Body Life - One, two 'one anothers'

Well, good morning. We're continuing on with, whoops, kind of scared me there for a second. A little bit more lively than I thought. Hopefully this will be lively. This message is about the body of Christ. That's us-ins, we-ins, all of us that know Christ as our Savior. And actually, this passage, Vern said, Roger, you got the best passage.

And I think I have. I feel so blessed. And the time I spent looking through this, I spent about the last month looking through that. And there is actually so much more that could be said about this passage. So what I've learned, hopefully I can share that faithfully. And hopefully it will be edifying to you.

So I like to start out with the first three verses. It says, so as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another and forgiving each other. Whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things, put on love, which is a perfect bond of unity.

So as we go through, I sort of want to start out with a Hmm, interesting, interesting, okay. Came out a little bit different. I was gonna bring each of those points in individually. I might have lost some of that. Anyway, we can carry on here. In PowerPoint, what's cool is, for you folks, you can bring in each of the lines individually. You probably know this. So I was gonna do that, but it's okay. It's okay, a little surprise, but not to worry.

Okay, first of all, in these first three verses here, we're going to see four things. We're going to see something that talks about our position in Christ. It's interesting, this section, you know, many people say, well, I'm going to get through the first section of the books of Paul, and then I'll get down to the really good stuff, the stuff I can check off, put in my refrigerator. Well, you know, Paul, I guess that section refers you back to your position in Christ. That must be pretty important to know who I am in Christ and what's happening there. So the first part of this verse is going to talk about who we are. We're the called. The next is going to talk about the fruits of the Spirit. How we interact. How does the body of Christ interact?

Do I try to do my very best? Do I just try to be as nice as I possibly can? As sweet as I possibly can? Shake everybody's hand? Invite them all over for dinner? Invite every single person in this room over for dinner? Is that what the Lord has in mind? Or is it something that he has provided? His attributes, not our attributes. Everybody over for supper?

And then it says, when there's a complaint, when there's an issue among believers, what do we do? We just throw our hands up and say, boy, this is for the birds, I'm going someplace else. And some people do that, unfortunately. They have a dealing in a body of believers and something happens, they say, Well, I guess I'm out of here. I've had problems. There's a way the Lord wants us to deal with that. And it's not what we think. It's not trying to fix those people.

It's bearing with them, forgiving them. And then lastly, what holds us all together in these three verses? It's love. It's God's love. It's the glue that holds it all together. Okay. Actually, it's going to work this time. I don't know what the first one did. Okay. So the first point, I don't know what I did. It brings them all in. Okay.

Okay, so the first point is that it says, so as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved. So here he's going to talk about who we are. We're chosen of God, right? We didn't choose ourselves, He chose us. And how did we get chosen? We trusted Him by faith. And then we find out after we trusted Him by faith, oh, you're chosen.

And you think, how does that work out? And I'm not going to be able to explain that this morning. But that's what the scripture says. That when you trust in by faith, you're then called a chosen, or you're an elect one. And there's kind of two sub-points to that. That you're holy, and you're holy in your position, and you can be holy in your condition. But I think what's focused here is this is a positional aspect. You're holy in your position.

If you've been involved in the elective on who you are in Christ, we've been going through a whole list of all these wonderful riches of God's grace. We're chosen, we're called, we're redeemed, we're reconciled, we're made near, we're heavenly citizens. All these wonderful attributes that we have in our bank account, so to speak, that who we are in Christ. So that's our position in Christ. And then, so that's our position, and holy is one of those positions, if you will.

And then he goes on to say, he says, you're beloved. And this word beloved is a special form of the word for love in the Greek. It has the idea of, and with the verb tense, it's God's past love for us, his present love for us, and his future love for us. And actually the tense is this wonderful one that says, it's a past completed action with abiding results. We were loved in the past, and we continue to be loved up into the present and on into the future. So it's not just a one-time thing. God didn't say, I love you, and end of story. God wrote me a note and said love me one time. No, he says I love you from beginning to end and I continue to love you. I always will love you. And that's based upon his son and what he accomplished in Calvary. So that's the first part of verse 12.

