Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Colossians 3:12-17 | Date: March 28, 2021 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Put on the New Self

A little bit later this morning, in verse five, he gives us more vices to be rid of. Here he changes the metaphor. You must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you’ve 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. So the imagery here in verse eight is the change of clothing. We’ve got a new man, a new creation, a new person in Christ, and so there has to be a corresponding behavior.

Now, beginning with verse 12, we’ll look at today, he itemizes more of the new wardrobe that we should have as the new man. So we’ve laid aside the vices—killed the vices, put them aside, be rid of them. Verses 8 and 9: lay aside anger, wrath, malice, slander, lying, all of that. Now verse 12: “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, 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.”

To tease out the metaphor here a little bit, in view is not just putting nice clothes on the old bum. It’s a new person, a new man. And now he’s got to have clothes that are appropriate to who he is and to his new status. So, a new kind of behavior fitting to who you are in Christ. And so he itemizes a number of them. Verse 12: a compassionate heart. Any of you have the old King James here? “Bowels of mercy.” That’s the Greek term that’s used here. It’s the older term, the inner being. “Bowels” means something entirely different today, so we don’t generally do that, and so we translate it “heart.” But either way, it’s a metaphor. It’s not talking about the organ that pumps blood either. It’s talking about the inside, the inner you. It’s a figurative expression for the inner man.

So the inner person, then, should be compassionate. Next one: kindness. That’s goodness, generosity, gentleness, doing good to others, speaking well to others, speaking well of others; kindness, doing good to others. I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, I think, that what an indispensably important virtue this is in terms of relationships and in terms of building up one another. Whenever you have been on the receiving end of someone’s kindness, you recognize how important this virtue is. So, a compassionate heart—we can say it this way—is how you feel toward one another in a loving way, and then it expresses itself in kindness, doing good to one another, acting in a loving way.

Next: humility. That is not seeking self-advancement, but seeking the enrichment of others, the advancement of others, honoring others. Humility—not having to be the center of it, not having always to stand on top at the end of the conversation. Humility. And then meekness: gentleness, willing to take wrong rather than inflict hurt. It doesn’t mean weakness. It doesn’t mean that you’re willing to be a doormat for everybody. It doesn’t mean you can’t confront wrong and confront injury and all of that. It doesn’t mean any of that. But it does mean that you’re more willing to take a wrong and let it go rather than lash back and harm a relationship. Meekness. “Controlled” is the idea, I think.

And then patience: not having to get even and not having to try to right every wrong that’s been done. Be patient, just the way you’d want people to treat you. Again, this doesn’t mean that you can’t address wrongs that are done to you, the corporate body in the church, or whatever. It doesn’t mean you can’t rebuke. There are commands for that, too. There’s a place for all of that. But as a characteristic, the Christian, he says, ought to be marked by a compassionate heart that shows itself.

You can see immediately—we read through these so quickly—but if you take your time and think through them at all, you see what a transforming effect this will have in congregational life. Notice, by the way, too, the first one: “compassionate heart,” or “bowels of mercy.” He’s commanding you to feel a certain way. You see that? He’s commanding you to cultivate affection for others. Don’t have a harsh attitude toward others, and don’t even have an indifferent spirit toward others, but cultivate a compassionate heart toward one another. That, in turn, will show itself in kindness and humility and meekness and in patience.

Now then, verses 13 and 14 expand on that, and they tell us what these virtues look like and how they manifest themselves in relationships further: “Bearing 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.” So we have bearing one another, forgiving one another, and loving one another; those are the three that are pushed here.

So, verse 13: bearing with one another. The idea there is enduring, or tolerating in the best sense—enduring with one another. The whole presupposition or what’s presupposed here is that people in the congregation will rub you the wrong way. There will be some things about some people that you just don’t like. You don’t like this aspect of his personality or her personality. You don’t like the way he talks about this or that. You certainly don’t agree with this opinion or that one that he holds or she holds. You don’t like the way they do this or the other. And you’re sure you’re right, and you may be. Endure with one another. Forbear with one another. Don’t let those things get under your skin and ruin your affection for one another or destroy the way you are supposed to behave toward one another. Those things should not interfere. You might just paraphrase this: “put up with one another.” Put up with one another. Recognize that everyone else is not going to be as perfect as you are and put up with them and bear with them accordingly.

