Book of Colossians - Ch. 3, Vs. 13-16 (10/28/2001)

Good afternoon, everyone. I believe we're in Colossians chapter 3 and I don't know what the bulletin said, but I'm starting with verse 11 what did the bulletin say is that it said 13?

Aha Okay, did we do 11 12 where was

I slept through the last two verses brother Otis terrible Okay.

Well, that's okay Alright, well, we'll Let's just let's go.

Yeah, we review it now we can We can go right here in verse 13 would be just wonderful You might in your margin there beside verse 11.

You can put Galatians 3 28 and 29. That's what I was gonna read talks about that so Let's pray and we'll start with verse 13

Dear father. We thank you for your word. We thank you for the Way that it

Is alive that it speaks to our hearts and we know that that's because you

Speak to our hearts from within as we read these words from without and we ask you to teach us once again this afternoon glorious truths

Eternal truths and we thank you that you've already given us eternal life and we're living it now.

Amen Let's start with verse 13 then it says forbearing one another and forgiving

One another if any man have a quarrel against any Even as Christ forgave you so also do ye that's quite a standard, isn't it?

Standard for forgiveness is you ask and you see what has he forgiven me? And then when you answer that you can say that's what

I forgive others That's quite a standard verse 14 and above all so we've got a list of things that started last week

Up Around verse 10 or so and actually verse 9 starts with lie

Not one to another verse 8 put off some things all of these things are listed and then it turns into positive things in verse 12 and comes through and then it

Summarizes with verse 14 and says but above all this more important than all the things we just listed is

This that you put on love which is the bond of perfectness

Now the bond of perfectness Let's stop discuss that just a moment because if this is above all if this is more important than all the rest

We need to know what this bond of perfectness is that comes from putting on love well

Perfectness this bond of perfectness Comes from two little

Greek words that make up a longer Greek word and I Don't know if I can pronounce the longer one.

So I'm sure glad it's made up of two littler ones I think I can handle the little ones but Let's see if I can say it it's soon

Desmos that's not so bad Soon Desmos the the first little part of that is the word soon

Which is a little Greek word in and of itself, but it means union. It means a union and This other word

Desmon which is the word Desmos comes from means ligament like in your body the ligaments that hold everything together

So it means a union of ligaments So the bond of perfectness in the literal translation is the union of Ligaments Everything is held together by these these ligaments now

Love is what does that so you might say love is the ligaments? That holds the body together

Love has to cover multitude of sins. Love is what covers the inner imperfections that we see in one another and we overlook them mark of a spiritual person is

That he predominantly overlooks the negatives in his brothers and sisters lives most think that the mark of a spiritual person is that he can correct those things and point him out and see him and rebuke

Them and admonish and all that that's the total opposite because the brand -new baby Christian what he's known for is realizing he's more spiritual than everybody else and trying to fix it and The more mature

Christian that's been in the battle in the war for a good amount of time He does not shoot his own teammates

He's just you know, he we may do something totally Inappropriate to one another but the seasoned soldier says yeah, but you know what?

He's not a he's not Mohammed and he's a Christian He's not he's not in Islam.

He's in Christianity. So he's on my team bless his heart. Let's go get him And you get more of that attitude the more material you get and I can

I can say that from my own experience I know it's true because when I first got saved Everybody else was backslidden with me

And I began a long campaign of fixing all of them

Everybody around me it's really work Charlotte is a perfect example of how a good job

I did and So She's also a perfect example of how love covers a multitude of sin and because she's stayed with me so So soon means

Union Desmond means ligaments So love is the ligaments that holds everything together a joint tie it says

Now what about though this word where it says this bond of perfectness? Let's look at this word perfectness

Above all these things put on love which is the bond of perfect in this

Perfectness in the Greek is the word teleotopes, which means completeness in the sense of Maturity, it's not perfect in the sense of sinless and we have to be careful everywhere

We read this in the Bible every time we see this word perfect We tend to take that in the

English meaning of it Which means like perfect means like you don't make any mistakes. You're sinless

You're you'd be God as a matter of fact if you were perfect in the sense that we use the word

But in the biblical sense, it does not mean that it doesn't mean it anywhere You won't find it meaning that anywhere what it always means when you see the word perfect And just especially because you see it more often in the

New Testament than you do the Old Testament So when you see that in the New Testament, it means mature does not mean

Perfect in the sense of you never do anything wrong or sinless or perfection in that sense at all it means you've reached a certain state of maturity and yet you're moving on towards another state and then another state another state and perhaps we will always be moving in that direction even in the ages to come because it talks about age unto age and Unto age which implies growth of the whole realm of God's universe, so This thing where it says that love is the bond of perfectness

What it means is? That if you want to look for maturity in your church

You find the people Who are at a place where love is such in their life

That they don't have that critical attitude Now, yes, they know when it's right to try to admonish someone or or Exhort which means to encourage even that in the

Greek has an uplift in the English exhort, you know It's like exhort but in Greek it's encouraged

But it still accomplishes the same in in fact from a psychological point of view It works better because if you want to close the human mind then rebuke them

If you want nothing to happen like you really want to help somebody But if you want nothing to happen then rebuke them because the psychological law this just assures the law of gravity

Comes into play and when you start in that way They close the mind and once the mind is closed psychologically.

