Colossians chapter three and
verse 12. Put on, therefore, as the elect
of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercy, kindness, humbleness
of mind, meekness, longsuffering, forbearing one another and forgiving
one another. If any man have a quarrel against
any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all things put on charity,
which is the bond of perfectness, and let the peace of God rule
in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body,
and be ye thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell
in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one
another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with
grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatsoever ye do in word
or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks
to God and the Father by him. Amen, may God bless to us this
reading from his word. Once again, we come to revel
and rejoice in the Book of Colossians and the beautiful language of
scripture and the instruction of the Apostle Paul. And once again, we are thankful
that the Lord has preserved these epistles, these letters, these
books of Holy Scripture, these apostolic testimonies of the
glory of God in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ as he has
handed these down to us all throughout the history of the church. Blessed
is the little congregation to whom these words were sent. And blessed are those congregations
and that people to whom they still speak even in these days. and be it Colossae or Laodicea
or Hierapolis, all little churches named in this book, or if it's
Great Falls or wherever we might be this evening. How blessed
we are to read these inspired words from the Apostle, to be
able to share together in the privilege of holding in our hands
the holy scriptures which make us wise unto salvation and which,
through faith which is in the Lord Jesus Christ, lead us into
a knowledge of that great plan of grace which the Lord our God
has set in place for the deliverance of his people. And here we are. We are able to share with the
Colossians in this apostolic testimony, in this word of God
to our hearts and to our souls. So let us pray in the quietness
of our own homes, in the quietness of our own hearts, that the Lord
will open these scriptures to us and that the Lord will bless
the thoughts this evening to the encouragement of our souls. Paul has spoken in these last
few weeks, he has spoken of the blessed sufficiency that we have
in the Lord Jesus Christ. So that we need nothing else,
we need nothing external if we have Christ. And indeed to be
united with him, is to be supplied with every
grace and every goodness and every blessing from God. To be united with the Lord Jesus
Christ is to be crucified with Him. It is to be dead with Him. It is to be buried with Him. It is to be raised with Him. It is to be ascended into heaven
with Him. and it is to be seated together
with Him in heavenly places. Such is our union with the Lord
Jesus Christ that we have been granted even to be hid together
with Him in heavenly places. It is to be holy in Him. It is to be perfect in Him. And that's the way that the Apostle
opens up this little passage that we have before us today. We are reminded in another letter
of the Apostle that he says in 2 Corinthians 3, verse 5, our
sufficiency is of God. All we need is in Christ. All we need is Christ. And so
the Apostle has said to us here in the second chapter in the
10th verse, ye are complete in him. And it's this completeness,
this wholeness, this perfection that we have in mind this evening
as we come together. You see the Apostle Paul has
already shown us that there were legalists, Jewish legalists,
we call them Judaizers, that had come to Colossae, had come
to these churches, Laodicea, Hierapolis, Colossae, and endeavored
to affect the young churches that were there, these young
Gentile churches, to, as it were, recruit them, into another dimension
according to their worldly wisdom of what the true Christian faith
was all about. They had sought to return God's
people under the law of Moses. as a rule of life, as a rule
of conduct, as a measurement of their holiness, and as a standard
against which their lives were to be measured to see whether
or not they came up to what was acceptable to God. And the Apostle
Paul has called that will-worship. He has called it in the verses
that we've read over the past few weeks, false humility. He has referred to it as the
rudiments of this world. as subjecting regulations, as
philosophy and vain deceit, as traditions of men, as the handwriting
of ordinances that was against us. And he has said, listen,
all of that has been taken away. All of that has been nailed to
the cross. You're not under that anymore
and you need to know that these people are going to do your souls
no good. if you listen to their ministry,
if you imbibe their teaching, if you hear what they have to
say, and it takes your eyes in any way off of the completeness
and the perfectness that you have in Christ alone. And the argument was clearly
set out for these Colossians. On the one hand, the Judaizers,
they had a simple argument, and indeed, perhaps we might even
