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Tony Gulbrandsen

40 Days of Prayer for Church Revitalization • Sermon • Submitted 6 years ago

Colossians 3:12–17

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The church should be built with the characteristics of Christ

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Colossians 3:1–17 ESV

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all. Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in 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. 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.

-17PRAY

PRAY

Do you remember the old commercial where an actor would step in front of the camera with a white lab coat on and say, “I am not a doctor, but I play one on TV”? Well, I think if any of you took a good look at my construction projects at my house you would say, “He’s not a carpenter, but he plays one at home.”

Building

For instance, some years ago, I put up some walls in our home. With the exception of the first wall I framed in, they looked pretty good, even if I do say so myself. The first one, however, showed my lack of carpentry skills vividly. The studs all were plumb from the floor to the ceiling, but instead of being parallel to the back exterior wall of the house, the wall angled back. From one end to the other there is a four-inch difference when measured from the exterior wall. What in the world did I do? I measured all of the timbers correctly. I hammered the right nails into the wood. I even stood the wall up in approximately the right place. What I failed to do was put a straight line on the floor to show me where the wall was supposed to go. I didn’t follow the plan I had drawn up. I just guessed at the right placement and it shows. I learned a valuable lesson that day.

In commercial building ventures, the first person hired is the architect. It is the architect that decides the right plan for the needs before it. The architect decides on the sizes of rooms. He determines the best place to put walls so the structure of the building is sound. He even determines what type of materials should be used. In short, the workers implement the architect’s plan. They just put the plans into action. The architect, however, has done all the planning.

Our passage today, verses 12-17, contains a similar instruction to the church at Colosse. Paul has written what some have said is the greatest study of Jesus Christ in the Bible in his letter to the Colossians. In verse 1-11, he has argued that the Christians in that church needed to shed their garments of earthly desires and put on new bodies, bodies that are conformed to Jesus Christ. In verses 12-17, I want us to see four architectural features of the church. These features are the very thing the great Architect, Jesus, has planned for His church. He has determined the materials, the layout, and even the function of His church.

Before we go too much further, I want you to understand that I am not talking about this building when I talk about the great Architect’s plan for His church. Throughout Scripture, the term church is rarely used in reference to a building. It is always a reference to those who are followers of Christ. As we look today at these four architectural features of Christ’s church, let’s remember that if you are a believer, it is about you. In , Paul shows us four features of the architecture of a church.

I. Bricks

The first architectural feature Paul shows us of a church is the bricks of the fruits of the Spirit.

A. Verses 12 – 13

B. Let’s begin by the basic material. According to the Bible, the church should be made up of those who have been chosen by God, holy and beloved. We are not talking about a social club. We are not talking about the community gathering place. We are talking about people who have come to know Jesus in a very real and personal way coming together to worship Holy God and work for His kingdom. Paul here is reminding the church at Colosse of their beginnings. They should begin their thinking as someone who is different because they have been saved by Jesus. That must be our first thought when we think of the church. It is comprised of those who have been saved.

C. But how do we know if a church is filled with saved folks or just folks putting on faces? Paul goes on to describe how those who are saved should act. Let’s look at the terms Paul lists here of how a Christian should act. He likens the Christian life to a wardrobe and he says, Put on

1. Compassionate hearts – This is the idea that a Christian should have pity and tenderness toward the suffering and miserable. We don’t kick a man when he is down. We want to help him when he is in pain.

2. Kindness – has been described as sweetness of disposition. It combines the ideas of goodness, kindliness, and graciousness.

3. Humility – Not very high on a list of virtues from the ancient pagan world. It is, as one commentator put it, “the thinking lowly of ourselves because we are so.” It is a recognition of our position before Holy God. When you think about yourself in relation to God, it should humble you. It should make you realize how low you really are.

4. Meekness – the opposite of arrogance and self-assertiveness. This is tied closely with humility that we just touched on. It is the idea that you will work for the benefit of others before your own benefit. You have the desire to see others succeed more than yourself. A meek person is one who is willing to make concessions.

5. Patience – also called longsuffering. It is the idea of self-restraint that enables one to bear injury and insult without resorting to hasty retaliation. It is keeping a lid on our anger. It is maintaining our composure even when some would say we were justified in losing our cool.

D. And then, in case you don’t quite get how the members of the church should act based on those five virtues, Paul gives some situational pictures of how these should work out in the life of a body of believers.

