Alright brethren, Colossians
chapter 3. In my message this morning I'm
going to be using the personal pronoun you more than I usually
do. When I speak of sin, I usually
say we because I want you to know that I'm the sinner in the
dust right with you. But I want to speak this morning
using the pronoun you because I want you to hear this as intensely
personal to you. The Lord teaches me what I'm
to do. I control what my brethren do,
and I don't have responsibility to try to make them do anything. That's so of you. But the Scripture
tells me what I'm to do, and the Scripture tells you what
you're to do. So I'm going to use the pronoun
you here, applying this to our own selves personally. Now, are
you an elect child of God? Are you an elect child of God?
Are you someone that God the Father chose freely by His grace
without any regard to you whatsoever? Without looking to anything you
would do or just freely by His grace, are you an elect child
of God? Are you one that has been made
holy by God? Not holy by your doing, holy
by God. By God the Father sanctifying
you, setting you apart for Him in divine election. By the Son
of God, the Lord Jesus Christ who sanctified His people when
He perfected us forever by His one offering. Are you someone
made holy by the Spirit of God who came and created life in
you and gave you faith to trust Christ, who formed Christ in
you, so that all your holiness is Christ. You've been made to
see He's your sanctification and your righteousness. Are you
somebody who's been made holy by God? Are you beloved of God? Are you
somebody who was loved before of God? Someone that God loved
from everlasting, that He eternally set His love upon in Christ Jesus. Somebody who, as the Scripture
says, He loves with an everlasting love that knows no variableness
nor shadow of turning. Are you someone beloved of God? If you are the elect of God,
if you are holy, if you are beloved of God, then I have a word to
you personally. This is a word to you personally. This is God our Father's word
to you personally, and this is Christ our Head. It's His word
to you personally. Verse 12, Colossians 3.12, He
says, Put on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved
bowels of mercies. kindness, humbleness of mind,
meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one
another. If any man have a quarrel against
any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do you. Our subject this
morning is even as Christ forgave you. Even as Christ forgave you. Christ commands each of his saints
here that if any have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave
you, so also you forgive that brother, that sister. forgiving
one another, if any man have a quarrel against any, even as
Christ forgave you, so also do ye. Now, our Lord Jesus Christ
commands us here, each one that he saved, that he's called to
faith in him, he commands you to put on bowels of mercies,
bowels of mercies. It's to be touched with the feeling
of our brethren, even as Christ is touched with the feeling of
your infirmities. It's to sympathize with your
brethren and their suffering. It's to weep with them as they
weep, to have compassion on them. is to show them tender mercies
from the innermost heart, even as Christ has shown you tender
mercies continually. Christ commands each one that
He saved here, He commands us to put on kindness toward your
brethren. Kindness from the inward, unfeigned
love of the heart. You are to shower your brethren
with abundant mercy in your acts toward them and what you do for
them. Shower them with abundant mercy
and kindness. Provide for their necessities.
Show them mercies and do it cheerfully, with joy, delighting to do so,
even as Christ does for you. Christ commands each one he saved
to put on humbleness of mind toward God and toward our brethren. Humbleness of mind. That's to
think of yourself lowly. That's to think of yourself as
the chief of sinners that you might give Christ all the glory
in your salvation. That's to think of yourself lowly
when it comes to your brethren. To think about knowledge that
the Lord's given you and the gifts and the graces He's given
you and to esteem your brethren better than yourself in knowledge,
in gifts, in graces. when you've done as you ought
to do to your brethren, is to esteem yourself as just an unprofitable
servant who only did what you did by the grace and power of
God, so that all the glory goes to God. And that's who you want
to have all the glory, is God. in all things is to think of
yourself more lowly than your brethren, is to prefer that your
brother or your sister be honored above you. That's what Christ did for you. When He humbled Himself and took
the form of a servant and became obedient even to the death of
the cross, He preferred your honor and your salvation over
His own life. That's what he did. Christ commands
each one he saved to put on meekness. To put on meekness. That is to
patiently and quietly submit to Christ our head. That's what
meekness is. To do so when he sent you the
most painful, most sorrowful providence is to submit to Christ
your head knowing He does all things well, and knowing it's
for your good and He's working good, submitting quietly to Him. It's to patiently bear whatever
the Lord has laid upon you. And it's to do so without envying
your brethren who are not suffering, without envying your brethren
who the Lord has given good times and a happy season, or to not
envy them in anything whatsoever, being happy to see them blessed
of God. Meekness is to submit yourself
to your brethren, to do all things without murmuring and disputing
because you know that God is sitting right there beside you.