And then forgiving one another. But notice the standard, as we always have in the New Testament: “as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” The word “forgive” here is a word that has some implications of grace in it. Forgiving as an act of grace is letting go and forgiving, frankly. And it’s a high standard that he gives. Forgive how? As Christ has forgiven you. It’s a gospel standard.

Now, you remember when Jesus dealt with this directly in Matthew chapter 18. He gave the parable of the unforgiving servant. And you remember the disciples asked, “How many times should I forgive? How many times my brother offend me and I still forgive him? Up to seven times?” I suppose Peter was being generous with that. Three times? No, let’s double that. Oh, let’s add one. Seven times. “Forgive me seven times, is that enough?” Remember what Jesus said? “No, not seven times. 70 times seven.” And you’re pretty clear at that point that Jesus is not saying—what is that, 490?—he’s not saying count them up and keep a tab and when finally you… he’s saying just no limit to this. Forgive as you have been forgiven. That’s the kind of people we are. We have been forgiven an enormous, incalculable debt. And if God had set any number limit to us—if He said, “I’ll forgive you this many times, but no more than that”—we’d all be goners. And that’s the standard he says we must have with one another. Your brother offends you, forgive him.

Verse 14: “Above all these things, put on love.” Now why is this the most important? Above all this, put on love. Why is it most important? Because this “binds everything together in perfect harmony.” So above all these—or we can use the metaphor again—over top of all of these other clothes that you’ve put on, put on love. Love is the bond, he says, that holds all of these others together. So the motivating virtue driving this cultivating of a compassionate heart—the motivating virtue driving kindness, compassion to one another, patience, humility, meekness—the motivating virtue behind it all is love. If I love you, I will be patient with you. If you love me, you will be patient with me. Frankly, we will need to be patient with one another. If we love one another as we ought in Christ, we’ll be patient, we’ll be meek, we’ll seek one another’s advancement and honor, and so on. And so Paul says, “above all these things, put on love,” because that will shape everything else that we have responsibility for.

Well, again, this is much like the verse I had you look up last time in Romans 12 and verse 10: “Love one another with a brotherly affection,” and then that spirit of competitiveness in the church that is so good for us: “outdo one another in showing honor.” Well, that’s what Paul is getting at here. All right, verses 12 to 14 then, we have the virtues that ought to mark or adorn every man and woman in Christ: compassionate heart (like Christ), be kind (like Christ), patient (like Christ), forgiving (like Christ), and so on. He is simply commanding a Christ-likeness in our attitudes and in our behavior.

Now, verse 12 again, notice how he shapes his appeal, how he addresses the people. Verse 12: “Put on then as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.” So he addresses them as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved. Pretty clear here, it’s beloved of God. Chosen of God, holy, set apart to God, made His, and beloved of God. That is a description of every man and woman in Christ. We are God’s chosen ones. That’s the doctrine of election. He has chosen us in sovereign mercy, despite our ill-desert. We are holy. That is, we are objectively set apart unto God in Christ and made His. And then beloved, that is, we’re loved by the triune God. So each of us then, he says, is chosen of God in sovereign mercy. Each of us is made holy in Christ. Each of us is beloved of God. Now, don’t you think that ought to have some bearing on the way that we relate to one another? I am chosen of God and you are chosen of God. I am made holy unto God in Christ. You are made holy unto God in Christ. I am beloved of God in Christ. You are beloved of God in Christ. Then we each must treat one another accordingly. Pretty clear, isn’t it? He shapes it by the gospel that we’ve embraced and says this ought to shape how we live and behave with one another.

I thought of one curious observation here in all of this. You remember back in our first lesson when I introduced Paul’s letter to the Colossians, and I said that a man by the name of Tychicus, we pointed out, delivered the letter to the Church at Colossae, but he was accompanied by a man by the name of Onesimus. Remember him? The letter to Philemon, the rift between Onesimus and Philemon. And it seems that these two delivered the letter to the Church at Colossae and the letter to Philemon, the personal letter to him, all at the same time. And we talked about how interesting that must have been when Tychicus and Onesimus show up at the door and knock, and Philemon opens the door, and there’s Onesimus. And Onesimus is probably saying something like, “Before you do anything, read this.” Well, you remember the kind of exhortation that Paul gave Philemon, that we looked at that one Sunday as well? Well, he does that here. And so I think it’s curious that Paul’s letter to Philemon accompanied this letter, and these virtues that Paul is impressing on the church, he’s gently pressing on Philemon as well, like he did in the personal letter to Philemon. And you can imagine Philemon sitting there in the congregation as this letter is being read: “Develop a heart of compassion for one another; be kind; be humble to one another.” Well, it’s the same for us all. Think of that person in the congregation that rubs you wrong the most, and then try to shape your attitude and your behavior according to these exhortations here.