say a persuasive argument, because they carried with them the scriptures,
they carried with them the parchments and the testimonies of the prophets
and of Moses. And they were able to open these
parchments, open these books and say, now here is how God
has spoken to the Old Testament people. Here is how God has revealed
himself to the Jews. These are the things that you
ought to be following also. And the benefit that these Judaizers
had was that the message that they brought to the Colossians
was greatly appealing to the flesh. because men and women
want to have a pattern of conduct set before them, a standard of
obedience laid before them by which they can say, yes, I've
done that, yes, I've done that, well, I'm struggling a little
bit with this, but I'm getting there, and find that there is
an appeal to their flesh by which they begin to feel a sense of
acceptance, a sense of glory, a sense of righteousness before
God. And these Judaizers came to the
Colossians and they said, now you are saved, if you want to
continue to please God, if you want to continue to honour Him,
if you want to live obediently for Him, here's what you must
do. And they endeavoured to rob the
Colossians of their liberty and to bring them once again under
the bondage of the law. And I have to say to you that
that is the same argument that is still used today to wrap countless
people into religious rules and religious ritual and religious
practices and religious organization. It is an erroneous mix of law
and grace, of duty and faith and it pleases the natural man,
it pleases the flesh, even the flesh of a believer. It is satisfying
to the flesh, but it binds us and it robs the true believer
of the freedom and the liberty and the peace and the joy which
they ought to have and do have in Christ Jesus. and Christians
and true believers, regenerated souls, if you like, have a birthright
as the elect of God. And the Apostle Paul is clear
when he speaks in verse 12 to the Colossians here. And he says, put on therefore
as the elect of God. The elect of God. That's a beautiful
phrase, but he is emphasizing this. He is telling us that we
are the elect of God. We spent a little bit of time
last Lord's Day speaking about that unconditional election and
how it is that God has a chosen people, a people that he has
chosen in eternity upon whom he will evidence his grace and
his goodness, to whom the Lord Jesus Christ is made their Saviour
and their Redeemer and the Holy Spirit brings the blessings of
grace into their experience. This is the elect of God and
in Christ, the Apostle is telling us that as the elect of God,
we have a completeness and a fullness and a holiness and a perfection
as the new creation of God. And so he says in verse 12, that
these to whom he is speaking are the elect of God, holy and
beloved. Now we might say, well, yes,
we know that God loves us, but we have to recognise the apostle
is saying also that he regards us as being holy. And this is
the state, this is the status, this is the position that the
elect are in, as they are in Christ. dead with Christ, crucified
with Christ, dead with Christ, buried with Christ, raised with
Christ, ascended with Christ, seated together with Christ in
heavenly places. They have that completeness,
that fullness, that holiness, that perfection as his people. Though we yet continue here upon
earth in the old man and restricted, restrained, in a sense, conflicted
by the old man and the flesh in which we live. Now do not
get me wrong upon this matter. We are not sinless in our lives
in our flesh. We are not sinless in this world. Sin dwells and continues to dwell
and will continue to dwell in our old man, in this body of
flesh of which the Apostle Paul says, in my flesh dwelleth no
good thing. So there is nothing that we can
look to in our flesh, nothing we can look to in our works which
is going to give us any spiritual help or encouragement. And that
old man is still with us. And he is with us as he was,
as completely as he was in our old unregenerate state. He hasn't been improved, he hasn't
been repaired or remedied or reconstructed in any way. He is still the same old unregenerate
man and he is still carrying with him that same opposition
and that same rebellion against God. He still wants to thwart
God. He still wants to thwart the
testimony of God and the gospel of God. And he now wants to contradict
and to prevent the new man, the new creation which has been implanted,
which has been created in our hearts and in our souls. The
old man used to be on the throne of our life. Now he has been
put off the throne, but he is a continuing contender for the
reins of our conduct, for the passions of our hearts, and he
is that avenue. That passage through which the
flesh, the world, Satan and temptation attacks the new man and seeks
to do damage to the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ. The
new man and a new spirit, a new heart has been installed in our
souls. And this new man, he marches
to a new tune. He is regulated by a new principle,
a principle of life, a principle of divine possession. The Holy Spirit has quickened
us. The Holy Spirit has made us alive.
