Let the word of Christ dwell
in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all
wisdom, and as you sing songs, hymns, and spiritual songs with
gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether
in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving
thanks to God the Father through him. Now last week we spent nearly
all of our time on verse 12 and just looked at verse 13 and 14
very quickly, but I would like to go back to them and just do
a little review, give them a little more attention. After the apostle
has shown us what blessed people we are as God's chosen people,
those who he has set apart, and we are dearly loved, we are to
clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness,
and patience. And while these things, these
virtues, are utterly inconsistent, completely contrary to the way
our flesh thinks and the way the world thinks. Nonetheless,
all of these things are part and parcel of the fruit of the
Spirit of God within us. Now, that fruit is there in every
one of God's people, but it's not there in equal measure. Consequently,
he teaches us to put these things on. Bring those inner principles
that the Spirit of God has impressed upon our hearts and bring them
to the outside. So you put them on, and then
he goes on to say, and here's how this compassion, kindness,
humility, gentleness, and patience will reveal itself. He says,
bear with each other. Now, maybe a more modern way
to put that would be put up with each other. That phrase we understand. We
say, well, I can't put up with that. Or we're just going to
have to put up with that. Which means it involves something
that you don't like, but you can't change in someone else. And so what he says is, just
put up with it. You know, in the book of Galatians,
chapter 6, it says, bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfill
the law of Christ. And then right after that it
says, for every man shall bear his own burden. And that's the
way that King James puts it. And that almost sounds contradictory. Allergy season, making things
worse than they normally are. were to bear one another's burdens,
and then every man shall bear his own burden. Actually, the
words translated burden, there's two different Greek words. And
one of them refers to overwhelming burdens that no person can bear
by themselves. And it could be any manner of
things. The other one, someone said we
could Translate it this way, for every man shall bear his
own little load of faults. Every one of us has characteristics
about us that just aren't right. I mean, they're not easy for
others to put up with. They're characteristics of our
personality, and some people are edgier than others. Some
people are louder than others. It's just the way things are.
And while a person can try to take the edges off of these things,
we never completely get rid of them. And certainly no one else
can get rid of them in us. I can barely restrain anything
about myself. I certainly have no power to
change you. So what must we do? Well, we
simply put up with it. It's there. That's just the way
things are. I remember reading a book by
one of the prominent politicians of the 90s, and he said that
when he first became a congressman, He was talking to a senator,
a man who'd been in politics for a long time, and he was complaining
about media bias. And he said, what are we going
to do about media bias or the problem of media bias? And the
old man said, media bias isn't a problem. And the young politician
was kind of surprised. And the old man said, a problem
is something you can solve. Media bias is just a fact. You
adjust to it. And that's what Paul is saying
to one another. It's just a fact. That's the way we are. We do
things that irritate one another, and it's simply part of what
we are, and it is not going to change. Even if we work on it,
we might make it so the edges aren't so sharp, but it's still
there. Now, so what's Paul say to do? Well, just bear with it. Just put up with it. And then
he goes on to say, forgive whatever grievances you may have against
one another. Now remember, he is addressing
true, honest believers. He's not addressing the world
at large. He's not even putting a question
mark on the sincerity of the faith of those he's addressing. What he's doing is very simply
saying this, there will be grievances between one another. And I would
suppose here he is speaking of things a little bit more serious
than what he's talking about when he just said put up with
one another. He's talking about those things which are done,
which the one who did them should have known that was the wrong
thing to do, probably did know that it was the wrong thing to
do, but either out of spite or out of pride or out of a sense
of self-advancement or whatever, they did something truly offensive. Now, in our day or in this day, It
just seems that nobody wants to let an offense go. Everybody
wants to demand vindication and maybe reparations and everything
for every offense that has ever happened. But that is not the
way a believer is supposed to look at it. First of all, when
someone commits an offense against us, We are to remember to be
compassionate as God was to us. We are to remember that we are to show kindness.