And he's in that brother, in that sister, and he is working
powerfully both to will and to do of his good pleasure. So you
can meekly submit to Christ, know he's working just what he
will have worked in his church. Christ commands each one he saved
to be long-suffering toward our brethren. To suffer long with
our brethren. That is with insults made against
you personally. With reproaches made against
you personally. Evil words, evil deeds committed
against you personally. even as Christ was long-suffering
to you and is long-suffering to you, even as Christ was and
still is long-suffering to you. As you suffer long, you to speak
the gospel to comfort your brethren, You pray to the Lord, the head
of the church, to bless that word to their nourishment and
their edification, and to wait on the Lord to work in your brethren
what is His will and good pleasure, all the while suffering long
with your brethren. That's what Christ did for you.
That's what He still does for you. Christ commands each one
he saved to forbear one another. Forbear one another. That means
not only to bear their burden, their sin, and their shortcoming.
That means to forbear judging them. That means forbear reviling
them. Forbear reproaching them. Forbear
returning evil for evil. to not seek revenge due to being
offended, but to forbear. To forbear. Even as Christ had
been forbearing with you. And Christ commands each one
that He saved to be always continually forgiving one another. That means there's going to be
a lot of sin in your brethren. That's why He tells us all of
these things to do, because you're going to have to suffer long
with sin and offenses. There's going to be brethren
who don't suffer long, who don't put on meekness. There are going
to be brethren who don't do any of these things. There's going
to be times you don't do any of these things. So He tells you personally to
be always continually forgiving your brethren. Forgiving your
brethren. If any have a quarrel against
any, that means any and all trespasses
that your brethren have committed against God and have committed
against you. praying for them that God will
forgive them while you forgive them. Now, how is any child of
God going to do any of these things? How are you and me going
to do any of these things? All it takes, all it takes is
for you and me to be reviled by one of us to revile the other,
and we find out real quick we still have a sin nature. So how are we going to do any
of these things? If you do these things, then
you must behold three things. Three things. And these three
things will be our outline. You need to behold what you did
to Christ. You need to behold what Christ
bore for you. You need to behold what Christ
has done for you. These three things is what we
need to be beholding all the time. Now first of all, remember
what you did to Christ. Remember what you did to Christ.
Look there at Isaiah 53 where brother Greg just read. Isaiah
53. Now I'm speaking to you who are
the elect of God. You who have been called and
trust Christ as your all, do you see that you despised and
rejected and crucified the Lord Jesus? You did. You did. Verse 3, He is despised
and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,
and we hid as it were our faces from Him. He was despised and
we esteemed Him not. Surely He bore our griefs and
carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem Him stricken,
smitten of God, and afflicted. This is true of every elect child
of God. This is true of every single
elect child of God. You personally despised and rejected
Christ. You personally caused his sorrow
and his grief. That's the sorrow and the grief
that he bore was sorrow and grief that you inflicted upon him.
Have you seen that? That you inflicted sorrow and
grief upon him? I'm speaking personally because
I want to hear this that same way in my own heart saying, I
did this and I want you to hear it that way. You hid your face from Him and
you esteemed Him not. You judged the righteous judge.
You judged Him to be getting what He deserved. When He was
on that cross, you judged Him to be smitten of God and afflicted
of God, getting what He deserved. When did you do that? When did
you do that? You did it all the days of your
rebellion, from the day you were born to the day God called you. That's what you did. In all your
days of rebellion and unbelief, over 2,000 years ago, Christ
bore the grief and sorrow that each of His elect inflicted upon
Him. That's why He was on the cross.
It was only for the elect. That's why He was on the cross.