And he has brought us into that newness of life by which we lay
hold upon the promises of God. And yet we find that this old
man and new man continue to contend within us. It is in this context that this
question of the role of the law has some importance. And some people tell us, some
ministers, in fact many ministers, many fundamentalists, many so-called
gospel ministers, Many Reformed Baptist ministers, many Presbyterian
ministers especially, will emphasize the law and they will tell us
that the law, the law of Moses, the Ten Commandments, are our
continuing rule of life and that we have to be subject to these
rules and to these laws, the Ten Commandments. But Paul says,
in verse 15, not that the law is our rule of life, but he says,
Let the peace of God rule in your life. This is the rule of
life. The peace of God is the rule
of life for the new creation. The old law, the Ten Commandments,
the law of Moses was given, was designed, was constructed to
reveal the sinfulness of the fallen creation. the waywardness
and the transgressions of the old man. It was never designed
to make us holy, never designed to make us perfect, but rather
to show how far short of holiness and perfection we were. It's
the peace of God that rules in the heart of the new creation,
and that's what the apostle directs our attention to. It is gratitude
now for all that God has done for us in his triune persons,
for all that the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us in his God-man
mediatorial capacity. It is gratitude that regulates
our conduct. It is gratitude and thanksgiving
that shows us how we are to live. So I want to declare this evening
with all the force that I can muster, Never let anyone bring you under
the law of Moses as your rule of life, but rather let the peace
of God, the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, faith in the promises
of God, let the gospel rule in your heart. and let thanksgiving
to God moderate and regulate the way in which you conduct
yourselves and the way in which you stand before God in the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ. In these six verses that we have
before us this evening, The Apostle Paul is showing the Colossians
and therefore he is showing us the characteristics of the new
man. Now he has spoken about the old
man which is to be put off in the preceding verses and we gave
that a little bit of attention last week. And now he is thinking
about the new man and he is thinking about the conduct or the characteristics
of the new man and the holy creation as he calls it here in verse
12. He says, put on, therefore, as
the elect of God, holy and beloved. He is showing us that here are
people that are beloved of God. And of course, we remember that
that is an everlasting love. The love of God doesn't ebb and
flow, come and go towards us. It is constant. It is faithful. It is sure. And it is everlasting. I have loved you with an everlasting
love. And he is reminding us that the
people to whom these words are addressed are those elect of
God, those people who are in the covenant of his purpose and
who have been brought through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ
and the work of God the Holy Spirit through the preaching
of the gospel into the experience of God's grace and the experience
of liberty in Christ. And he is saying now to these
people, that we who are in Christ, we, he concluded in the previous
section by saying that we have discovered, we have found that
Christ is all and in Christ is everything that we require. He
is in his people and they are in him. And to these, to those
who are the elect, to those who are the holy, to those who are
the beloved of God, the Apostle Paul now begins these verses. And this is what he says. Put
on, says the Apostle, these characteristics of the new man. Let these characteristics
adorn your testimony and your witness. These characteristics
that grace has implanted, that grace has brought and instilled
into your soul through the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ and
God the Holy Spirit in your heart. Because Christ is in us and if
Christ is in us then the character has changed and these graces
are present in us in the Lord. As the Lord is present in us,
as the Holy Spirit is present in us, as we are the temple of
the Holy Spirit, as we walk in the Spirit, so these graces and
qualities are instilled into the soul of the new creation.
