule of peace.

And so a church, any church, our church, some other church, can be a place of peace, but it's going to be a place of peace as each person in the church is letting Jesus to be the ruler, not something else.

Verse 16, the word of Christ dwelling in us.

This is a way to say Jesus should be your everything.

We don't need Jesus plus something else.

So the question coming out of these verses that just begs toward us is what rules your heart?

Where do you day-to-day dwell?

Is it a secure word of Jesus over you, that you are his beloved, not by your work, but by his work for you?

Or is it some other word about you?

And the peace of Christ is his grace to us.

This final word that we have.

Not that you need to be something else.

This is why Paul gives us chapters one and two before we get to three and four.

That we are his beloved.

We are his beloved before we are anything else.

I was at a leadership retreat this week with some church leaders and also some city leaders around Marietta.

And what I was reminded, the first thing they said when we showed up, that in the introduction to, hey, welcome here, it was, hey, you are sons before you are servants.

Man, we need to be reminded of that.

We are sons and daughters before we are producers and servants.

How quickly we move on to being producers and servants.

And we forget the core of who we are.

We are sons and daughters of God.

That's powerful for us to remember that in Jesus we're fully forgiven, in Jesus we're fully righteous, in Jesus we're fully worthy.

Now, if that's true, what that means is you no longer have to defend yourself.

You don't have to be the strongest, you don't have to redeem yourself, you don't have to be the best or the cutest or the thinnest or the most successful.

You don't even always have to be right or vindicated.

In Jesus, your ego is no longer the king or ruler of your heart.

We have a much more gentle, loving ruler.

So what does this mean?

Well, I think it means that we can face our lack of peace.

We can face our anxiety or our fear because we already know we're loved.

In Jesus, we have that settled.

And we can ask, what's underneath that?

Like, what's underneath my anger or my bitterness or my resentment or my lack of faith?

What's underneath the stuff?

Which is incredibly humbling.

But if we know that we're already loved, while we're imperfect, already fully forgiven in God's beloved, we can we can ask that question.

We can let God into that.

And then you know what else will happen?

Gratitude will arrive.

Because we'll be grateful that we're loved while we're not perfect.

And then you know what else shows up?

Love for others, because we're not perfect.

And oh, they're not perfect.

I can still love them while they're messy.

Verse 17.

This is a summary verse of this section.

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Verses 15, 16, 17.

If you didn't catch it, the end of every verse mentions thankfulness.

Paul is just reiterating that.

Something about being a Christian is it should birth gratitude.

I mean, it doesn't our lives are complicated, complex, have pain, hardship, illness, all sorts of stuff.

And yet, we're still loved.

And yet we have a future in heaven.

And so gratitude's always a part of our lives.

That's point number three.

Our lives have meaning as they live in gratitude and glory to God.

Here's what we said.

Remember, we said this toxic faith is Jesus plus my work equals everything.

Which leads us to a lot of arrogance and exhaustion and despair.

Gospel faith is Jesus plus nothing equals everything.

Fully beloved by Jesus alone.

That in itself gives us gratitude.

When I was about seven years old, I would get the service merchandise catalog.

Do you remember service?

Anybody else?

Service merchandise?

I think it might have to be over 40.

It's like a little Sears, like is kind of what service merchandise.

And Sears was like a little Amazon for people who are younger, so if that helps you.

And so a catalog would show up at your house.

It was a paper, it was like a paper book, and and this it held everything that was for sale.

It's like a website, but in paper.

And you would just, it's true.

And it was wonderful.

Like as addicting as a web as looking, you know, shopping on your phone is now, like catalogs.

It was all about catalogs.

And the service merchandise catalog would show up, and in the evenings when we would turn on sitcoms, growing pains, who's the boss, you know, the classics.

Yeah, I'd sit on the floor with the service merchandise catalog, and I would flip the pages, especially coming up on Christmas time.

Right?

Anybody else do this?

And then you would dog ear the page of the thing you wanted.

This is what you did.

This is how Santa new is this process.

And I wanted a red telescope.

I had never been interested in, I don't know what it was about this page, this red telescope, but it called out to me when I was a little boy.

And I dog eared that page, and sure enough, I get a red telescope.

And I go out that first night, I go out there and I said in my drawing, hey, this telescope's huge.

It's this big, you know, massive, massive telescope.

Really, really see out into outer space.

And I could see these huge craters on the moon.

They're bigger than I'd ever seen them before.

Huge craters.

And it was not that these craters were really small and that my telescope made them big, right?

It's no, no, no.

It's that they're huge and the telescope lets me catch a glimpse.

And that's the difference between a microscope and a telescope, right?

A microscope takes something small and makes it big enough for you to see it.