So we have, on the one hand, vices to be rid of. Verse five: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry. Verse eight: anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk. Verse nine: lying. And then we have virtues to cultivate. Verse 12: compassionate heart, kindness, humility, meekness, patience. Verse 13: bearing with one another, forgiving each other. Verse 14: putting on love above everything else.

How Do We Mortify Sin?

Now I mentioned that this is the doctrine of mortification. That’s the word that’s used in verse five: “kill it.” In the King James translation: “mortify.” Kill it, put it to death. And then the same idea, but with a different metaphor: put off the old clothing, because the old man himself has been put off and you’ve put on a new man in Christ. So put off the old clothing. And I mentioned last time that Paul does not give us here specific, detailed instruction as to how. How do we mortify sin? How do we get rid of it? How do we kill it? He doesn’t give us detailed instruction here about that, but he does give us some clues as we work through the passage. And I said last time I’d come back to that after working through these verses and give some steps that we can take toward ridding yourself of sin. So how do we mortify sin? The command is “kill it, get rid of it.” And now some considerations: how do we go about doing that successfully?

Well, from this passage, number one: recognize that your responsibility is grounded in the provisions of grace. Recognize that your responsibility is grounded in the provisions of grace. That’s where we started in verses one to three. That’s what Paul expounded in chapter two. What we are in Christ—the old man’s been stripped away, we’ve become a new person in Christ, a new man—and the idea then is enablement. The old man has died, we’ve been raised with Christ to a new life, and so there is a new enablement because we are now led by the Spirit. A new life, a new person has been created in Christ and so on. And this is just enormously practical, I think, to recognize from the get-go that whenever Paul gives us a command, it’s undergirded by a gospel reality: that we have been made new people in Christ. And he doesn’t say simply “you can do it,” but he does say “you can do it because of who you are now in Christ.” So number one, the first step: recognize this clearly, that your responsibility is grounded in the provisions of grace. Last time, you remember, I started with Philippians 2, verses 12 and 13. We have the same thing there. Paul says, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling”—that’s verse 12. Verse 13: “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling because God is at work in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” Our responsibility is grounded in the provisions of grace.

All right, number one: recognize that your responsibility is grounded in the provisions of grace. Number two: recognize that your sin is inconsistent with who you are in Christ. Recognize that your sin is inconsistent with your new identity, with who you are in Christ. That’s verses nine and 10. You’ve put off the old man, you’ve put on the new man. The past tense is there; it’s significant. It’s happened; you have put off the old man. Or verse three: “you have died,” the old man is gone, and you’ve put on a new man, you’ve become a new person. Yes, there’s the “now and not yet,” and yes, it’s not complete yet, and it will be one day, but still the fact is your sins now are inconsistent with who you are in Christ. And so ultimately, this command to kill sin, put it to death, is a command to just be what you are. That’s the application Paul gives it. Many of you remember in Romans chapter six. He says, “You’ve died with Christ.” Remember that Romans six starts out with a big question: “If all this grace is given and if we have—the more sin, the more grace we have—let’s just sin more so we can have more grace.” Remember how Paul answers it? “No, you’re not that kind of people anymore.” We’re the kind of people who have died with Christ, been raised to a new life. And you remember his exhortation that is: consider yourselves then to be dead with Christ and alive with Christ. Consider yourselves that. It’s an enormously practical thing when confronting a temptation and struggle with sin to recognize: “This is not who I am. Who I am in Christ is someone who can overcome this.” To behave in a sinful way would not be in keeping with who I’ve become in Christ. So Paul’s consistent emphasis then is just “understand who you are and be that.”

All right, so the second one then: recognize that your sin is inconsistent with who you are, or inconsistent with your new identity. Number three, a step toward eliminating sin: learn to view sin as God sees it. Learn to view sin as God views it. That’s verse six: “On account of these, the wrath of God is coming.” We ought to see our sin as something that angers God. It is something that ultimately will bring judgment from God. It is something that defines the cross, where the wrath of God was poured out on His Son even, because He took our place bearing our sin. Recognize the effrontery, the loathsomeness, the odiousness of our sin—how God is so angered by it. Recognize it as that as a way of preventative. So number three: learn to view sin as God sees it. Don’t excuse it; view it as God sees it.