Nothing changes it nothing so Exhort in the way of encouraged come at it from a point of view out.

Let me encourage you. Oh, excuse me That's what a rebuke does

Let me encourage you so When you want to look around at the seasoned

Saints the ones that really have a bit of maturity in their life They are the ones that know how to encourage people and bring people along with them and yet love them even where they are

They they don't love the bad or the evil or the sin at all But the love covers that and they're able to still walk with them and bring them along with with them and knowing that God's timetable of change is totally different than ours would be we would change them right now to be just like myself want you to be

Like me then then I can live with you see God never does it that way. He has Interesting timing.

I don't understand his timing and no one does but it's in his good time when he changes us so none of us can force change on the other at all period so the mature

Saint recognizes this and He he does not fret over the fact that people are not perfect He doesn't fret over it.

He loves them for who they are He loves them because they're his brother or sister in Christ.

That is really this True sign of maturity the

Bible calls it perfection in verse 14, but it means completeness or maturity now

It's Interesting because I look this word up in vine vines dictionary Greek dictionary and he takes it a little a little more information on this word

Teleotes, he says it is an end accomplished as the effect of a process an

End that is accomplished as the effect of a process So when we read this word the bond of perfectness

It is an ongoing Process so you can't look at anyone in our group and say well he is mature.

What you can say is he is an ongoing work in God's hand an ongoing work of perfection of maturing of completing and When we meet him and we see him as he is will be complete compared to what we are now

However, I have a suspicion when we get over into that realm There'll be other works being done on us for all eternity

Because if that weren't true, then that means we know it all and if we get there and we know it all then there won't Be any learning which means we're

God So that ain't gonna happen. So there's always a continuing ongoing Teleotes, which means a process of perfecting or maturing

It'll always be going on but in this life verse 14 says above all the things that are listed is love

So when you find the seasoned saint that has had quite a bit of this Maturing done in his life by the

Lord is because he has enough love That it covers the weaknesses in people allows him to see the strengths and the beauty of the

Lord in their life And he can walk with him. He can help him. He can even bring them along He can open their mind up to change and that's a sure show of maturity

Okay, let's go To the next one Let's see

Verse 15 and let the peace of God rule in your hearts to the which also year called in one body and be ye thankful This idea of being called in one body shows the unity

You can go into 1st Corinthians 3 verses 1 through 3 and you see the opposite of this and it's called carnality

But the unity that comes with the maturity is the opposite of the carnality that's found in the

Corinthian Church in chapter 3 where it says I can't call you spiritual because why you have divisions and Envying and strife you are carnal you walk as men he says

So here in Colossians chapter 3 we're talking about the opposite of that We're talking about a church that grows to a place beyond the

Corinthian Problems beyond the divisions and the bickering and the and the focusing in on the negatives

We know who it is that drives us to do that. It would just be honest with each other It is the father of lies.

It is the acute the accuser of the brethren It is the one called the devil which in the original language means the slanderer

Anytime we're picking on each other's weaknesses we are We are following Satan sad to say

So be very careful in that realm. Don't get involved with that be in the realm of love

Be in the realm of opening people's minds and pulling them along with you in the direction of God But not picking on them spiritually or in any way

All right Now then let's see boy, I put a bunch of peripheral verses with that that I think

I'm gonna skip over at this point Let's look at verse 15 starts to talk about the result of spiritual maturity

And let the peace of God rule in your hearts to the which also

You're called in one body and be thankful See there's the end result of the maturing process

As you find peace You know a person that's not going around fretting over what everybody else doing wrong.

He has more peace in his life He's got where he just is. That's not my job. That's God's job

My job is just simply, you know, when I speak to him speak speak as of the oracles of God, you know speak truths

They're gonna pick up what they're gonna pick up what God gives them Did you know that only God is the revelator?