And actually I just wanted to kind of go back. This is a chart that Hal put together many years ago. I think it was 98. He put it together. And he borrowed parts from other folks. It just kind of shows you, if you've not thought this aspect before, when we look at our Bibles, when we go through our Bibles and we look at different passages, we're going to see some passages talk about a position. I just talked about that. We're called, we're blessed. And that kind of shows a picture of the couple there in heavenly places. And God describes all these wonderful blessings.

And then he talks about What we're talking about today, to some extent, is our condition. How do we interact with believers? How do we work with believers? And that's kind of our condition. Where to live, Scripture talks about living. Our mind should be thinking, well, this is who I am in Christ, and this is how God wants me to live, based upon who I am, where I'm seated. I'm seated with Christ in the heavenlies. That's our mindset.

So this chart is just kind of to give you a visual presentation of that. So we're going to be talking mostly about condition this morning. Okay, so the next part, we're going to talk now about this little, the rest of the phrase here, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. We're first going to talk about that little word put on.

In the Greek, it's just one single word in duo, and it's a very interesting word. It's a word that is like a garment. If I were to put on my overcoat or put on a coat, I would be clothing myself. So it said we're to put on. And actually I have some more details on that.

The believer is told to put on, and he's going to put on these five attributes, heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. And it says basically that those are, they are really not, they're not something that we strive to do. We'll find out that those are really, if you look at those lists, that list of the heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness. And if you were to go, if you have your Bibles, and if you turn to Galatians, Galatians chapter 5, we'll see a really interesting comparison. If you were able to line these up, you'd have Galatians on this side, and then you'd have a Colossians passage here. So let's read through the Galatians 5, starting in verse 22. Let's read through this list of attributes.

And it says, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, against this thing there is no law. So there's nine of those, if you count them up there. There are nine things. You line up those nine, and you take these five, and there's actually a couple more that are going to be mentioned later on, love and peace. You line those up, you're going to say, well, wait a minute. I've got love. You check off love, peace, patience, kindness and goodness. faithfulness, gentleness, you're going to see a matching up.

So what you begin to realize, he's telling me to put on something. Well, wait a minute. How do I put on the fruits of the Holy Spirit? If you think about that, can I actually do that? Can I actually put those on? How do I put them on? There's kind of several questions. How do I put them on?

The source of those, is that the source of myself? It certainly is not. It doesn't come from me. That comes from God. So those fruits of the Holy Spirit is what he's talking about here. And he lists only a partial list of those. So what's wonderful is when he says, put on, actually I have a little graphic here, you're putting on these clothes, you're putting these on and they're the very life of Christ, the very fruits of the Holy Spirit.

And there's two aspects to that. There's a conditional aspect and a positional aspect, right? We talked about our two aspects. The positional aspect, if you look in Galatians, if you have your Bibles, Galatians 3.27, this talks about our positional aspect of putting on. It says, for all of you who were baptized into Christ Jesus have clothed yourselves, that's our word, with Christ. So it says, Every single believer has been baptized or placed into Christ. The moment he believed, he was placed into Christ.

And that's never to change. That's our position. That's who we are. That's what we're all about. We're placed into Christ. And they say as a result of that, it says here, that you'll clothe yourselves with Christ. So that's our position. Positionally, we are clothed 24-7. We never cease to be clothed with Christ. But how about conditionally? And in Romans 13, 14, we have that verse. And it uses the word put on again. Romans 13, 14 says, So once again, the admonition to put on. We're to put on what the Lord has provided for us. We're to trust.

And how does it happen? It happens by faith. We start by faith and we live the Christian life by faith. Faith never ceases in the Christian life. We started by faith, we continue by faith. We don't all of a sudden, well, faith is done, now I get down to checking off lists and whatever. Law, basically. You don't start down that path. Faith starts a Christian life and it continues a Christian life. And there's actually a parallel passage. I'll just talk to it.