If you are the elect, then He bore the grief and the sorrow
that you caused Him. He bore your sins and your iniquities
in His own body on the tree. Your sins. All your sins. All your iniquities. He bore
them all on that tree. Does your brother have to love
you before you will love your brother? Does your brother have
to do something before you will forgive him? Did you love God? Did you do something to make
God forgive you? Here it is love, not that we
love God. but that He loved us and sent
His Son the propitiation for our sin. Beloved, if God so loved
us, if God after this manner loved us, we ought also to love
one another after this manner. John Calvin said if we regard
our own advantage, we're going to be benefited. Or if we return
good only to friends or to family who love us, it is self-love,
it's not the love of God. He loved you when you hated Him. Do your brethren have to do good
to you before you love them and forgive them? When we were without strength,
in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. I know that we just let that
word, it just goes right by us. the ungodly. Do brethren have to love you
and do good to you before you'll draw them to you and show them
you love them? The Lord hath appeared of old
unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting
love. Therefore, with loving kindness
have I drawn thee. If He would have waited on us
to do something before He drew us to Him and showed His love
to us and showed us Christ and forgave us, we would have never
believed on Him. He said, I am the Lord, I change
not, therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed. Nothing we
could do could change the love of God and the grace of God toward
His people. He never takes back His gifts
and His calling. And He gifted His people and
called His people with all spiritual blessings in Christ in eternity. And He never takes them back.
He never takes them back. And you just think of how we
sinned in Adam. You think of how we were conceived
in sin and how we hated Him all the days of our rebellion. Nothing
could change His love and His grace toward His people. Nothing.
It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed because His
compassions fail not. If holy, holy, holy God who hates
the wicked, if holy God who hates the wicked, if He who says it
must be perfect to be accepted, He who has a perfect, holy, righteous
hatred of the wicked, whose two pure eyes to behold iniquity,
if He loved us after this manner, if the Holy Lord Jesus laid down
His life for you, the ungodly, if He drew you in love and kindness
when you were without strength and the ungodly, And if He continues to show you
mercies every day, continues to draw you to Him every day, then we ought also to love one
another after this manner. Now, these very things we're
looking at here show us it's not only our sin before we were
converted, But we despise and reject it
and sin against Christ in every sinful, unbelieving, unmerciful,
unforgiving thought and deed since He called us and converted
us. Since He called us and converted
us. This morning, as you went about getting ready to come here,
now listen, if you just had even one fleeting, just it came and
went, Just one fleeting, unforgiving, unmerciful thought toward a brother
or a sister. Just one. By that very sin, you crucified
Christ over 2,000 years ago. So we have to see first of all,
what we did to Him. We crucified Him. We despised
Him. We rejected Him. We hid our faces
from Him. We esteemed Him not. And we still
sin against Him after He's called us and converted us. Secondly, if we would be brought
to do these things and to forgive then we not only must remember
what we did to Christ and do to Christ, but you must remember
what Christ bore for you. What He bore for you. Verse 5
in Isaiah 53 says, He was wounded for our transgression. He was
bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon Him. Now, if you just look at the
things we can see, just what man did to him, that is bad enough
when you see that. Isaiah 52.14 says, His visage
was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons
of men. God's not exaggerating there. His bodily presence, His appearance
was marred more than any man. But who can speak of the wounding
and who can speak of the bruising that our Lord Jesus bore that
we can't see? The wounding and the bruising
He bore under the fierce anger of God's holy justice. God's hands. He bore that for His elect. But
if you're one of the elect, I want you to focus on this now. He
bore that incomparable affliction for you. For you. Verse 4, we esteemed Him stricken
of God. Verse 5 says, but He was wounded
for our transgression. Verse 4 says, we esteemed Him
smitten of God. Verse 5 says, but He was bruised
for our iniquity. Verse 4, we esteem them afflicted
of God. Verse 5, but the chastisement
of our peace was upon Him. Brethren, I would never minimize
the sorrow that's been caused to you when somebody has despised
you and rejected you, when you've been reviled and you've been
offended. I wouldn't minimize the sorrow
that causes. I know it causes sorrow. The
child of God, Hear the Lord Jesus Christ speak to you about what
He bore for you. Hear Him speak about what He
bore for you. Lamentations 1-12. Let's look
at that. Lamentations 1-12. Look there
with me. Give me a minute. I don't have
it marked. I've got to get to it. Lamentations 112. Look at this. It's just Christ
speaking. Is it nothing to you, all ye
that pass by? Behold and see if there be any
sorrow like unto my sorrow. which is done unto me, wherewith
the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger. From above hath he sent fire
into my bones, and it prevaileth against me. He has spread a net
for my feet, he's turned me back, he's made me desolate and faint
all the day. The yoke of my transgressions
is bound by His hand. They are wreathed and come up
upon my neck. He hath made my strength to fall. The Lord hath delivered me into
their hands from whom I am not able to raise up." That's what
God did to him. God did that to him. He was wounded,
brethren, for our transgressions. That word wounded means to break,
to violate, to torment. He was bruised for our iniquities.