You're not you and I are not the revelators He is he's the one that turns on the light of Revelation and he does not teach any two of us the same

Truths at the same time really now I guess you'd have to say there are times when several of us would the light would turn on on something when when when you just Especially if we're in a class together and the light just turns on and we see it

But the truth is it doesn't have to be that way a lot of times God will show you something

Now he'll be two years before I see it But that's God's a part of God's will part of the way he works individually in our lives

Okay So let the peace of God rule in your hearts to the which also you are called in one body

We are called as a church to have peace and that made us so different than the average Baptist Church Where there's bickering going on all the time.

We're not called to bicker We're called to have peace and to be thankful now look at verse 16.

We'll spend the rest of time on this first but it's kind of an appropriate time in the life of our church to read this because We've had a new addition to our services on Sunday morning

And let's look what the Bible says about it. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom

Well, we've never had a problem with that part of our services. We've always Believed in promoting the

Bible haven't we the Word of God teaching strong Bible lessons and preaching

Strong doctrinal truths about God from the Bible and that's the first part

Let the Word of Christ dwell it in you richly in all wisdom. But look that's not all of it look what it says teaching and Admonishing one another now, let me stop there and we'll move on in a minute.

But let me just stop a minute Since I have been saved and certainly since I was called to the ministry around 1983

It's sad when you get so far past that you don't remember whether it was 82 or 83, but it's somewhere in that ballpark

I know it was the year brother Roloff died in the plane crash But about since that time

I have always Attempted to try to study what I call the early church

I've tried to be more interest. I mean not interested in only doctrine, but also interested in methods and To the extent that we can find them now, they're not easy to find

There's not a lot of church history aside from the Bible itself but the book of Acts is a beautiful place to go the

Timothy's first second Timothy and Some of the Titus some of the others are an excellent

They call them the pastoral epistles because it's Paul teaching Timothy how to be a pastor how church ought to be and so forth

Some of those places you can look and glean information on the methods that were your used in the early church

And I have always had the theory that to the extent that you can find those and copy them

Then you're guaranteed God's blessings Whereas if you invent something new some new method in the church, it doesn't mean

God would curse it necessarily But there's no guarantee. He'll bless it and that's always been my theory

So where you can go with a biblical method where you can see it prescribed Here's how we did this in the early church if you could bring that into the service

You're guaranteed God's smile on it. Whereas if you bring something in yourself that May be okay, but you know, you don't know if the early church was doing or not

It may or may not work. You don't know if it will or not Now if it's unbiblical and ungodly, you know, it won't work

So you see what I'm saying? Well, here's the place Right here where we can look and get a crystal clear view of the church

Service in the early church. We don't get a lot of information, but we get some important information

We have the Word of God is what it starts out with in verse 16 Now there are some churches in the modern church making mistakes today where they're trying to bring in some of these things

Perhaps they think that they are in the early church, but they do it at the detriment or the hurt of the preaching

That's foolish. For instance, if you bring in stage productions and plays I Can't sit here and say that that's ungodly to have a play up here.

That's about Some Bible story, but if it replaces preaching it's wrong If it replaces the preaching the method is not a biblical method.

You don't know if it'll work Where does it say that men are saved by the foolishness of a play?

What it says is men are saved by the foolishness of preaching So if you replace what

God showed the early church did with something it ain't gonna work, okay Just it's just not gonna work

So where you can find things that were done put them in there use them and do it that way the biblical

Methodology do it God's way not man's way. So look at this You got the Word of God is preeminent here, but then look what it says teaching

Well that has to do with the Word of God. So now the Word of God has been mentioned twice But then it goes on and says and admonishing one another

Now to admonish What does that mean? Okay that you have several things mentioned rebuke

Admonish and exhort so they're they obviously they're different or they wouldn't be mentioned is so it's not quite the same as a rebuke

What so where does it fit? What is it? urge So wouldn't you say it's a slight wouldn't you say perhaps it's between exhort and rebuke

It's less strong than rebuke, but it's stronger than exhort

And still exhort means to encourage now. What did you say Roger? Okay admonish means

To exhort with a more urgent tone. How's that? I Urge with patience correct

Can it mean that I'd have to look the word itself up to see if it has a tone of correction in it

But it probably does But rebuke is where the correct the correction is the main thing you're looking at when you do that to somebody you're just saying

I'm Gonna correct you and Admonish, it's not the main thing I'd have to say it is part of it though So like if you wanted to say if you combined everything that the three of you said

It's act to make an excellent definition because what you could say is that it means to urge

With patience to do the correct thing You did well Very good

No, that would be to edify hmm Strongly encourage is very good.

It's a strong encouragement So there we have it. But now now, how do you visualize people doing this?