The armor of God, in Ephesians 6.11 it says, put on the full armor of God. Same verb tense, same everything. Same idea, you're putting on these wonderful fruits of the Holy Spirit, which has already been given to you. Okay, so that's verse 12.

And now what we're going to do is we're going to go through each of these five attributes here. And let's just go on here. Okay, so we're going to kind of do the first two. The first two are heart of compassion and kindness. And if you have a King James, that heart of compassion kind of comes across as, maybe a little bit antiquated, bowels of mercy or tender affection.

And I think the reason it's that way is because the original word actually speaks... Have you ever had a traumatic situation and you come away and your stomach is just aching, your gut is just aching? Well, that's kind of the idea. The inward part of you is aching or having some reaction.

We call it the heart many times. The heart is the seat of emotion. You have a tender heart or a not so tender heart or whatever. That word in the Greek is what is translated heart of compassion or bowels of mercy. It speaks to the center of our emotion.

Actually, in Philippians 1.8, and if you would want to turn there, that's fine. You don't have to. I'll just read it to you.

Philippians 1.8. uses this word, it says, for God is my witness, how I long for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. And affection here is this word, bowels of mercy, tender compassion. So what's interesting is you notice here, this is an attribute that's ascribed to Christ. So all these attributes, these five attributes that we see, Christ has them all.

So it's even more verification, this is not coming from me. I'm not going to tomorrow go and say, Bonnie, I'm going to put on a heart of compassion for you. No, I can't do that. I have to trust the Lord and the Lord will work through me to accomplish that. Okay, then the next one is kindness or goodness of heart, doing that which is right.

Ephesians 2.7 talks about that.

And it says, so that in the ages to come he might show the surpassing riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. So here we see that word used, kind of grace and kindness are kind of combined. They're kind of combined together. Grace and kindness. And once again, it's Christ's kindness, God's kindness, not our kindness. Now we go on. The next, there's three more here. Humility, gentleness, and patience.

And actually some of these, you know, as I thought about, I looked at these and I thought, you know, we're blessed in this body to have some examples in here. So I've asked a couple of people if I could use their names in here. And one is with the Lord. So it's tough to ask him, but I'm sure he wouldn't mind. So the first one is humility. Humility of mind. And Philippians 2, 3 talks about that. It's the idea that it's a correct estimation of yourself.

Philippians 2.3 says, do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, regard one another, that's usans, as more important than yourself. So we regard our brothers or our sister more important than ourselves. That's humility. Gentleness. Gentleness is an interesting one. It's not what you think it is. Gentlemen, we accept God's dealing with us as good without disputing or resisting.

Can anyone of you think of a person that we had in this body that displayed that? You probably can. I'm thinking of our dear brother Hal. The year he spent in the hospital, did you hear him complaining about that? Or did you hear him almost the opposite? He said, The Lord has me just where He wants me. I'm right here in this hospital bed.

I get a chance to talk to the doctors and the nurses. Just mind-boggling. And I want to also mention our brother Norm. You talk to Norm sometimes. He says, you know, I'm in this chair, you know. It's okay. People told me, just pray a little harder and you'll get out of that chair. Well, the Lord has me just where He wants me. You talk to Norm sometimes. You'll be amazed.

So we see these attributes, and they're not our attributes, they're Christ's attributes. And then patience. Patience is forbearing or long-suffering. Self-restraint, before proceeding with action. And this one I was going to use myself, and I talked with somebody about this one.

You know, you look around here and we're all dressed different ways, and you say, well, you know, Joe's dressed this way and Sam's dressed this way, and Roger, he's got a tie on. What's this all about? How come you don't dress like everybody else? Why do you dress this way and that?

And I talked to Brad Mastin and he says, I wear a tie every day of the week. You know, I get, somebody comes, I'm tired of wearing ties. You know, and that's just wonderful. I'm not going to take up an offense against Brad because he's not wearing a tie. And the same way, if Bonnie says, Roger, you look much nicer in a tie. I said, hey, great, I'll wear a tie. So we're different. We have different, you know, interactions. So I'm not going to take up an offense. I'm going to be patient. You be patient with my tie, and I'll be patient without your tie.