And the Apostle Paul is saying, live in the light of these graces
which have been bestowed and imparted to you. This new life
that you have, live practically in this way. Live as you are
enabled spiritually to live. Walk worthy of the Lord. Walk In the Holy Spirit, walk
worthy of that testimony that you have. As Christ dwells in
you, so you walk in Him. And walk in that Spirit who inhabits
your heart. Paul uses a similar phrase and
a similar argument, a similar thrust in his argument when he
speaks to the Galatians in chapter five. And there he says, walk
in the spirit. and ye shall not fulfil the lust
of the flesh. So here again he's saying walk
as you are. Live as you have been made in
your new creation. You are now a spiritual people,
a new creation. Walk in the spirit. And if you
walk in the Spirit, you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against
the Spirit. Here's this old man, new man
battle again. The flesh lusteth against the
Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary
the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that
ye would, But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under
the law. So once again, remarking and
reminding the Galatians that that message of freedom and liberty
in Christ, where Christ is all our holiness, Christ is all our
perfection, Christ is all our sanctification, doesn't come
by any longer some legal slavish adherence to the bondage of the
yoke of the law, of the old dispensation, the Old Testament, of the Ten
Commandments and Moses, but is rather to be received by the
grace of faith in Christ. Now, like all good sermons, I've
got three points that I'm going to leave with you this evening
in these verses. And I want just to show you what
it means to put on and to follow the practices that the Apostle
Paul here is setting before us. He says to the Colossians, he's
directing the Colossians that they are to put on and they are
to let. These are the verbs, these are
the active words that he is directing them to in this little passage
before us. He is saying this is what you
have to do and there are a variety of things that he sets before
them. But let me just point out to
you that these are not laws. Some people might say, well,
this is just a new law. This is just a new standard of
obedience that is being set forth by Paul. But these are not laws
that the apostle is setting before us here. These are expressions
of the new nature. This is the effect of Christ
dwelling in us and of us dwelling in Christ. This is the expression
of the new nature. That's the reason why he calls
these people the elect of God and holy and beloved. These are
born again people and this is the breathing of the new creation. This is the breathing of the
new spirit. This is the actions of the new
man. So when he says in verse 12,
put on therefore as the elect of God, holy and beloved, these
are the identifiers of those who are holy and beloved in Christ. He's talking to believers. He's
talking to a born again people who are elect according to the
purpose of God, who are predestinated to be conformed to the image
of Christ. Now think about that little phrase,
predestinated to be conformed to the image of Christ. So that
when you look at that person, you see a Christ-likeness. When
you look at Christ, you see him reflected in his people. That's
what we're predestinated to be. And we are suitably fitted to
be that in the new creation. The Apostle says the same to
the Ephesians. Isn't it lovely the way that
there is such a consistency of witness in the Apostle's letters,
whether he's writing to the Galatians or the Philippians or the Ephesians
or the Colossians. These are the same messages to
these believers, and it is the same message that comes to us.
He says to the Ephesians in chapter two, verse 10, for we are his
workmanship. created in Christ Jesus unto
good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk
in them. Now, I don't know how to interpret
that differently, other than to say that it is God who takes
the responsibility for our walk, for our works, for our state,
for our condition, that we are His workmanship, created in Christ
Jesus, predestinated to be conformed to the image of the Son, created
in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them. Now, you might say to me, well,
right, that's all very well, but these are still commands.
We've still got to do these things. These are still the believers'
duties and obligations and laws. No, they're not. No, they are
not. They are God's works in us. They are His provision for us
and to us. They are the desires of converted
men and women. They're the offerings that we
give as thanksgiving to God for what He has done to us and for
us, and for Him coming into our lives. These things that the
Apostle Paul is speaking about are the fruit of our praise to
our precious Saviour. They are the spiritual outworking
of grace in the lives of the elect of God. And I think it's
just lovely that the Apostle Paul uses the phrase put on because
it's a wonderful description and it's a wonderful depiction
of this relationship that exists between God's work in us and
his people's response to him. There is a sense in which we
are to think of this as being a raid. Because to put something
on is to get dressed, isn't it? If you put on your clothes in
the morning when you waken up and get out of bed, you're putting
on the garments one after another. And that's what the apostle says
here. He's saying, put on. And then he gives us this list,
this catalogue of the things that we are to put on. And that's
like being arrayed. It's like being... To be arrayed
is to dress someone purposefully. We sometimes use the expression
that they were splendidly arrayed. A king or a prince might be dressed
in preparation for a coronation or for a parade, and they are
arrayed in their splendor. They're arrayed in their robes.
