Garments Of Grace - [Colossians 3:12-14]

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Father, as we gather on this rainy day, on the Lord's Day, we are reminded of the words of the prophet
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Isaiah, for as rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be which goes forth from my mouth and shall not return to me void without accomplishing what
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I desire and fulfilling the purpose for which I sent it. And that's why we gather here this morning,
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Father, and we also want to enjoy the fellowship of the brethren, the fellowship of the saints. We know we are primarily here, and help us be mindful of that, to worship you, the only true and living
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God of the universe. Teach us this morning through your word and through your spirit to learn more and more about your grace so that we can live more and more by your grace.
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We pray these things in Christ's name. Amen. Well, three weeks ago
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I started a mini -series on the topic of grace, and we began just by way of reminder as we get into today's lesson.
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We began talking about grace and comparing it or contrasting it, as it were, with the performance treadmill, and we were talking about primarily grace as it relates to our sanctification, that we are justified by grace alone, that we will ultimately be glorified by grace alone, but somewhere along the line we make a mental switch.
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I used to have a professor in seminary say that a lot of times people think when you become a Christian you commit mental suicide, and that's not the case.
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We are to be transformed by the renewing of our mind, but the idea is that in our sanctification and the process of growing and becoming more
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Christlike, which is all of our Christian life from justification to glorification, that we are to live by grace, though somehow we get on the treadmill, the performance treadmill, and start living by works.
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Now, works is a natural outflow of salvation. We're not saved by works,
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Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, but we're saved unto good works. Titus 2, 14, God redeemed us that we would be a people zealous for good works.
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But the idea that I'm trying to highlight in scripture here, as we'll see, is that we live by grace.
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Now that doesn't mean, we also highlighted that, that doesn't mean there is no effort on our part. Well, do you live by grace?
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Yes, fully. I don't even have to open my Bible. I'm completely reliant on the grace of God.
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Yet, as I highlighted, Paul talked about the Bible to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20 as the word of grace.
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Are you living by grace? I sure am. I'm not even having to pray. How's your prayer life? Oh, I'm living by grace.
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But prayer is approaching God to the throne of grace. So we highlighted, Philippians 2 was one passage, verses 12 to 13, where Paul says to the
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Philippian believers, work out, not work for, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
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For it is God who is at work in you to will and to work for his good pleasure. So we see human responsibility and divine sovereignty.
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We also looked at 2 Peter, the last verse of 2 Peter, it says to grow, it's an imperative, grow in the grace and knowledge of our
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Lord Jesus Christ. But in the context we saw in 2 Peter 3, Peter talked about being diligent in our spiritual growth.
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And at the beginning of his epistle, we looked at, he said, make every effort to add to your faith virtue, to add to your virtue knowledge, and so on and so forth.
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So to live by grace in our sanctification, in the process of sanctification, of growing in Christlikeness and being made more holy, does not mean there's no effort on our part.
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That's not what it means. What it does mean is any effort we do put in for our own maturation, that any temporal blessings we receive in this life, it's not because what we've done.
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In other words, God doesn't owe us because we've been faithful in church attendance, faithful in reading our
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Bible, faithful in prayer, faithful in giving the good news. So it has to do with motive.
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What's the motive? Why do you do what you do? Should we be reading our Bibles? Yes, it's our spiritual food.
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Should we be praying? Yes, it's our spiritual breath. But am I doing it out of a motive to say, look at me performing,
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Lord, you owe me. God doesn't owe us anything. So that's the idea of grace in the performance treadmill.
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Then the week after that, we looked at the aspect of legalism. And let me say this up front.
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There are times, legalism, let me go back to just redefine a little bit. We define legalism as a conformity to man -made rules.
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So somebody who conforms to man -made rules, not God -made rules, but that doesn't end there, and expects others to live up to those man -made rules, doesn't end there.
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And if those don't live up to those man -made rules, there's a critical and judgmental spirit. Why aren't you living up to those man -made rules that I've set?
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Now, in his book, Transforming Grace, Jerry Bridges, which I've quoted a lot, talks something about, in the area of legalism, of fences, he calls them.
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Things that we set up to protect ourselves in our spiritual life. And he, at one point in his life, he had a fence when he would go to the beach with his family.