Okay, so hopefully that's a that's an example that has put some meat on the bones there Alright, so let's go on Okay, the next verse is bearing with one another forgiving each other whoever has a complaint against one another just as the Lord Forgave you so also should you so I'm going to start with the middle part of the verse because actually If you look at this carefully, there's kind of an if implied in here, and it's actually an if statement in the original. If anyone has a matter of complaint against you. So in the original, it's assumed that someone comes to you.

I think I have a little pictorial here. And the phone rings. Roger, what have you done? I don't know what I've done, but anyway. So they have a matter of complaint. So, what are you to do about that? You throw your hands up, you say, well, time to go to someplace else? No. Don't do that. And a complaint is finding fault. I think in this case, it's really speaking of one which may be possibly not true. So, what do you do?

So, the rest of this verse is going to come back and it's going to tell you, how are we to act this out? How are we to live out this? A matter of complaint comes to us, how are we to react to that? Okay, it says, bearing with one another and forgiving each other. So two things, when this matter of complaint comes before you, if it does, it may not come, but it's pretty likely it will, it says, from the original language. So what do we do? So I kind of did a little summary there in the red. Having put on the fruits of the spirit, complaints are to be handled as follows.

Two ways we're to handle complaints. We're to bear with one another and we're to forgive each other. And Zodiatis had a statement about bearing with one another, spoken of persons to bear with, have patience with, in regards to the error or weakness in anyone. So it kind of assumes that maybe the complaint's been unjustly leveled your way, but it doesn't always happen that way. Sometimes it's justly leveled your way.

So what's interesting in here, You don't see it, the Lord doesn't say, okay, you bear with this person, and then after a year, he'll change his mind. It just says, bear with him. And what's even more astounding, you look at the tense, and it says it's the perfect tense, which means you bear with him in the past, present, and future. So the Lord says, hey, you may have to bear with this person, you don't know how long, time isn't important, but you as a believer, trusting the Lord, are going to bear with his brother or sister.

I found that in the same way with forgiving each other. So the Lord says, hey, you know, your attitude, your motivation is bearing with and forgiving each other. And forgiving each other is the idea of holding a grudge or a grievance. And once again, you're not going to hold a grudge or a grievance because we're dressed different ways, right? Okay. Alright, so let's go on. And the last part of this is, just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. So, and I kind of rendered it in the or statement there, even as, and in the degree that the Lord forgave you, in the same manner also you forgive. So if you think about it, how did the Lord forgive us?

He died on the cross. He gave his life for us. That's how he forgave us. And actually there's a verse in Ephesians, I think which is appropriate, Ephesians 2 verses 4 and 5, it says, but God being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved." So God forgave us when we were dead. We were without hope in this world. And he made us alive together with Christ. So that's how he forgave us. So now we go on.

So this last verse 14 kind of ties it all together, I think. It says, But beyond all these things, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. So all these things, I think, are the entire list. Actually, I have heart of compassion. All these things, I think, include that. And then you add love to that. And actually what's left out is a bearing and forgiving should be in there too, I believe. And love is this perfect bond of unity. It's glue that holds it all together. It covers all those things. And the perfect kind of indicates completion or fulfillment.

And I thought really that there probably isn't a better verse in scripture to read about this in terms of... And what I found when I read this verse, I haven't told you what it is yet, but this verse mentions many of these attributes of the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

And it mentions love and how they relate to that. And probably if you were to think about it for a little bit, you'd probably realize what verse it is. It's a verse in 1 Corinthians 13, verses 4-7. It talks about love. And it's interesting, I remember going back to Hal again just for a second.

Hal would often read this verse, it starts off, love is patient, love is kind. You could put in Christ is patient, Christ is kind. And you see all of this that the love motivation comes from Christ. It's His very life, His very attributes. So I want to read that for us, and I think that kind of ties this section all together.

Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous. Love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly, it does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with truth, Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Boy, do you notice many of the things we talked about are in that list. So love is the thing that ties it all together.

Okay, so let's go on. We've kind of talked about those four things are position in Christ, the fruits of the Spirit which govern our action, the bearing and forgiving with one another, and how the love is this bond of unity that ties it all together. So now we're going to go on to the remaining three verses. And these are wonderful verses, too. This is the part where I spent a lot of time. The first part, I got on the next part and said, boy, there's just a vast wealth here. And I only got a day or two to go. So, OK.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, plural, notice, to which indeed you were called in one body, and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you with all wisdom, teaching, and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Sing with thanksgiving in your hearts to God. Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father."

So I summarized that in kind of three parts, made pretty obvious. The peace of Christ is ruling. And once again, in this section here, the first section was more Maybe most of the verses talked about the interaction with one another. This tends to focus a little bit more on us, but it still talks about the body, kind of woven in there. So it talks about the peace of Christ ruling, the word of Christ dwelling, and all is done in the name of Christ. So it says, let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. Peace of Christ. There are two types in Scripture. And once again, we go back to position and condition. And the first one is the positional aspect. We have peace with God.

And we have peace with God as a result of the cross of Christ. And actually, in Romans 5, in verse 1, it tells us about that. Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. So we have a peace whose source is the Lord Jesus Christ. So that's the positional aspect of that peace.

Then the second aspect is the conditional aspect, and that's in Philippians chapter 4, verses 6 and 7. Let me read that for you. It says, Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. And this idea of guard is this idea of keeping watch over. The peace of Christ will keep watch over you.

So I think what's going on here is that And let's go on to the very last part of this. We've got this little guy here, and actually an umpire. And actually the word for rule, let the peace of Christ rule, is actually the idea of an umpire, or an arbitrator.

So what is being said here, I think, is that we've established peace with God. We know we have peace with God, and that was established at Calvary. And that's unvarying, unchangeable, never can change. But now, based upon that, we are to interact with one another based upon that, that we have peace with God. Each individual has peace with God, and we can interact corporately as having peace. So peace is to be the ruling aspect. There's other parts in this that I would like to go farther, but it's marvelous. So it's a peace of God. It's not a physical umpire. It's a peace of God that's the umpire. So that's kind of interesting there.

Okay, so let's go on. So the second part here is that, to which indeed you are called in one body. And a little hard to read maybe, but if you kind of restructure the sentence, you are called to peace in one body. Based on our peace in Christ, that every believer has, we're called to exhibit that peace corporately among one another. So that's kind of part two of this piece. We have this peace from God. We have peace among ourselves based upon that, and we're to interact and operate corporately based upon that.

Actually, I found this picture, and it's actually, I cut out the little sign, the real estate sign. I was thinking of Mike Doyle. I was trying to find some people who were shaking hands or having peace. So they're having peace about buying their house. So that's not exactly the message there, but you know, it's tough when you try to find these pictures.

Anyway, and what's interesting is we were called, just like we're called into all these wonderful blessings, we were called into this peace by God. It's not just, oh, by the way, you should do this. No, you're called based upon your peace in Christ to have peace in the body in one moment. among one another. This is where we tie in the individual aspects into the corporate aspects.

And it says, be thankful. And this thankfulness, the verb tense is, you're thankful for your own benefit. That's kind of interesting. I'm thankful for my own benefit. That's kind of a neat thought there. Okay, so let's go on. So the next let statement, let the word of Christ richly dwell within you. So this is a marvelous one. This is just really And notice it's to richly dwell within you. So the word of Christ, I believe here is the word of God, and the word richly is abundantly or plentifully, and dwell is to be at home. God's word is to be at home with us.

It's to go from this book into this heart. I mean, if it stays in this book, it's not going to do too much. But if it's appropriate, if we count upon what's in this book, becomes part of us, it's to richly dwell. That's going to govern our interactions. I like to call it the raw materials of faith. We'll have the raw materials of faith in us, and we'll be able to handle that.