They're impressively set forth. And that's what we are, as the
Lord's people. That's what the Lord says in
Matthew 6, in verse 28. He says, He says, how they grow, they toil not,
neither do they spin. Yet I say unto you that even
Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed, was not dressed
like one of these, like one of these lilies. Wherefore, if God
so clothed the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is
cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye
of little faith? And you can tell me that that's
about... And tell me that that's about not worrying about the
practicalities of our life and what we're going to eat and what
we're going to drink and what we're going to wear and where
we're going to live. And all of those things are true.
But if the Lord looks after those practical things, do you think
he hasn't looked after the eternal things, the spiritual things,
the holy things, the things that we need in our soul before he
looks after this old body, this old flesh? The Lord has so clothed
the grass, will he not clothe us also? And that's exactly what
the Apostle Paul is alluding to here, indicating here, that
the Lord clothes us and he calls us to put on these clothes that
he has provided for us. Listen, God's instruction to
his people, his elect people, is his enabling in his people. God doesn't ask us to do anything
that he doesn't provide us with the ability to do. I repeat myself,
what God requires He provides. His instruction to his people
is his enabling in his people. He asks for nothing from us that
he has not already supplied. He seeks nothing that he has
not already placed in our hearts. He asks for nothing that he has
not already given and made us willing to yield up with delight
and with gratitude. So that's the first thing that
I want to draw your attention to, the significance of these
words put on. And let us remember that the
Lord never asks us for anything by way of service that he has
not equipped us and enabled us to do. Now, here's the second
thing. What does God seek from us? Well, as I've said, only what
he has already bestowed. And these spiritual graces that
are listed here in these verses before us are implanted in the
heart of his people by grace. These are not natural things.
These are not fleshy things. These are not things of the earth.
Earthy. These are things of the Spirit.
These are the spiritual graces of God. These are the fruit of
the Spirit. Now, good fruit grows on good
trees, and holy fruit grows on that which is holy and beloved
of God. Sweet grapes. come from the true
vine. And if we are in the vine, if
Christ is the vine and we are the branches, then we will produce
good fruit. As we observe how these traits
are to be seen in our own lives, We rather look beyond our own
lives to see these characteristics reflected in our head and in
our Saviour. So that when the Apostle says
to us, put on these graces, what he's really saying to us is display
the splendid garments in which the Lord has arrayed you. Display
the glories, display the evidences of your purity and your holiness,
which the Lord has dressed you in. And what is some of these
characteristics, these garments that we are to put on? Well,
he says the bowels of mercy. I looked that up in John Gill
so that I could see what Mr Gill had to say about it. And here's
what he says. He says, Bows of mercy are a
sympathising spirit with saints in distress. Weeping with them
that weep. suffering with them that suffer,
being touched as their high priest is, with a feeling of their sorrows
and their weaknesses. Well, I think that's lovely.