Number four: and I don’t know another way to put this. It sounds like I’m being repetitive here, but number four: put sin to death. Now, that’s the point we’re getting at, right? How do you put sin to death? And here my point is: put sin to death. You put sin to death by putting sin to death. I don’t know another way to say it. That’s the command of verse five: “kill it.” Verse eight: “put it away, get rid of it.” There’s no other way around it. We have to reject it. We have to develop a resolve in our hearts that we will refuse it and reject it. Now, it’s that in a gospel context; it’s not just bare moralism. It’s surrounded with and undergirded by the idea of enablement in Christ and all of that. But recognizing who we are in Christ, recognizing divine provisions in Christ, that we have died with Christ, we’ve been raised with Christ, the old man’s been put off, the new man has been put on already—recognizing all of that, get rid of it. Get rid of sin. Stop it. It’s not just “you can,” but it’s “you can because of who you are.” John Owen, the Puritan, is the one who developed this doctrine of mortification better than anyone, I think, in the history of the church. He makes a point here to say that we should practice and develop the art of starving sin. Well, same metaphor. I mean, different metaphor, same idea. Getting rid of it, removing it from your life, doing whatever needs to be done to prevent that sin from happening. And certainly don’t make excuses.

And then a fifth step, I think, from here to how to be rid of sin. I think this is very practical as well: exchange sinful habits for godly habits. Exchange sinful habits for godly habits. That’s verse 12. You’ve put off the old man, now then put on the new man. You’ve put off that old behavior, now put on this other behavior. We are creatures of habits. And there is such a thing as developing good habits. This is true on just a practical level of daily living, whether it’s brushing your teeth or whatever else, but it’s also true on a moral and an ethical level. Develop good habits. So exchange your sinful habits for godly habits. If you’re one that tends to be overly critical when someone says something that you disagree with, or someone rubs you the wrong way, and you tend to be one to think harshly—catch yourself and learn to think compassionately, patiently, with meekness. Well, these are the two sides of pursuing godliness. There must be the negative putting away of sin, and there must be the positive of developing the virtues that are commanded.

Corporate Relationships

Now, recall verses nine through 11 that we saw last time: we’re a new person. Now, that terminology is used here, particularly when we move on to these next verses. It’s used in a corporate way. It’s true of us, not just individually, but it’s true of us corporately as a church. We are a new person, a new body. We are not in Adam; we are in Christ. We’re a new man. And as a new man, these old categories of Jew, Gentile, slave, bondservant, or free—these things don’t matter anymore; they don’t apply here. That’s verse 11; those human distinctions are meaningless now. So he’s dealing with it on a corporate level.

Now notice, with that in mind, look at verses 15 to 17. Here we have three more commands, and these are explicitly regulating our corporate relationships. Verse 15: “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you are 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.”

Now notice here how Christ remains the centerpiece of Paul’s exhortations. Every one of these basically three exhortations here centers on Christ. “Let the peace of Christ rule in your heart,” verse 15. Verse 16: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” And then verse 17: “Do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus.” So all three of these exhortations work around our relationship to and responsibility to Christ. Let the peace of Christ rule in your heart. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus.

And then notice, corresponding to each of those, we have each duty to be carried out with gratitude. Did you see the thankfulness idea pop up all three times as well? Again, verse 15: “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful.” Verse 16: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” And then the third one in verse 17: “Whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” So each of these exhortations centers around Christ, and each of them is to be marked with gratitude and carried out with gratitude.

All right, let’s work through them quickly. Verse 15: “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you are called in one body.” The peace of Christ to which you were called. That’s peace with one another. We have been called to that. That’s a heavy concern of the apostles in his epistles. We find it often: get along with one another, be at peace with one another, be of one mind with one another. It’s a heavy concern of Paul. Here the word he chooses is: be at peace with one another. We have in verse eight: put away anger, wrath, malice, slander, don’t lie to one another. That’s verse 11: the church is a new man; those lesser distinctions don’t matter here anymore. So the peace of Christ to which you are called is a unity that we’re to have because we are called in one body. All of the body is to function together in a harmonious unity. That’s the idea he has here.