We are to show humility. You know, a person who's truly
humble realizes that no matter how poorly someone treats him,
he actually deserves worse than that. Another thing, another way to
look at it is as offensive as someone's conduct may be towards
you, that person may be, it may be that God is using that person
to teach you something. And I remember in times past
if anybody found fault with what I did and especially if they
kind of came at me like a, you know, a mama bear thinking her
cubs are in danger, I would immediately become defensive and I would
start firing back. And it took a lot of years, but
I finally realized, best thing to do, just listen to them. Ignore
all the heat and the emotion. Listen to what they say. the
voice of the Lord may be in it. They may be pointing out something
you need to hear. Even if they said it in a way
you didn't like to hear it. And if what they say is true,
thank the Lord somebody told you. And men adjust according to what's
been said. So we forgive one another, though,
for true offenses, whatever they may be. Whatever grievances you
may have, the best route is simply forgive them. And that means
forgive them without them asking to be forgiven. You know, if
someone comes and asks you to forgive them, it's generally
pretty easy to do that. For one thing, it makes you feel
kind of good. You can actually, you know, build up your pride,
that person has kind of submitted themselves to you. And I'm not
saying people shouldn't apologize, they should. It's something else
altogether when you forgive someone who doesn't even acknowledge
the wrong. Remember our Lord on the cross,
forgive them Father, they do not know what they do. And how
did he know they didn't know what they were doing? Because
they thought they were doing the right thing. The only ones I know of that
believed that what was being done to the Lord Jesus was the
wrong thing to do were those who had followed him. And then
that one thief on the cross came to the realization he hadn't
done anything, that the Lord hadn't done anything worthy of
what was happening. Everybody else thought they were doing
the right thing. So, we just forgive one another,
and then he adds this, forgive as the Lord forgave you. Now, Peter, I believe it was
him, it was in the presence of all the disciples, but they asked,
Lord, how many times should we forgive our brother? when he
sins, seven times? Now, got to understand some things
that were contained in Peter's question. First of all, he did
know that we were to forgive, but he also thought that there
was supposed to be a limit to our forgiveness. Now he chose seven, And of course,
you gotta, you kinda understand he's saying if they do the same
offense over and over, should we forgive them seven times?
And since seven was the number of perfection in their mind,
you know, to do something seven times was, boy, you've gone the
whole way then. And he thought that when he said
seven, he was really, showing how willing he was to be forgiving
and how far above others he was willing to forgive. But when you say, should we forgive
him seven times, that's like people who say, well, we should
tithe. And it's not really because they
like the tithe, the 10%, it's because they like the fact that
there's a limit. There's a limit to how much we're expected to
give. And once we reach that limit,
then we don't have to think about anybody else or anything else.
We can just keep the other 90% to use on ourselves. And so he's
thinking, okay, seven times. And I got my little notebook,
okay, that's once, you know, twice. Do you know what? If you
put a limit on how many times you'll forgive, that means you've
never forgiven. Why? Because you're keeping track
of how many times they've done it. And our Lord's response to
him was, Seventy times seven. Now what did that mean? Our Lord
took that seven, multiplied it by ten, and then multiplied it
by seven again. In other words, he's using all
these, expressed in such a way there is no end to forgiveness. And in all reality, if we forgive
as God has forgiven us for Christ's sake, then people never do anything
to us a second time. Because every time they do it,
like God, we have forgiven their iniquities and their sins we
remember no more. So every time they do it, it's
the first time. Now that's not natural to us,
is it? And we cannot, we probably will not remember, or excuse
me, will not forget the actual events. Just like God, it's not
like he doesn't realize we've sinned. It means you don't bring
it up. It's no longer part of the equation
of how you deal with a person. We forgive. as God has forgiven
us. And then in verse 14 it says,
over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together
in perfect unity. Now there are many activities
and many attitudes that we are exhorted to show,
and all of these we can do outwardly in the flesh. And we could even find a way
to do them in such a way that we bring honor to ourselves and
we pat ourselves on the back. I hope everybody notices just
how forgiving I am. I hope everybody notices how
tolerant I am. All this kind of stuff. But love
puts an end to all of that. You see, nothing Nothing can
be pleasing to God unless it flows from the motivation of
love. Now, we won't take the time to
go to 1 Corinthians chapter 13, where Paul gives that description
of love. But there's a couple of things
to bring up. Love is not rude. Love is not rude. Does someone
need correction? Don't blast them. Love is not
rude. Love is gentle. Love always tries
to find a way to deliver what might be considered unpleasant
messages in the most pleasant way. the least offensive way. When we correct one another with
fire and brimstone, what we're actually doing is making them
submit to us. But if we are admonishing, exhorting,
correcting someone, and we're doing it in the power of the
Spirit of God for the sake of Christ. It's not us we want them
to submit to, it's God. And therefore, we come to them
with all gentleness. We're not rude. It also says,
love does not seek its own. Now, if we even carrying out some what we
think is a needful correction, if we're doing it simply because
we want someone else to act a certain way for our sake, that's just
us seeking our own. You know when, and I imagine
nearly all parents learn this, some sooner than others, even
when you correct your children, you must always realize you're
correcting them for their sake, not for yours. When we begin correcting our
children, simply because what they do irritates us and we want
the irritation gone, we're moving towards an abusive
relationship. Now, I realize when they irritate
us, that kind of motivates us. But I remember hearing on, this
was 20, 25 years ago, but it was played several times on the
radio, and it was from something somebody wrote
from 100 or more years ago about disciplining children. And of
course, this was being put on the radio now in order to teach
people not to abuse their children, not to be overly harsh with them.