But do you see what Gil has done there again, as we've been saying? Yes, we have to put on these
bowels of mercies. We are to have that sympathising
spirit with our brothers and sisters in the Lord. We are to
weep with those that weep, suffer with them that suffer. We are
to be touched with the feelings of their infirmities, with their
sorrows and their weaknesses. as our great high priest is. So rather than seeing these as
something that we are to evidence in ourselves, we rather see these
things as the manifestation of the person of Christ as he indwells
us. If we were to look at this, if
we behold, what do we see? We see that this is Christ in
us. This is saying that we are in
Christ, Christ is all, and he is in all, he is in us. Christ is in us, Christ is working
through us, Christ is evidencing his character in his church and
in his people. He, being touched with our infirmities,
teaches us how to be sensitive to our brothers and sisters in
need, in trouble and in pain. We have to have the bowels of
mercy. We have to show kindness. And that kindness, he goes on
to say in verse 12, is generosity and gentleness. It speaks of
a family care, the care between brothers and sisters. This is
our own family. And again, we see this reflected
on the fact that Christ is our brother. And so that love that
exists there between the father and his children, between the
people and Christ, our elder brother, that family, care and
attention and concern. This is evidenced as the Lord
gives good gifts to his people. No good thing will he withhold
from us. And we reflect that kindness
in our dealings one with another. The apostle goes on, put on humbleness
of mind. Did not our saviour humble himself?
And we are to be humble also. Not proud, but esteeming others
better than ourselves. Recognising that all that we
have has been given to us. All that we have and possess
has been freely given to us. given to us, it's been received
by us. We don't have any grounds for
high-mindedness. We don't have any grounds for
pride or some supercilious attitude or some dominating over our brothers
and sisters. There has to be this humility
on the part of our people. We are not to think ourselves
better than we are, but we are to remember that we are only
unworthy sinners. and that all that we have is
because we have received it from our loving Father. And in that
recognition, it causes us to remember our own humility as
we deal with one another. Paul goes on to speak about meekness.
Moses was commended for his meekness, in which he was a type of the
Lord Jesus Christ, of whom Paul speaks when he calls the Lord
Jesus. He speaks of the meekness and
the gentleness of Christ. And the Lord Jesus Christ could
speak of the fact that he was meek and lowly in heart. And
here again is our great example, the Lord Jesus Christ living
in us. exemplifies these characteristics
as we are called to put on these graces which have been bestowed
as the fruit of the Spirit. He is our example. Let us not
be envious of one another, but encouraging of one another. Let
us be submissive, not strident. Let us be accepting of God's
providences as we are taught that this is the Father's sovereign
will. to make us Christ-like and therefore
to make us meek and lowly in heart as Christ is meek and lowly
in heart. Calmly enduring insults, enduring
and putting up with indignities as they are heaped upon us. I
mentioned a little bit some of our listeners who are being shamed
and embarrassed in public right at this very moment. Disciplined. Listen, let us calmly endure
the insults and indignities as our saviour did before us. Let us be, as he continues, long-suffering,
which is just an extension of meekness. That is prolonged meekness. Prolonged meekness is long-suffering. Has not our saviour so dealt
with us? It's a powerful word, long-suffering. Just break it down. Long-suffering. And as we suffer over a protracted
period, a prolonged period, Let us remember how our Saviour deals
with us in his forgiveness and his long-suffering. The Lord
Jesus Christ, he suffered long and hard for his people. Are
we easily provoked to wrath? Do we find it difficult to turn
the other cheek? Let us remember that the Lord
Jesus Christ opened not his mouth, that he was like that lamb led
to the slaughter. 1 Peter 2, verse 23 says, who,
when he was reviled, reviled not again. When he suffered,
he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously. We are to practice forbearance,
bearing one another's burdens. bearing one another's faults
as Christ has done for us, not returning evil for evil, not
seeking revenge for the wrongs that have been done to us, but
passing over these things and leaving them in the hands of
the Lord. We are to practice forgiveness, not not returning
that evil for evil again, but seeing that there is in these
accidental affronts or intentional offences for grievous wounds,
as Christ has forgiven us, so forgive one another. What a beautiful
pattern that is for the believer. and we are to be charitable.
Paul says above all, above all, above all these things, above
the bowels of mercies, be charitable, above the kindness and generosity,
be charitable, be loving, above the humbleness of mind and meekness
and long-suffering and forbearance and forgiveness, let's be loving
one to another. Why is that? Because this love
cements everything else. All these other qualities and
characteristics are bound together by love. These graces that we
have in our souls, it is love that gives them a vitality and
gives them a reality. He first loved us. And what a
great characteristic of grace that is in a believer's life.