That means to beat and crush like wheat is ground by a pestle
and a mortar. The chastisement of our peace,
the wrath and the vengeance of God required to make peace with
God for you was upon Him. Psalm 22. Look there with
me, Psalm 22. Psalm 22, look at verse 14. I am poured out like water. All
my bones are out of joint. Have you just ever had one bone
out of joint? That's painful. What if all your
bones were out of joint? Is He using hyperbole? Is He
exaggerating? No. All my bones were out of joint. My heart is like wax, melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like
a potsherd, like an old pot that's just been out in the sun and
just dried, an old clay pot just dried up. My tongue cleaveth
to my jaw. and thou hast brought me into
the dust of death." God did this to him. Is it nothing to you? Is it nothing to you? Dogs have come past me. The assembly
of the wicked have enclosed me. They pierced my hands and my
feet. I may tell all my bones. They
look and stare at me. Who is this assembly of the wicked?
That's you and that's me. We're about to remember our substitute
at his table. You remember what Paul said that
our Lord said about these elements? When he gave thanks, he took
that bread and he'd break it. He'd break it. And he gave it
to them and he said, this is my body broken for you. Broken for you. He took that wine and he said,
this cups the New Testament in my blood. It represents my blood
that I poured out for you. He said, as often as you eat
this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death
till He come. He gave His life unto death for
you. Is it nothing to you? gave His life for you. We're not talking about just
physical death. What He bore on that cross is
that second death. He bore the hell His people would
have had to have borne. How badly have you really been
offended? How much have you really suffered? I know this about us both. Certainly
not offended like our substitute was. Certainly not suffered anything
like he suffered. And lastly, brethren, if we would
forgive our brethren We not only remember what we
did to Christ, not only remember what Christ bore for us, but
remember what Christ has done for you and continues to do for
you. Go back to Colossians 3 verse
13. Forbearing one another. That's
what He continues to do for you. Forbear with you. And forgiving
one another. If any man have a quarrel against
any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do you. Dear Saint, God,
your Holy Father, has forgiven you for Christ's sake. Paul said
that in Ephesians 4.31. Ephesians 4.31, he said, Let
all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking
be put away from you with all malice, and be ye kind one to
another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for
Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. He gave His only begotten Son. I just can't even think about
somebody just offending me like we offended God and then giving
my only Son to die for them. That's what God did for you.
For you that know Him, that's what God did for you. For us
who despised Him and rejected Him, and then when He came, what
did we do? We crucified Him. Could you give your only son
to die for that brother or sister that has offended you? Would
you give your only child to die for that brother or sister that
has offended you? God our Father not only gave
His only begotten Son to save you who offended Him, God, for
Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. That's what it took. That's what
it took to honor God's justice. God wouldn't do it in an unjust
way. It took God Himself, giving His
life to justice for you, to justly forgive you. That's what He did. God the Father was in Christ
reconciling all His people to Himself. And child of God, He
reconciled you. Christ bore your curse. He bore
the wrath of God in your place. He bore that fiery justice, that
fire He spoke about that went into His bones. On the cross, God forsook His
Son. Christ bore your hell. The chastisement
of our peace, the chastisement required to give you peace with
God was upon Him. And with His stripes you are
healed. And because Christ justified
you, the only just thing, the only righteous thing for God
to do in the face of your sin was to forgive you. That was
the only just thing to do because Christ paid all the debts you
owed. You know what the righteous and
just thing for you to do to your brother and sister in Christ
is? Forgive them. Even as God, for
Christ's sake, has forgiven you. But our text says, not only did
the Father forgive you, the text says, the very One who suffered
for you hath forgiven you. Even as Christ forgave you, so
also do you. I don't know how to say this.
I don't mean to minimize God the Father's what He felt when He gave His
Son, and when His Son died, and His forgiveness of His people.