And it went on to say things like, before you discipline them,
and at this point they were talking about a spanking, actually. It
says, stop for a minute, think about it, and all this kind of
stuff, and make sure that your heart is overflowing with love
for that child before you discipline them. Then you will do the right
thing. And that may be a spanking. But
if it's simply you got mad because of something they did and you
grabbed them by one arm and grabbed the belt in the other hand and
went to wailing on them. Now I'm not saying that it might
do them some good anyway, but I'm just saying that's not the
proper attitude, is it? Because we're not seeking our
own. We don't discipline even our children for our sake. We do it for their sake. And
then another one that Paul said about love, and love never fails. Now there's two ways that can
be taken, and I believe both are true. Love never fails. in doing the right thing. Or it never dries up. You know,
like say, well, the spring never failed. You know, the spring
of water never failed. That's true of love. Love doesn't
stop. Now there's time when fleshly considerations may overwhelm
it, but the love is still there. But I've also come to find this
in my experience. Love never fails to bring about
a good result. Maybe not immediately. There have been a few occasions
when I've talked to those whose, you know, whose marriage has
broken up and then you get the whole thing about, you know,
there's children and their time's divided between two parents and
especially if one of the parents is bitter and always talks badly
of the other parent when they have the children. And that parent
who's being spoken of badly. I'm afraid my children are going
to grow up hating me. And I've always said to them,
children know who love them. They might not figure it out
till they're grown up. But when they look back, they
will know who loved them and who didn't. Love never fails. And so we do
all of this in love. And it binds all the other virtues
together in perfect unity. Now, in verse 15 he says, let
the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one
body you were called to peace. Now, the peace of Christ is first and foremost, I believe,
the peace that he himself enjoyed. As he was about to leave, this
was in John chapter 14, he says, my peace I leave you. Now, I've quoted that many times
and quoted it wrong. He said, my peace I give you.
And I guess in some sense that's true, but I like it as, my peace,
I leave you. What he's saying is, I'm going,
but I'm going to leave my peace with you. Now, how would he do that? Well,
he's going to send his spirit, and of the fruit of the spirit,
it is love, joy, peace. Peace. What is peace? It's the absence
of conflict. And he says, I leave you my peace. Not as the world gives, which
is temporary, which is most often not really peace, just an agreement
to quit fighting for a while. I get kind of tickled when they,
you know, we make some kind of, either we make or broker some
kind of peace agreement. That doesn't mean I don't, appreciate
what diplomats do, but you know, here recently, supposedly there's
some kind of peace agreement been made between the United
Arab Emirates and Israel. Well, I'm glad. But I'll tell
you something, they don't like each other any more than they
did before they signed that piece of paper. And that piece of paper
is only as good as the signers want it to be. And there will
come a time when that peace agreement won't mean anything. Now I'm
glad for whatever it does accomplish, but that's the peace of the world.
The peace that Christ leaves to us is an eternal peace that
if we fully embrace it, gives us peace under all circumstances
for all time and on into eternity. It's peace. It's peace with God.