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If it was a particular beach where the woman was scantily clad, he would leave and go to his car. But he didn't expect that of everybody else.
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That was a fence that he had set up for himself, for his own protection. So there are things that others do. So to have certain fences, or convictions, or opinions about certain areas, that's fine.
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The matter is whether I impose it on other people. If I take a personal conviction and make it a general principle for everybody else.
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That's where legalism comes in. Let me, on that, before we get into our lesson for today, turn with me to Romans 15 to help you along in this area.
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Romans 14, I'm sorry. Romans 14, of course, the context is, in those days, people that God had saved who came from an idolatrous background.
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They were worshiping actual idols. And there was meat that was sacrificed to idols.
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So some of them, in their conscience, could not eat meat that was sacrificed to idols post -conversion.
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But some had a clean conscience to do so. There was a difference. So let's see the guiding principles.
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I mean, I'm not going to expound the whole chapter of Romans 14. You can go back and listen to Pastor's mic messages from a couple years ago, when he took us through Romans chapter by chapter.
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But just to highlight some things here concerning the area of grace versus legalism. Look at verse 5 with me, the second part.
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It says, each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.
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Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. So back then, again, the area was food that was sacrificed to idols.
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Each one had to be convinced in his own mind. Some were convinced that this was not something in good conscience that they could do because of their past history.
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Others were okay with it. So how do you relate to one another in the body when that is the case?
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Jump with me to verse 13. Therefore, let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or a hindrance in the way of a brother.
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That's the key in guiding principle. So it's not necessarily wrong for me or for somebody else.
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But if it is for another brother, then my guiding principle is I need to decide. So the first part he says from verse 5, each one should be fully convinced in your own mind.
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So once you're fully convinced in your own mind on a particular issue, then I need to decide not to put a stumbling block or a hindrance in the way of my brother.
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And notice later on how Paul just elevates this even more. Verse 15, for if your brother is grieved by what you eat, the context again meets
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Sacrifice to Idols, you're no longer walking in love. And watch this, I love this. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom
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Christ died. Did you really have to put that in there, Paul? By the inspiration of the
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Spirit. So, for example, I think I mentioned last time I had a friend in seminary who grew up in an alcoholic environment.
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His dad was abusive, not only to him but to his own sister. Now, in my
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Greek culture, drinking is part of our meal. I mean, the Bible is clear that drunkenness is not of the
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Spirit of God. But in our culture, we'll have a drink with a meal, it's not a problem. But I purposely, when I would be with my friend, knowing his background, that was my guiding principle.
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I didn't want to put a stumbling block before him, so I would not drink in his presence. So that's a guiding principle as we relate to one another.
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And sometimes in a conversation, let's use the example of, because we have a homeschool ministry here.
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So I have, I think of some friends of mine, of ours here, who went from public schooling to homeschooling.
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But here's the idea. So we're having a conversation. Legalism would say, you know what, I'm convinced that this is the way to go and you ought to do it too, otherwise you're not a mature
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Christian. That's not what they did to us. They're approaching, we were discussing it. If I want to discuss with somebody and say, tell me the benefits of what you've seen in your own life in raising up your children in this way.
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And then they might in turn say, what about you? What are the benefits the way you're approaching it with public schools that you've seen in your own life?
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Having a healthy discussion in one thing. By imposing it on others, that's where legalism can come in.
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Let me share with you a funny story, but it really drives home the point of this aspect of grace versus legalism.
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And then we'll get into our lesson this morning. But I wanted us to give some reminder and background of where we were since last week
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Pastor Steve did the lesson on baptism. So this is about legalism. Man says,
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I was walking across a bridge recently. I spied this fellow who looked like he was ready to jump off. So I thought
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I tried to stall him until the authority showed up. Don't jump, I said. Why not, he said.
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Nobody loves me. God loves you, I said. You believe in God, don't you?
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Yes, I believe in God, he said. Good, I said. Are you Christian or Jewish?
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Christian, he said. Me too, I said. Protestant or Catholic? Neither, he said.
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What then, I said. Baptist, he said. Me too, I said. Independent Baptist or Southern Baptist?
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Independent Baptist, he said. Me too, I said. New Evangelical, moderate, independent
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Baptist or conservative independent Baptist? Conservative independent Baptist, he said.