1. Bearing with one another – This is loving the unlovable. This is about bearing with faults we see in others. Sometimes there are people that it is just hard to hang around. We may not like them for whatever reason. It could be they remind us of someone we have a bad memory of. Or it could be that they have said things that have angered us. In any case, we, as believers, are to bear with one another. Spend time together even when it is not on our top list. I’ll tell you the lesson I learned about loving the difficult to love. There is really nothing in me that is special. I had a pastor tell me once to pray for the one that I was having difficulty with. Now, I honestly don’t remember the other person changing as a result of my prayers, but I no longer had the problem. God used my prayers to change me.

2. Forgiving one another whoever has a complaint against anyone – Paul is saying we should not hold any grudges. Someone may have wronged you once, but don’t hold a grudge. They may have said some awful things about you, but don’t bear a grudge. I have heard sermons that say to forgive means to forget. And I have also seen Christians beat themselves up because they couldn’t forget the pain that had been put on them. Listen carefully to what I am saying. Forgiveness is not forgetting. It is not acting as though nothing ever happened. It is saying that you will not hold the hurt against the person any longer. It is thinking and saying that the other person does not owe you for the pain they caused. In the business world the term forgive means to release someone from their obligation. If you have a loan, the bank can decide to forgive your loan which means you do not have to pay them. Now, I know that scenario is highly unlikely, but think about it. You borrowed money from the bank and they say your debt is forgiven. Does it change the fact that you used the banks money? No, you still got the bank’s money and used for whatever purpose you desired. The debt has been forgiven, but not forgotten. I guarantee your credit report shows that loan. Likewise, when we are injured by something someone else has said or done, we need to forgive. It doesn’t say that the event never happened, it just says that we refuse to hold it against that person any longer.

3. Then Paul provides a little more explanation on forgiveness. Just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. You may say to me, “Pastor, you just don’t understand how deeply that person hurt me.” Paul says we are to forgive just as Jesus forgave us. Do you think your pain from that other person is any more intense than the agony of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemene? When He thought of our sin and the price He was about to pay for it, His sweat became mingled with blood from the agony of it. Do you really think your pain is that intense? Jesus forgave us. I think we need to work on forgiveness.

E. The first architectural feature of a church that Paul shows us is that of the building materials.

II. Mortar

The second of the four architectural features of a church that Paul shows us is the mortar of love.

A. Notice in , And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony

B. All those other things are held together by love. The term used for love here is AGAPE. The thing that holds the church together is love. AGAPE is a self-sacrificing love. It is the kind of love described when Jesus said, Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for a friend.

C. You see, the very thing that would provide unity in the body is self-sacrificing love. All of those other virtues will be taken care of if we begin with love.

D. What is different about the church? It should be love. It should be that people are perplexed about the kind of love we show to each other. They should be wondering how we can be so different. Love is what binds it all together. How hard is it for us to love each other? I dare say it is no harder than Jesus had it when He died in our place. Jesus is the one who makes this kind of love possible. This kind of love is not self-seeking, but self-sacrificing. This kind of love is not greedy, but giving. This kind of love is not inwardly focussed, but outwardly focussed. This kind of love is a Godly love. And a church that calls themselves a Godly church should be demonstrating this kind of love. That is what Paul is saying in our passage today.

E. The first architectural feature of the church is the bricks and the second is the mortar that holds those bricks together.

III. Windows

The third architectural feature of the church is the windows of worship.

A. Let’s look at verses 15-16,- 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.

B. Why would I think that these verses are the windows of the church? In my first church, we had 20-foot high, stained-glass windows on either side of the sanctuary. They brought both color and light into the room. Every time I walked into that room I was awed by the beauty that those windows brought to the room. They are a key architectural feature to the building.

C. Similarly, every thing about our lives should be lit up and colored by the peace of Christ ruling in our hearts. That peace includes thankfulness for our salvation. And just like the light from these windows totally illuminates this room, our lives should be totally illuminated by the word of Christ – The Bible.

D. With all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another – he is saying that we should have the word of God as our focal point. Then he goes even further and says we should have psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in our hearts to God. Those are not necessarily three different categories of songs. I think Paul is just saying that there is great variety in Christian music. We have seen that right here in our own congregation. There are people here who like hymns. I like many of the old hymns, A Mighty Fortress is our God is one my all-time favorite hymns. There are others here who like Southern Gospel. Yes, I also like Southern Gospel. I remember the Gaither Homecoming we went to years ago and enjoyed the beautiful harmonies of quartet singing. There are others here who like Christian Contemporary music. I also enjoy that form of music. It often boils down to my mood as to which type of music I listen to.