It's all equal with the Son. I don't want to minimize it at
all. But Christ Jesus, the man who
is God, is the one who suffered. And it was just as real as when
somebody does some wicked thing to you or offends you, does something
that's just atrocious to you. It was just that real between
you and Him and what you did to Him and what I did to Him. It was just that real. And yet He laid down His life,
satisfied justice, so that He is just to forgive you. Christ taught us to ask for forgiveness
from God the Father every time we pray. Every time we pray,
when He taught the disciples how to pray, He said every time
we pray, ask forgiveness of God. You don't have to say it in these
exact words, just like nothing in that prayer has to be said
in those exact words. But he taught us to pray Matthew
6.12, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. He's
talking about our sins. Others say sin. And then he said
this, for if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly
Father will also forgive you. But if you forgive not men their
trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. When a person won't forgive,
when a person will not forgive, there's only one reason. It's
self-righteousness. The reason a person won't forgive,
and if we do that, this is what we manifest. We manifest we do
not know what we did to Christ. We don't know the sin we've sinned
against Christ. We don't know what Christ bore
for us. If we can't forgive, we don't
have any idea what Christ bore for his people. The sin and the
curse he bore, the multitude of sins he bore for each one
of his people. And we manifest we don't know
a thing in the world about free forgiveness. God's going to make his people
forgive. Because he's going to keep pointing you to Christ and
showing you that and making you know in your own heart, this
is what you did to my son. This is what he bore for you. And this is why He has forgiven
you. He satisfied justice for you. He made you right. He's going
to make you keep knowing that. Peter came to the Lord and he
said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I
forgive him? Until seven times? I'm sure Peter thought that was
a lot of times. And the Lord said, Not until
seven times. He said, but until seventy times
seven. And you know what that means.
It's unlimited. Unlimited. He said in another
place, if he does it eight times a day. And then the Lord gave that parable
to the man who owed this great sum, this great debt he owed. And he came to his Lord and he
begged his Lord to be merciful to him and the Lord forgave him
all that debt. And then that servant went out
and he had a servant that owed him very, very little in comparison
to what he owed his Lord. And that servant asked him for
mercy and he wouldn't give him mercy. He took him out of the
throat and said, pay me what you owe me. And Christ said, his Lord was
wroth and delivered him to the tormentors till he should pay
all that was due to him. So likewise shall my heavenly
Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not
everyone his brother their trespasses. God makes his people willing
to forgive without limit. By showing us our sin is so much
greater than our brother's sin. By showing us all our offenses
to God, when we didn't believe and since we've believed, are
far greater than our brother's offenses against us. And He shows you how Christ willingly
bore that for you, and how He put them away, and how He has
forgiven you all that great debt you owe. And by showing us that, that
He continues to forgive us every day, that's how God makes His
children merciful. That's how He makes us forgive. You'll get in your flesh and
you won't do any of those things. That's why He's telling your
brethren to be forbearing and long-suffering and kind and merciful
and forgiving to you, because there'll be times you won't do
any of those things. But He put us in the body together
for a reason, so that you will be offended by your brethren
sinning against you. so that He can in a very real
way show you what you've done to your Redeemer. And He can
show you how He's forgiven you and make you willing to forgive
your brethren. Now, I said to you in the beginning, if you're willing to forgive
your brethren and you forgive your brethren, you remember this
now, the Lord didn't wait on you to come to Him to forgive
you. He purged our sin and then sat down. He entered in because
He obtained eternal redemption. He forgave you already. That's
why He sent the gospel to you and taught you and brought you
to repent and ask Him for mercy. And He didn't set up a bar for
you that you couldn't reach. He simply said, come to me, confess
your sin, and believe on My Son. And He forgave you. He forgave
you. That's how God makes His child
merciful and willing to forgive. He said, Brethren, if a man be
overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such a
one in the spirit of meekness, considering yourself, lest you
also be tempted. Bear ye one another's burdens,
and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if a man think himself to
be something when he's nothing, he deceives himself. I said to
you, if you're willing to forgive and your brother or your sister
won't forgive, they won't forgive you, or they won't receive you,
or they're not willing to be reconciled with you, that's not
your responsibility. You trust them to Christ, and
you pray for them to Christ, believing Christ is able to make
his servants stand. Don't give up hope. Don't stop
praying. Don't stop trusting to Christ.
And every opportunity, if he opens the door, you be kind and
meek and loving and gracious and forgiving. He's able to make His servant
stand. But what He says is for you, for you to forgive your
brother, even as Christ has forgiven you. I pray He'll bless that. Let's remember Him at His table
now. Brother Adam, I'm going to get you to do double duty.
I'm going to get you to do it all.