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Me too, I said. Calvinistic or lose your salvation Arminian? Calvinistic, he said.
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Me too. Dispensational premillennial or historical premillennial? Dispensational premillennial, he said.
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Me too, I said. Unashamed fundamentalist or strict separation of church and state?
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Unashamed fundamentalist, he said. Me too, I said. Pro -Disney boycott pro -life?
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Or anti -Disney boycott pro -choice? Pro -Disney boycott pro -life, he said.
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Me too, I said. King James version only? Or modern versions?
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Modern versions, he said. Ah, you heretic, I said. And I pushed him over. Legalism can be deadly, literally.
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OK, today we're going to look at, so we're not to live by works in the sense of works is the overflow of our salvation.
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But we're to live by grace depending on the grace of God to live our Christian life.
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It requires effort, but we're depending on him for that. And also as it relates to legalism.
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Today we're going to discuss what I've entitled Garments of Grace. What are the clothing of grace?
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What are those things that will be characteristic of our lives if we are truly living by grace?
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And before we get into our text, as is highlighted in your program, Colossians 3, I want to highlight a couple of things that Jerry Bridges brings out.
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And then we'll get into Colossians 3 per se. One of the things that Bridges says concerning garments of grace.
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One of the garments of grace, he says, should be first and foremost gratitude. So we'll go through a list of these things.
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What is the clothing, the garments of grace? And you'll see from our passage when we get to Colossians 3 why we're calling it garments of grace.
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He says the first thing should be gratitude. And he says, and I quote, if we are truly living by the transforming grace of God in our daily lives, gratitude for God's gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ will be a growing experience.
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Let me repeat that. If we're truly living by the transforming grace of God in our daily lives, gratitude for God's gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ will be a growing experience.
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Now, you may recall, some of you, your conversion experience was a little bit more dramatic than others.
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Some of us who grew up in the body as youngsters, it might not be as dramatic.
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But nonetheless, we still needed the Savior. We're still sinners who need the Savior. And we're under the wrath of God nonetheless.
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And you can think back to when God first saved you, the joy. Wow, I've been transferred from darkness to light.
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God has brought me out of death into life. I was under the wrath of God, John 3 .36,
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John the Baptist. But now there is no condemnation for me who is in Christ Jesus. That's initially a justification.
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But Bridget's point here is, as we continue to go through the Christian life, through our sanctification, that if we're living by grace, we should have a growing gratitude and a sense of appreciation and thankfulness for the gift of salvation
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God has given us. Another thing he mentions as a garment of grace, besides gratitude, is contentment, being content.
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And he says this, quote, Discontent is a sign that we are living by works, that we think we deserve more than we are getting.
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Did you catch that? We think we deserve more than we are getting.
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That, and here's the clincher, in some way, God isn't being fair to us.
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I highlighted that at the beginning, the performance treadmill. It's not doing what I do, the spiritual disciplines.
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It's why am I doing it? What's my motive? To get something back from God that he owes me? No, absolutely not.
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And that's where discontentment comes in. So let's discuss that a little bit. Or if you have any questions, those two, before we look at Colossians, the attitude of gratitude and being content in my
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Christian life, how would you say living by grace, living by the grace of God in my sanctification, can foster, can cultivate the attitude of gratitude and or being content?
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Any thoughts? Okay, excellent. You're getting ahead, which
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I like that. So Stephen is saying that even in an example with the marriage, that when we're slighted or something, we can have a gratitude for what
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God has done in saving us because that involves forbearance and love, which covers a multitude of sins. Excellent point.
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Did I see another hand? Excellent. So it's our focus because of our flesh, which
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Elder Pradeep highlighted. Your flesh is alive and well, you know that, right? If you don't, in your marriage, just ask your spouse.
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But as he said, our focus is so important. The flesh helps me take, it takes the focus off the
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Lord and puts the focus on myself. And that's when those things begin to show themselves, a lack of gratitude or a lack of being content.
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Let's turn to our passage, Colossians chapter three. Colossians three, and we'll look at some of these specific, more specifically from this text, the garments of grace.
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And again, as I highlighted initially, grace and the performance treadmill. Living by grace does not mean
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I'm gonna, you've heard it repeated over and over again. And it's by intention, that it doesn't mean there's no effort on my part to grow and to mature as it is commanded in scripture.