E. My point is not that there is only one kind of music. Paul lists three categories of music and then says singing with thankfulness in our hearts to God. In other words, whichever kind of music you enjoy and there are more than I have mentioned this morning, sing it with thankfulness of heart to God. It’s not about the musical style it is about the condition of the heart. That is what Paul is saying here. The so-called worship wars between different styles of music are just distracting ploys of the enemy. Our goal is not a particular style of music but on singing with thankfulness in our hearts to our God.

F. The first architectural feature of a church is the bricks of the fruits of the spirit, the second is the mortar of love and the third is the windows of worship.

IV. Acoustics

The fourth architectural feature that Paul points out in this passage are the acoustics of the gospel.

A. Now wait a minute, a sound system is not an architectural feature is it? Yes, it is. When building a new church building, the acoustics of the rooms as well as wiring for sound are critical parts of the architectural design. There are actually angles put in worship centers that enhance the sound quality. In other words, many parts of the architecture come to play in order for the acoustics, or sound to be heard at its absolute best.

B. Paul shows here in verse 17, what it is that all other things should be working to enhance. Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.

C. In everything we do, sound is part of it. Even people who are deaf can feel sound if it is turned up loud enough. In similar fashion, Jesus needs to be the focal point of all we do as a church. Jesus is who changes people. Jesus is who we should always remember. Jesus is the one who will stick with us. It is Jesus that we need to focus on. It is Jesus that should permeate into every nook and cranny of our church. If it is related to our church and it is not about Jesus, why are we doing it at all?

D. Paul tells us right here WHATEVER you do in word or deed do all in the name of the Lord Jesus. And our attitude is not that we are, as the old saying goes, suffering for Jesus. We are to have the attitude of gratitude. We are to be thankful to God through Jesus. We are always to keep our efforts focused in a thankful way on Jesus.

E. The fourth architectural feature of the church is the acoustics.

Church: Designed and Built by Christ

In conclusion, we have looked at four architectural features of a church. We have looked at the bricks of the fruits of the Spirit. We have looked at the mortar of love. We have looked at the windows of worship. And we have looked at the acoustics of the Gospel.

Christian, are you seeking to be part of the architecture for Christ’s church by controlling your own thoughts and actions to the best of your ability? Are you striving to reflect the fruits of the Spirit? Are you making sure you are motivated by love? Is your worship characterized by light and thankfulness? Is everything you do focussed on Jesus? If you are not a Christian, would you like to experience this life peaceful life I have been talking about yourself?

As I wrap up, I want to read the words of a great hymn that talks about the Great Architect and His church.

The church’s one foundation

is Jesus Christ her Lord.

She is His new creation,

by Spirit and the Word.

From heav’n he came and sought her,

to be His holy bride.

With His own blood he bought her

and for her life He died.

Elect from ev’ry nation

Yet one o’er all the earth

Her charter of salvation,

One Lord, one faith, one birth

One holy name she blesses

Partakes one holy food

And to one hope she presses

With ev’ry grace endued.

Mid toil and tribulation

And tumult of her war

She waits the consummation

Of peace forever more

Till with the vision glorious

Her longing eyes are blest

And the great church victorious

Shall be the church at rest.

The time to rest is not now. The time to be at ease is not now. Remember, the church is the bride of Christ. To the groom, the bride is the most beautiful women on the planet. On the wedding day, the bride has spent hours getting every hair in place. She is wearing the perfect dress. She is beautiful. We, as the church of Jesus Christ, need to be working to be beautiful in the eyes of God. Now, I am not saying that we can in any way earn our salvation. Our passage today does not say we need to work in order to earn something. Rather, all of the demands of this passage are to be motivated out of thankfulness for the what we have already been given, eternal life.

Come to Jesus

Do you have that gift this morning? Are you thankful? If not, is it because you never understood the gift Jesus offers you? Jesus came to earth, lived a perfect life, and died a criminal’s death in your place in order to pay the debt for your sin. If you look at your life, you know that you have rebelled against God. That rebellion is known as sin. Jesus provides a way out of that rebellion. He offers it as a free gift to all who will receive it. You see, a gift is not a gift unless it is received. Would you like to receive this gift this morning?

- for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

- but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

- For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

- because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

You can be saved today, right now. Would you confess with your mouth that Jesus is going to be your Lord, your master, you leader for the rest of your life? Do you believe that God raised Jesus from the dead? That is how we are saved from our death, the just punishment for our sin. Won’t you follow Jesus today? Won’t you join with millions of other Christians down through the centuries who are the beautiful bricks of God’s church, bond together with the mortar of love, lit up brightly by the windows of worship, and resounding with the acoustics of the Gospel? Won’t you come to Jesus today?