Now, you can make this into a law. Well, I've got to memorize this, and I haven't memorized it. But I guarantee you, you spend time with it like you spend time with any person, you get to know it. And more than that, you get to know our Savior. So God's Word is to dwell in us, to be part of us, to be at home in us. We're to be familiar with it.

So you can't spend too much time in His Word, really. And the benefits are just incredible. Let me read a passage, a portion from Titus, talking about this richly, abundantly. It speaks about the Holy Spirit, but I think there's a kind of corollary. It says, The Holy Spirit has been poured out richly through Jesus Christ our Savior. So God's word, God's thoughts, God's mind have been poured out richly for us.

Alright, so let's go on. So now we're going to look at the rest of this first. Once we have these wonderful truths in ourselves, we're ready to interact with the body again. We're ready to be teaching and admonishing one another. There are two different words here. Teaching is the idea of instruction by mouth of the truth. It's like a tutor possibly. It's imparting the truth. We have many teachers here at Holly Hills. They take God's word and they speak it. They say it. They impart it. That's one aspect. So we're to be with all wisdom, teaching, and admonishing. Admonishing is the idea that there may be some issue at hand, something wrong or a warning. You're admonishing one another. So we're to be admonishing and teaching. There's two aspects of the interaction with the body when you have God's word dwelling within you. Okay.

And then here's the fun part for all you people that like to sing. What's interesting is here, it talks about, so you have God's word, you have this treasure, you have this treasure that you know, you have this, and you don't have it all, I can't say I've got this all, this is all inside me, every single jot and tittle, no it's not, but we're growing, we're understanding that, we're coming to know him. So as we do that, there's this thing that says what happens is there's singing with thankfulness in your heart to God with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. So you look at that list, and it's also listed in Ephesians 5, 19, singing and making melody in your hearts to God.

Notice that it's in your hearts. So I've heard people say, I think J. Vermagee mentioned this, He says, you know, you never hear me sing, but I'm singing all the time. I'm singing to God with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. So this is, I pictured a little bit wrong here. This is in your heart. That's a, you know, you can hear that one there. And psalms are the best I can tell.

I'm looking at a little research. Psalms are the Old Testament psalms. They put the music. Hymns are basically praise and thanksgiving to God, and spiritual songs seem to be basically songs about our Christian life. So finally, whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through hymn to God the Father. So if you think about it, Word. Everything you speak.

Everything you speak is covered. Deed. Every deed you do is covered. None excluded. So what's the motivation for whatever you do? Every word, every deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus. When the scripture has a name of something, I believe it's all the total totality of that person. The total totality of Jesus Christ. So everything you do, in word or in deed. Every interaction you have is in the name of the Lord Jesus, based upon who He is and what He's done.

And as a result of that, we give thanks. And notice, I haven't read there, we give thanks. Do I just say, I'm thankful, Lord? We give thanks once again through Him. Incredible. You cannot separate the Christian life from the Spirit of God working in you, the fruits of the Holy Spirit, That's the way the Christian life works. You take that apart, you have a bunch of laws, a bunch of rules. We get thanks for these wonderful things he's given us through him.

So let's pray. Dear Father, we thank you so much, Lord. We thank you for your marvelous word, Father. We thank you just that it It shows us the interaction of the body of Christ, how we are to have a heart of compassion, kindness, gentleness, all the fruits of your spirit, Lord, and how that's to govern our interaction and we're to bear with one another. forgive one another, and Lord, how the wonderful letting the peace of Christ rule in our hearts and your word rule in our hearts, Father. Just mind-boggling concepts, Lord.

We pray that they be more than concepts. They would be reality in our lives. As we trust you, Lord, we realize that you asked us only to trust you, only to believe in you, not to exercise our will. It's Christ in us, the hope of glory. Not I, but Christ. We thank you for our time this morning. We ask in His name. Amen.