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But what it does mean is that my motive has to be right. My heart motive, why do
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I do what I do? Two people can be following the same spiritual disciplines.
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One's doing it to get something from God. And the other one's doing it out of a gratitude for what
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God has already done for them. So who would like to read that? Colossians three, those three verses 12 through 14.
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Notice he begins with the term put on, which he mentions again in verse 14, put on.
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He talks about that in the context. Verse 10, he talks about actually earlier, putting off the old self, same terminology that Paul used in the book of Ephesians.
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In verse 10, put on the new self. So we have put on mentioned three times. And in the
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Greek is the word defita, which actually I love the NIV translation. Don't throw me over the bridge for this.
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But NIV says, clothe yourself. And that's the idea.
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These are garments, but why are they garments of grace? It's a command, right? Is it not? It's an imperative verse 12, put on, clothe yourself.
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But notice then, here's the motive, okay? And we're gonna look at this a little bit before we get into these garments of grace, these character qualities.
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As God's chosen ones, or as the King James says, God's elect,
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God's chosen ones. This is the first motive why we are to live by grace and demonstrate these character qualities and put on these garments, as it were, of grace, because God has chosen us.
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Let's look at that a little bit more. Turn first to the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 7.
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Deuteronomy chapter 7. What was God's...
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So now we're looking at motives for the mandate. One thing I love about scripture is when
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God gives us in his word mandates, commands, he always gives us the motive for those mandates.
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I love that because we would be frustrated if he didn't do that. Romans 12 is one that comes to mind as you're turning to Deuteronomy 7, right?
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Therefore, I urge you, in view of God's mercy, right? What are we to do,
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Romans 12, in view of God's mercy, who remembers? Present yourselves as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual act of worship.
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Why would you do that? Because in view of God's mercy, which I just spent, Paul says, 11 chapters highlighting when we deserved his wrath by the mercy of God.
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That's what we're seeing here in Colossians. These garments of grace that Paul says we're to clothe ourselves with. This is the motive for why we're to do this.
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Well, the first motive is that God chose us. But I want you to see here God's motive for choosing us.
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So this is the motive. God's choice of ours is the first motive for putting on these garments of grace. But what was
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God's motive himself for choosing? For first, we're looking at Israel here. So if somebody can read from verse six to eight, verses six to eight, nice and loud, please.
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Tom, thanks, brother. Thank you. So to the nation of Israel, to his chosen people, he uses a term there, the
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Lord your God, verse five or verse six, has chosen you to be a people for his treasured position.
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But then he says the reason why he didn't choose them. Why didn't he choose them? What's the text say? Because they were big.
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I didn't choose you because you were the most people. Almighty, good point. And actually, he highlights it before.
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Actually, you were the fewest of all peoples. But what was his motive for choosing them? Verse eight, because he loved them.
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Question, were they lovable? No. Why weren't they lovable?
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You're laughing. Let's review. Why weren't they lovable? Why were they lovable?
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They weren't lovable. Why not? Give me some examples. Complaining, grumbling, fearful, idolatrous.
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And yet God loved them. So here's the point.
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God's choice of the nation of Israel, it wasn't anything intrinsic in them.
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It was intrinsic in his own character. He loved in choosing that and those who were unlovable.
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New Testament, Ephesians two, of course, just by way of review. By the way,
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I'm doing this intentionally. You know these passages. I mean, if you've been anytime here at BBC, but when you get to the point when you say, ah,
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I know this, you're not living by grace. Oh, let's move on, that's too convicting.
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Ephesians two. And we're all there, aren't we not? Verse four.
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And verses four and five, actually. Who'd like to read that? Thank you. There's a lot in there, but wanted to highlight, with the, because of, because of the fact that you were lovable.
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No, because we know from the context, we were dead in trespasses and sins. We walked following the course of this world.
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We followed the prince of the power of the air, the devil, our father, before we were saved. No, it was because of what was intrinsic, not in us, but because of what was intrinsic in him, because of his great love for us.
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And turn back to chapter one. If you could read, Pradeep, this one. Verses four and five.
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Thank you, thank you. In love, he predestined us. It was in love that he did this.