And now notice the essence of the command: “Let the peace of Christ to which you are called rule.” Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts toward one another. The idea there is like an umpire in an athletic competition. He makes the judgments; he makes the calls. Well, that’s the idea here. The deciding factor, he says—the deciding factor in your relationships with one another, what is it? Peace. The peace that we are to have in a practical, experiential way in Christ. That is the ruling factor in your relationships with one another. Isn’t that enormously practical? So, when you rub me the wrong way or I rub you the wrong way, what ought to come to our minds quickly, very quickly? “Let’s not disrupt the peace here. We belong to one another in Christ in the same body. Let the peace of Christ rule.” It’s marvelously practical.

Verse 16: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom and singing psalms, hymns, spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” The word of Christ: that’s the message about Christ; that’s the gospel that Paul’s been expounding. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. The idea there is not just a knowledge of it, an understanding of it—although that’s basic to it, of course—but it’s much more than that. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. The idea is that of a controlling factor influencing you. What you know and what you learn of the gospel, what you understand of it, is to shape the way you think. It’s to occupy your mind, it’s to fill your memories, to shape our priorities, our ambitions. So let the word of Christ marinate in your minds until it shapes our perspectives, shapes our outlook, and our affections toward one another. And in fact, let this marinate in your minds until it brings you to thankfulness in your hearts to God. Bottom line, then, is that this Word of Christ—this gospel that we have received, with all of its many applications and implications that work out—let that be the shaping factor in how we behave and talk and think toward one another. And again here, “with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” That’s the inevitable response to a believing heart: be thankful. And what he’s calling for here is a congregation that congregationally, corporately, is marked by a united heart of gratitude to God for what we have in Christ.

Let me give some implications here. First of all, about our corporate meetings together, and then also some implications on what Paul is calling for in a church and what a church ought to look like. Well, first of all, implications for corporate worship, our corporate gatherings. What he says first of all is that what ought to mark a church is that it is word-centered or gospel-centered. “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” It’s corporately. Here’s a church marked by an understanding of the gospel. So it ought to be word-centered. And by the way, then, as he mentions here, even the singing—”singing psalms, hymns, spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God”—the singing is to be word-centered. In other words, don’t surrender intellectual depth, doctrinal depth, theological depth, for some shallow ditty that makes you feel good because the music is nice, but gospel-filled, gospel-shaped songs producing a heart of gratitude in the congregation that sings together.

What to look for in a church: it should be word-centered. Somebody wrote to me a couple of years ago asking—they’re moving—and said, “What should I look for in a church?” I thought it was just a great question. And here’s some of the answer I gave them. Number one: it should be word-centered. That is, what you hear from the pulpit ought to be what you see in the text in front of you. It’s a simple, practical test for any congregation. What you’re hearing from the pulpit ought to be what you see in the Bible in front of you. If that’s not the case, something’s missing—something very important, something central. So what you hear from the pulpit ought to be what you see in the text. So it’s word-centered.

Number two, I said: you hear a lot about Jesus. You hear a lot about Jesus. That is, what you hear from the pulpit is not only what you see in the text in front of you, but it’s understood in light of the gospel. That makes more work for the preacher, but that’s our responsibility. That’s what Paul is saying here. The whole idea is that of a gospel-shaped, gospel-understood word.

Number three: the exhortation you hear from the pulpit is grounded in gospel truth. It’s not just legalism. It’s not sheer moralism. Lots of room, lots of room in Christian preaching—just like there is in the New Testament—lots of room for exhortation. But it ought to be couched in just a lavish understanding of the gospel. Exhortation ought to be grounded in gospel truth.

And then, since Paul talks about singing here, the fourth thing to look for in a church: the songs you sing have biblical and gospel depth to them.

And then marking all of this, what to look for in a church: it’s marked by gratitude. Here’s a congregation with a heart collectively that’s shaped by thankfulness to God for what they have in Christ. What a wonderful church experience that is.

And then finally, verse 17: “Whatever you do…” Like Paul has said, “I have given you these exhortations and these exhortations. Don’t do this; do the other.” He’s given you the gospel grounding for it all. But now let’s give one catch-all for everything. Verse 17: “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus.” And here we have it again: “giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” The guiding consideration in every detail of our life is: “Can I do this in the name of Christ? Can I do this in a way that is pleasing to Him? Can I do it in a way that’s honoring to Him?” And then once again: “giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” So the idea, then, is living unto Christ out of gratitude to God for Christ and for what we have in Him.

All right, a lot of exhortations here. I hope you can see how just lavish—how Paul has just lavished this in gospel context to motivate our hearts and to shape our thinking. Any questions quickly before we close?