Being justified by faith, Romans 5.1, being justified by faith,
we have peace with God. Now, it's not just a peace treaty. It's not just us and God saying,
okay, you know, I'll quit fighting, you know, no. This is peace wherein
there is no conflict because the conflict has been resolved
in particular being justified by faith. God no longer has an
issue with us. Our sin is put away. And when
we realize that God has been so gracious as to put our sins
away, we have no argument with him anymore. This is the peace
of agreement. We agree with God. I guess that's one of the evidences
that a work of grace has been done. We actually agree with
God. We agree with God that by nature, practice, by birth, we're
sinners. We agree with God that Jesus
Christ is his son and that by the shedding of his blood, he
put away the sins of his people. And we agree with God according
to His promise that he that has the Son has eternal life. He
that does not have the Son shall not see life. We agree with God. That's what the word confess
means. To be in agreement. Strictly
it means to say the same thing. Homo legumen. Homo meaning same,
legumen meaning to speak. We speak the same thing as God.
When people don't speak the same thing as God, there is no peace
between them and God. We have peace with one another. We have peace within. Look at Philippians chapter four,
verse six. Philippians 4 verse 6, do not
be anxious about anything. Wish I could do that, but you
know something? It's right there. If we would,
if we would remember and believe with all our hearts that our,
that God is for us. If God is for us, who can be
against us, says Paul. Be anxious, or do not be anxious
about anything. In everything by prayer and petition
with thanksgiving, present your request for God. Are you worried
you're not gonna have enough? Well, with prayer and thanksgiving,
make that request known to God. And it says, in the peace of
God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your
minds in Christ Jesus. Peace in worship. In 1 Corinthians 14, the apostle
is giving some instructions about how the worship meeting should
be conducted. One of the things that was happening
is, you know, there were various gifts in that day. that we do
not believe are any longer operative, but it would seem that their
worship services were a little bit less formal than ours. And
it wasn't just one guy stands up there and does all the speaking.
There were opportunities given for people to speak. Well, when
that would happen, well, there'd be people speaking in tongues
and they'd all be speaking at once. Or a bunch of people who
claim they had a word of prophecy and they're all speaking at once
and it was just a cacophony, just a mess. And Paul says, speak
one at a time. For God is not the God of chaos. He's the God of peace. That's why, you know, and I realize
everybody here is kind of raised in a somewhat structured worship
service. And we know, you don't just blurt
things out in a distracting way. I remember one time at a conference
at 13th Street, there was some people that came that had never
been there before, several groups of churches. And in those churches,
they were pretty big on, you know, they didn't just say amen,
they'd stand up and, amen, hallelujah, preach, you know, and that kind
of thing. And it was happening, you know, we weren't accustomed
to that. And Brother Donnie Bell got up to preach, and Brother
Donnie, While he had not been among those churches, he had,
in times past, been in the Pentecostal movement, where they're somewhat
like that. And he said, brothers and sisters, he says, when you're
in someone else's house, you follow their rules. And they
don't make a lot of noise during worship. And that pretty well
settled it, you know? They understood. But you don't
become distracting. Peace within worship. And he
says, and be thankful. The Scriptures so often mention
being thankful to God, and you and I, of all the peoples of
the world, have so much to be thankful for. An unthankful heart is a heart
that has never experienced the grace of God. to recall two things in the scriptures.
Number one, in Romans chapter one, when Paul is pronouncing
his condemnation, essentially on Roman society, but on humanity
in general, it says that the creation gives evidence of God,
even as eternal power and Godhead. But what they did, it says, they
refused to acknowledge him as God, neither did they give thanks. Why did he bring that one up?
Well, then we go to the book of John and it says, they came
to the place where the Lord had fed the 5,000 with five loaves
and two fishes. And John described it this way.
This was where the Lord fed the 5,000 after he gave thanks. And I remember reading, and I
thought, why in the world would John say this after he gave thanks? Wasn't the big deal the feeding
of the 5,000? That's nothing for God to do. He feeds this whole world all
the time. And he can feed them with two
fishes, two million fishes, or no fishes at all if he wants
to. We've got to realize all those miracles our Lord did are
nothing to God. It's not like God strained to
do that. It's not like God was in heaven
saying, oh man, now my son wants to feed 5,000 with two fishes.
This is gonna be some work. No, no. The important thing that
John points out is our Lord gave thanks. Let our hearts always
be ready to give thanks. And let the word of Christ dwell
in you richly. And that's where we will pick
up next week. You're dismissed.