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His own love for us, despite the fact that we were unlovable.
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First motive, going back to our text, Colossians three. For why we are to put on, clothe ourselves with these garments of grace that are to be characteristic of our sanctified lives as we're growing in grace is because God chose us because of his love for us, especially when we were unlovable.
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And notice the second and third motive, what he says there in verse 12. Well, kind of part of it is highlighted, the third word actually, beloved, which we kind of highlighted.
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It's connected to being chosen and elect, that we are beloved of God because he has set his love on us, even when we were unlovable.
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And the second one is another motive that we are to put on, holy. Are we intrinsically, we're intrinsically not lovable, yet God loves us.
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Intrinsically and in of ourselves, are we holy? Of course not. But yet God says we are holy.
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How are we holy? Great. So we're talking about, as Tom highlighted, grace and the performed grace as it relates to our sanctification, the process between of our whole
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Christian life, justification and glorification. And this holiness, as he highlighted, is what we are, who we are in Christ positionally.
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And because this is who we are in Christ positionally, therefore, that's our motive for progressively being like that, being holy and working out our salvation.
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So these are our motives, very important, because if you seek to put on and be obedient to this and not properly motivated, you're gonna be caught up in legalism.
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You're gonna, remember what we talked about, grace and the performance treadmill? The two extremes, if you're not living by grace, are self -righteousness on the one hand or persistent guilt on the other hand.
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That's from three weeks ago. Those are the two extremes. You're either gonna be self -righteous and looking down on others because, look,
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I'm doing these things, or you're gonna be persistently guilty because you feel like you're never measuring up.
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So your motive is at question. So these are the three reasons we are to put on or clothe ourselves with these garments of grace.
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Okay, let's look at the first one. The first one, verse 12, is compassionate hearts.
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Compassionate hearts. Turn with me just to highlight this particular one.
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Matthew chapter nine, we're gonna see this as evident in the Lord's life during his incarnation.
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Matthew chapter nine and verse 36. Matthew 9, 36.
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Thank you. Because the crowds that Jesus saw were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd, the text says he had compassion on them.
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Same word, Greek word used in Colossians, that Paul used in Colossians three, put on, clothe yourself with compassionate hearts.
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Literally means, and even in the text here in Matthew about Jesus, he was moved so within his bowels, within his innards.
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That's how deep his moving, his compassion was. And that's the kind of compassion Paul is calling out for us, to have that kind of compassion, compassionate heart toward one another.
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That we're so deeply moved within ourselves, within our bowels, within our inwards. And it's a
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Christ -like characteristic, obviously, as we see here. That we are moved within our bowels and have that kind of deep compassion for one another.
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The second garment of grace that he highlights here is kindness.
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Kindness. Now in another list, in Galatians five, that's one of the fruit of the
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Spirit. Yes? Patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self -control.
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How is kindness, or how, let me rephrase that question. I haven't even asked the question, but how is kindness a fruit of the
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Spirit? How does the Spirit of God relate that fruit of kindness in our lives as we're continuing progressively to be sanctified?
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That Paul here tells us to clothe ourselves with. What's the relationship between the
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Spirit of God, working sanctification in our lives specifically in this area of kindness? Okay, great passage.
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First Peter three, it's hard, Joni said, let me just repeat that for the sake. It's hard to return, she finished by saying, a blessing for a curse.
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She said, our nature is to be unkind until God changes us. And yeah, when others are kind to us, we can be kind.
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But when they're unkind, we don't have a natural tendency to be kind to them. Yes, Wes? Okay, so he highlighted that kindness is not necessarily dependent upon what the other person has done for you.
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Because since it's a fruit of the Spirit, God has done for us when we haven't done anything for him.
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Very, very important. By the way, as we're going through this list, compassionate hearts, kindness, we're calling it garments of grace.
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They are garments of grace because our motives that we highlighted, God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, are because of grace.
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It's because of God's sovereign grace that we are chosen. It's because of God's sovereign grace in Christ that we are holy in him.
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It's because of God's sovereign grace that we are beloved when we are unlovable. So this is why they are called garments of grace.
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Because living by grace is understanding that everything we have is by grace. So compassionate hearts, kindness.
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The next one that he highlights as a garment of grace, something that we're to clothe ourselves with, is humility, humility.