And a telescope takes something huge, it's just far away, but it allows you to get a glimpse.

This idea of giving glory to God, or like all we do, you know, give glory to God.

It becomes like such a religious sort of sentence or phrasing.

What it means is it means, hey, God's really big.

Like he's magnificent, he's the creator, he's the savior.

That's really big.

Like maybe your life in something you're doing, in fact, God would say, in everything you're doing, you, even your life, could be like a little telescope.

And that people around you would see that God is worthy.

That he's worthy of your life, he's worthy of their life.

That our lives can be about more than ourselves.

And that this huge creator is so difficult to understand that maybe through your life somebody could catch a glimpse.

That's what our lives were created for.

Our lives were created to be about a bigger story.

Our lives were created to make much of him.

Verse 17 ends again with that thanksgiving call.

Giving thanks to God the Father through him.

It's a call to gratitude for the love we already have in Jesus.

You remember the story in Luke 17?

Ten lepers were healed.

Only one comes back.

Only one.

Luke 17, 14 through 19.

When he saw them, he said to them, Go and show yourselves to the priests.

And as they went, they were cleansed.

Then one of them, when he saw they was healed, he turned back, praising God with a loud voice, and he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks.

Now he was a Samaritan.

Then Jesus answered, Were not ten cleansed?

Where are the nine?

Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?

And he said to him, Rise and go your way.

Your faith has made you well.

And so this one guy, only one returns.

It's interesting.

The other interesting thing about this is like, you know this guy that this life still has other stuff going on.

Like we don't know a lot about this one guy.

I'm sure his life was still complicated and complex.

He had friends and family.

He'd been sick for a long time.

That sure really caused a lot of hardship and complexity.

He's well, but all that complication still exists.

And somehow he's still grateful.

Gratitude doesn't mean our lives are perfect, it just means that we're finding the good stuff.

And we can be grateful.

Point number four, we grow in gratitude as we remember Jesus' care and healing of our hearts.

Just the one guy returns.

We want to be the one guy.

Like we as people, you want your families to be the one guy.

As a church, we want to be the one guy.

We don't want to be people who just keep consuming and earning and consuming and needing more and needing more and needing more and needing more.

Like the roids on succession, right?

Some of you know.

You know this family?

Horrible people.

Horrible, right?

They're not real people, right?

Let's just go ahead.

Well, then maybe there's a lot of people like them, but horrible people.

Like, this is not a family.

These aren't people just oozing with gratitude and contentment and peace.

This is actually like the complete opposite of that.

And God's calling us to be grateful people, peaceful people.

These people have all the money in the world, they have no gratitude.

When we lack gratitude, we lack peace.

We need to slow down.

Don't be the nine, be the one.

This week for me at the leadership retreat that I went on, it was a thankful week.

It was like a week of Thanksgiving.

I was with a few of the church leaders and city leaders at refuge leadership, and the evenings we're around this big table, have a good dinner, and then we'd have a discussion question each night.

Then the last night, the question was like, what word of encouragement are you leading with?

And everybody shares, and you end up learning from each other.

And this one guy who he lives in North Georgia, Tim, across the table from me, he said, you know, my life's complicated.

His wife had a huge surgery, she almost died last year, uh, works hard, like everything's coming.

He's like, but he's like, man, like just a pause, I start to see the things to be thankful for.

And I was like, man, I didn't even hear that.

Like, I don't, a lot of times I just like, I'm just gonna like produce, I'm gonna get stuff done today.

Like, I'm gonna, that's what I'll do tomorrow.

Just like slow down a little bit.

Just slow down, be thankful.

Verse 15, verse 16, verse 17, all the verses, they're about different stuff, encourage loving people, encouraging people, being encouraging, unity, and yet each verse ends with, okay, be thankful.

I want to close with three growth and grace questions.

Number one, do I love the people in my life and my limited power or in God's love to and through me?

Number two, am I preoccupied by trying to get somewhere or something rather than resting and rooting in Christ is enough?

Number three.

Am I slowing down in my belovedness to remember Christ is enough so that I might be able to grow in gratitude?

That's pray together.

Heavenly Father, we thank you that you call us to a life of loving others, of unity, of harmony, you call us to a life of encouragement, you call us to a life of gratitude.

And yet we already know the promises of chapters one and two that while we can be ungrateful, impatient, divisive, bitter, you still love us.

On the cross, all of our sin is forgiven.

And we are fully righteous.

From this position of healed and healing, fully beloved.

Would our hearts be warmed by the gospel?

Would your Holy Spirit be at work in us as individuals and as a people?

That we might grow in gratitude.

Help us to see in the midst of pain and difficulty and hardship.

Help us to see, help us to slow down to see all that you're doing and all that you've given us.

We pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.