Well, I always visualize it if I walk up brother Charlie say read Charlie. I'm trying to be patient with you

But I strongly urge you to stop doing that, please You know that one -to -one, you know,

I'm gonna slam dunking because that makes me feel more spiritual You know, if I'm if I'm urging him, that means I'm already there

I mean I've arrived I'm trying to get him over here with me see but that is not the biblical method

That's mentioned and I'm not saying it elsewhere. It's not mentioned but right here. It's not look how it says we are to admonish one another here

There's a specific way that it says to do it in Psalms in hymns and in spiritual songs

Singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord In that amazing did you know that one reason that churches have to have people feel like they've got to go up one -on -one to people and rebuke them and admonish them is because You don't have the proper song service in the services

You've left something out. You got to preaching but you don't have Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.

The truth is most churches pick one, but they don't like to have all three Most churches you're either gonna go in and what they've got is

I've got the hymns Which is right out of the hymn book and it's just and it's just done where you just do hymns only a

Lot of people are comfortable with that However, it's not what the Bible says then there are other churches today.

Oh, they don't want the hymns. They're too old -fashioned They don't speak to me today. So we just want new songs

All right, but that's not what the Bible says What the Bible says is psalms

Which I would if you want to know what the modern rendition that is that's a scripture song You know, we used to do that in the old days

Trudy. You remember that in Charlotte? We did scripture songs a lot still do them in school probably from time to time And in here sometimes the that the songs that they do up here are scripture songs where it's actually a part of a scripture put to a tune

That's what the Psalms are here hymns or just think of that like what you got in your hymn book spiritual songs are

They can be one of two things They're just a song that your brothers or sisters sing to you that are spiritual in nature.

They would have an admonishing They're encouraging you to praise God or to worship God or to be right with God or whatever or they can be a new song

Which means someone in the congregation literally writes a new song just like David used to write poetry to God I would love it

If some of you started doing this, but we need you know, write a new song one that's never been on the radio

Never been in the hymn book You made it up and you you wrote it to God and then you if you can't do it you got someone else who's talented in the church to put it to music and And if you can't do it, you get someone else to get up here and sing it or you sing it

That is so beneficial to a church and yet we've never had that here much I know we're at rice and Brenda have a few that they've written

So we do have some of that now But there should be more than just a couple people participating in that now if you want to have the whole ball of wax on the methodology

New Testament Church methodology in the services You have the Word of God and then you have the teaching the

Word of God was like the preaching the teaching is the teaching of The Word of God that's emphasized and it's multiplied by two so you have it mentioned twice

But then you also have the admonishing that comes from the scripture songs

The hymns that are song sung and the spiritual and new songs that are sung together in the congregation

Singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord that eliminates the Hollywood entertainment

You're not supposed to have Hollywood entertained There should never be a time that someone comes up here to entertain you on Sunday morning.

I'm not against that I'm just gonna do it on Saturday night. We can have a singing we can all come together and have somebody come up and just wow you with their with their

Their scriptural songs if you know or play them in your car if you want to I'm not opposed to that But I'm talking about how do you do a worship service?

It's not supposed to be that what it's supposed to be is with grace in your heart to the Lord It's like when they're doing these scripture songs and spiritual songs up here.

You should not even be looking at them Really? I mean, it's not against the rules to look at them from time to time but that's not the deal your mind should be off in the heavenlies as You sing these songs to the

Lord And that's the way it should be and if it works that way there will be others in the congregation who are carnal

Who will be admonished by those songs? And brought back into a right place

So that the rest of the service will open their mind and they can go with it now. We're out of time today, but Next time what

I'm gonna do and I know brother Otis will move on from there why I did great there What I do cover one verse today to Just pick up where you left off last

Sunday brother Otis. You won't be too far off But when it's my turn again,

I'm gonna continue with that verse I'm not gonna go into the next thing I'm gonna continue with that verse a little bit because it's too long to do it today

But I want to go into the Old Testament And Show you a place in first Samuel which happens to be where I'm preaching in here lately, too

But first Samuel chapter 10, I want to show you Where the this same thing is talked about in the

Old Testament just like we just talked about in the new and How this plays a part in the worship and it's going to show you the whole

Bible methodology for a like a Sunday morning worship service like what we did this morning It's all right there and it shows you the components

It shows you everything that it takes for God to do a change in our lives on Sunday mornings

So I want to do that not next Sunday afternoon, but when it's my turn again, let's stand and pray together

Father we thank you for this wonderful day together and Lord, we don't know how many more we'll have before you come back, but they're glorious they're a taste of heaven here and Help us to all be encouraged as we walk out these doors and go back into our lives in some some cases

We are in the world help us to To have a face kind of like Moses that shines a little bit so that people out in the world would see a difference and Lord help us to witness when we ought to say a word when we ought to and to help when we ought to and to be your servants an

Extension of the Lord Jesus Christ body right here into this world and we ask it in Jesus name.