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Tapi no frosini, to be, consider yourself, I like how Philippians 2 says it, do nothing out of selfish ambition, right, or vain conceit.
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But in humility, consider others more important than yourselves.
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And actually, that command is based upon what Paul does in Philippians, the kenosis, where he talks about Christ's humility and how he laid aside his glory without leaving his deity and came here to us and humbled himself as a slave.
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Why is humility so important in terms of living by grace? Since we're talking about living by grace.
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We're saved by grace, but why is this character of humility important when it comes to living by the grace of God?
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Because everything we have is by grace. So that's why he says, as he mentioned earlier, that's why we are to live with this character quality, humility.
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Can you think of, Joni, go ahead. Did you have your hand up? Go ahead, sure.
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So where humility comes in, Joni says, in the same parallel as we didn't have any choice into the family in which we were born, physical family, who our parents were gonna be, who our siblings were gonna be, in the same manner, we had no choice in being born again.
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That's the work of the Spirit of God, is it not? Excellent illustration. So, well, the connection between humility and grace is what did
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James and Peter said? God opposes who? But he gives what to the humble?
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Grace to the humble. Can you think of some people in the Old Testament who had issue with pride? Saul, okay,
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Saul, good. Anyone else? This person
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I'm thinking of, he had success as long as he sought the Lord as a king.
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What's that? David, yes. But this other king, who's that?
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Solomon. Yeah, those are the common kids. Those are all true, yes. He sought the Lord, he had success, but when he grew strong, he grew proud.
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And by the end of his life, what was his legacy? He was a leper. Who was that? So sign up for Old Testament IBS.
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No, Pradeep, just kidding. King Uzziah, right? Uzziah.
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Well, how about Nebuchadnezzar? The glory, when you read that text, it should be popping out like a yellow highlight.
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I have established this kingdom for the glory of my majesty. And then by the end, when he came to his senses, the text says,
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God is able to humble those who are proud. So humility is a garment of grace.
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Anyone in the New Testament, and Peter comes to mind initially, right? Those other 11, they might fail you.
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But not me, spiritual chest pounding, not me. And what did
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Jesus say to him, by the way? We don't have time to look at the text in Luke 22. He said, Satan has asked to sift you, but you are
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Peter, you are strong. No, what'd he say, Larry? But I have prayed for you, the intercessory prayer of the
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Lord Jesus Christ, his ministry of intercession. So humility is a garment of grace that we are to clothe ourselves with.
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Meekness, meekness. We've heard this before, meekness is not what? Weakness, it's characteristic of our
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Lord. Turn with me to Matthew 11. Matthew 11, I'm looking at my time clock here because that one's ahead by 20 minutes.
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So if you're looking there and saying, he's going way overboard. Matthew 11, verse 29.
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No hands I get to sovereignly choose, go ahead. What term there is translated different in English do you think is the same word as in Colossians 3, meekness, from this passage?
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Actually gentle, gentle, meekness, gentle in heart.
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It's also not only characteristic of the Lord, but turn with me to 1 Peter. This is actually what
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I had been praying for in a wife. And if you've gotten to know my wife, you know that this is true.
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1 Peter 3, verse 4.
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Peter here is contrasting adornment, the outer adornment, right? Versus inner adornment, the inside.
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But verse 4, 1 Peter 3. Larry, you got that?
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Good. Talking to the women, likewise wise. Verse 1, the context of a gentle and quiet spirit.
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But I would then the Greek mild in disposition. And what does Peter say about this?
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Two things. It's the imperishable beauty. The outward beauty is perishable, but not this inward quality.
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And not only that does he highlight it about it. It's what in God's sight. I love that.
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Very precious. Very precious. That's how we are to adorn ourselves. Have that kind of disposition towards one another.
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Fifth quality that we're to clothe ourselves with, patience from our text, Colossians 3. This is another garment of grace because of God's grace in choosing us, being made holy in Christ and being beloved when we're unlovable.
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We're to close ourselves with patience. It literally means, we use the English term.
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He has a short fuse, right? This literally means to have a long fuse.
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That's literally what it means. It takes a lot to get this person to be angry, actually. That's what it means to be patient.
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Ipomone. And then further, as we close, I wanna focus on this last one as we get to the end, verse 13.
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Bearing with one another. We're gonna have time to go into some other references that highlight what that means. The word really is forbearance, which is not used a lot today.
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It's when Jesus talked about in the Gospels as he looked over Jerusalem, said, how long must
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I put up with you? That's the idea of little things that might be idiosyncrasies that somebody else has that we put up with, we forbear with them.
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Ephesians 4, bear with one another in love. But notice how he ties it into forgiveness.
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And he continues in verse 13. If one has a complaint against one another, forgive each other as the
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Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
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So forgiveness is another garment, clothing, that we are to put on ourselves as we continue to live by the grace of God.
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I think somebody highlighted earlier that we are forgiven, of course, by the grace of God so that when we extend forgiveness to others, it is by grace.
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It can't be any other way. Next week, we'll talk about more of the one another's, how we are to be ministers of grace.
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But for the sake of our lesson today, forgiveness, forgive one another as the
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Lord has forgiven you. I was watching last night, this is my tradition, usually
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Saturday nights, MacArthur, one of his messages on forgiveness.
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And he said, well, there was a time when somebody after his message would come up to him and said, you need to forgive me about something.
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And MacArthur said to them, I don't even know who you are. What have
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I done? And he said, well, let me tell you. He's like, no, I don't wanna know. He said the instance,
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I have other people come up to me and says to me, you know, so -and -so passed me by in church and they didn't even say hi to me this
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Sunday. You think they'd be willing to ask me to be for me to forgive them? So somebody walks by you in church.
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He says, people come up to me when they talk about forgiveness and asked me that Pastor MacArthur said. So, so -and -so passed me by in church today and they typically say hi to me, but they didn't say hi to me today.
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So you think they'll approach me, that person who didn't say hi to me and asked me for me to forgive them? And MacArthur's response was, get over it.
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It's not what we're talking about. When it's a true offense, someone has truly sinned against you.
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We are to forgive. Spurgeon, to be forgiven is such sweetness that honey is tasteless in comparison with it.
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But yet there is one thing sweeter still and that is to forgive. Okay, think with me for the sake of time, we're not gonna look at the text.
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Matthew 18, the parable of the unmerciful servant, who'd like to relate that story to us? What happened there?
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There's two servants, two slaves and two masters who can relate, give us a synopsis of the story there that Jesus told us, if you recall it.
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If not, we'll also be having New Testament 101. Just kidding. Go ahead, Ken.
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Okay, yeah. Okay, yes.
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Excellent. It's if you look in your Bibles, those are part of the inspired text, but usually has titles over certain sections, right?
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What is this title usually in your Bibles? The parable of what? The unforgiving servant or the unmerciful servant, right?
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The focus being on the second one, right? Because he was the one who was unmerciful. I wonder if the title should be labeled about the first master of the merciful servant, because that's the key to understanding forgiveness.
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And as he highlighted, he owed a debt. So forgiveness is not washing over and saying, oh, it didn't hurt me what you did and sinned against me.
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No, that's not it. The person owes, we owe God, right?
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We owe a debt that we could never pay, but thanks be to God because of Christ. Same way when somebody sins against me, whether it's someone in the body or a spouse, they owe a debt, but to grant forgiveness literally means based on that, is to cancel the debt that they owe.
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Now, just to help out with a little bit, on just to show you the massive discrepancy between the two, the first servant, oh, the text says 10 ,000 talents, okay?
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Just to bring it down to our modern day. One talent, so he owed 10 ,000 talents.
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One talent was equal to guess how many years of wages? Wes? Go ahead.
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20, very good. 20 years of wages, one talent.
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So 20 years of wages for you math majors like myself, multiply that by 10 ,000, astronomical.
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Another perspective on what he owed, those days the total revenue by the Roman government every year, annually, was 900 talents, not even 1 ,000, and this guy owed him more than 10 times the amount.
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You get the weight of that? What he forgave him? What that second, that servant who was forgiven, what his servant owed him, 100 denarii, was worth three months of wages.
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Here's Jesus' point. The first master represents the Lord. Whatever offense anybody else has offended with you, remember context, we're talking about living by grace.
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Whatever offense anybody else has offended against you, or sinned against you, is a drop in the bucket compared to your offense against a holy
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God, and he's granted you forgiveness. So that's why I say it should be entitled the parable of the merciful servant, or the forgiven servant, because that's the key to understanding.
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When you struggle with forgiving others, you have to go back and remind yourself how much you owe the
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Lord, which you could never have paid, as the parable illustrates, and how much he has forgiven you.
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He who has forgiven much loves much, right? Luke 7. Now, that doesn't mean that as, because we still have our flesh, that, oh, you know,
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I'm struggling with forgiveness. So here's the attitude. I think I discussed this a couple years ago when we talked about reconciliation, but nonetheless, this is important to remember.
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So if I have this stance, you know, this person has really hurt me, and offended me really deeply, but I wanna do that which honors the
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Lord. I wanna forgive them, despite the fact that I've been hurt. They're being honest with their pain, versus, remember, we're living by grace.
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Self -righteousness, one of the results. I don't deserve this. What did I do to deserve this?
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There's no way I will ever forgive this person. I remember my late uncle, who passed away a few years ago.
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I did his funeral. Years before that, I had the opportunity to talk to him when we were waiting at the airport on our way to Greece, and he had a lot of people who had caused some deep -seated pain in his life, and he kept a record of wrongs, year after year after year.
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So I said to him, I gave him the gospel. He grew up in a Protestant church, had heard the gospel, but as it related to this aspect of forgiveness,
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I shared with him the parable from Matthew 18, and saying that forgiveness, granting forgiveness to others, is evidence that you have been forgiven by God.
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He who has forgiven much, loves much. But yet he decided he wasn't gonna grant forgiveness.
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Martin Lloyd -Jones, I can't say it with his Welch -Gras, but you can hear it,
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I'm sure, said this about forgiveness. I say to the glory of God in an utter humility that whenever I see myself before God and realize even something of what my blessed
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Lord has done for me, I'm ready to forgive anybody anything, end quote.
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When you realize what your blessed Lord has done for you, you should be able to say, like Lloyd -Jones,
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I'm ready to forgive anybody. Let me close with this. If any questions or comments before we close on these garments of grace, and of course at the end
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I didn't spend much time above all these things Paul says, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity, living in harmony with one another.
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So the key, and this will kind of relate to last week what Pastor Steve covered, the key as we live by grace, a lot of times we think we preach the gospel, the saving gospel, the gospel of grace, to those who need the gospel, who are sinners who need to be saved by grace.
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But once God has saved me, I don't need the gospel anymore. I need, give me some deeper truth.
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So if I'm to live by grace and not by the performance treadmill, because if I live by my own, the sort of my own performance,
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I'm gonna be either self -righteous against others and towards myself, or I'm gonna have this persistent guilt.
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The key to resolving that is preach the gospel to yourself. The key to resolving any legalistic attitude you might have is preach the gospel to yourself.
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The key to putting on, to clothing ourselves with these garments of grace is preach the gospel to yourself.
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Why? Because when you preach the gospel to yourself, you'll be reminded that you are chosen of God, holy, and beloved.
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And by the way, for those of you relating to last week, when your kids come to you and say,
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I want to be baptized, as was the Sunday school last week, or whatever your kids may come to you, or as one of my daughters, and I know, dear brother, we were talking about this.
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One of their kids is the same as saying, you know, they wanna do well. And then I saw my daughter, my oldest daughter one time, sitting on the stairs and just kind of down and crying.
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I said, sweetie, what's bothering you? She says, I wanna do what's right and obey you and mom, but I can't do it.
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Well, how, what do you tell them? Let me show you the 10 steps of sanctification. I preach the gospel to her.
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If a person's not a believer, you can't go wrong when you preach the gospel to them. If a person is a believer, you can't go wrong when you preach the gospel to them.
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So preach the gospel to yourself every day, and that'll help you live by the grace of God. Father, thank you for the truths of your word.
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Thank you for the clarity of your word. And Father, we acknowledge that we are saved fully by your grace, but Lord, we want to live more and more by your grace.
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And that means for us, amongst other things, is to clothe ourselves with these garments of grace in light of what you've done for us, in light of choosing us and in Christ making us holy and beloved, that we would put on these character qualities, these garments of grace, as it were, and give us your grace and your strength by the power of your