It is defining. It is defining of a believer
that we love one another. By this shall all men know that
you are my disciples if you have love one to another. And love
is the bond of perfectness. I put that down as the title
to our sermon this evening because I thought it was such a delightful
phrase, the bond of perfectness. It's the glue that keeps it all
together. Love is the glue, is the cement
that keeps us in that holiness, in that perfection and enables
and allows us to exhibit and exercise these gifts and graces
which the Lord has implanted in his elect people. in His holy
people. It keeps everything else in place. It regulates it all together. The legalists, they say, oh,
you've got to be regulated by the law of Moses. No! No, you are to be regulated by
the love of Christ, by the bond of perfectness, by the peace
of God in your heart. That's what regulates us. That's
what keeps us serving and following after the Lord Jesus Christ.
Away with those legalists, away with the Judaizers, away with
those troublers of the Colossians and the Galatians and the Ephesians
and the great Pholians and everyone else. The Lord Jesus Christ has loved
us and how we are loved, what his love has secured. He says, I have loved you. He has loved us to the point
of sacrifice, loved us to the point of death, loved us to the
cross. And that extreme of the love
of Christ is not designed to intimidate us, but to encourage
us and to point us to the great example, to the great source.
so that we can think, when we think about the love that Christ
had for us, that our forgiveness does extend, our forbearance
does extend. We can put up in long-suffering
with all the trials that we are called to face because Christ
loved us even unto death. And here's the last point. Let the peace of God rule in
your hearts. That's what the apostle goes
on to say, having put on all these graces which the Lord has
arrayed us in, which the Lord has honoured us with, which the
Lord exhibits as he indwells us in our hearts and souls. Let
the peace of God rule in your hearts. Let it, let it. It's yours. Let it rule. It's
there. It's already seated there in
our new man. This isn't the fear of the legalists
with their iron rule, nor the bribery of the so-called neo-Nomians
with their gutted and hollowed out rules and regulations which
they bolt onto the back of grace and salvation and say, this is
how you've got to live. That leaves us saying to ourselves,
have I done enough? That leaves us worried and anxious
that we've upset God because of our shortfalls and because
of our failures and because of our sins and because of the temptations
that we succumb to. And it makes us feel as if we're
in trouble. And the apostle says, no, let
the peace of God rule in your hearts. This is gospel. This
is the gospel. The peace of God is God's peaceable
atonement. in the making right of sinners
through the blood of Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter about our works
any longer. Our works are gone. It doesn't
matter about our sins any longer. Our sins are taken away. He has reconciled us to Himself
by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Redeemer and Intercessor. And the knowledge of that fact
is the ground of our peace and the reason for our acceptance.
We rest in that. We rest easy in the work, the
completed work of our Saviour. and the promises of our God having
been fulfilled and accomplished because of what Christ has done
for us. What can we do for God? What
can we do for God? Nothing. All we are is thankful
that he has done everything for us. Brothers and sisters, in
Christ. This is what we have been called
to. This is what we've been called
to. That's what Paul says. The Lord Jesus Christ has won
the battle. We are being called to participate
in the victory parade. And in that parade, we have been
arrayed splendidly in these gospel blessings of the grace and goodness
of God. These characteristics which we
exhibit because of that new man implanted in us. Let the word
of Christ dwell in you richly, says the apostle. That is the
Gospel. The Word of Christ is the Gospel
with the blessings that the Gospel brings. Let it dwell in you richly. Be wise in the truth of what
Christ has accomplished. The Lord Jesus Christ is all
we need and all we ever shall need. He is made unto us, says
Paul to the Corinthians, wisdom and righteousness and sanctification
and redemption. And I take this little phrase,
let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, to mean hear the
gospel, listen to the gospel, listen to the gospel of God's
free grace, hear it regularly, hear it frequently, take it to
heart, apply the graces, apply the promises, love the message,
do it with joy, do it in song, in psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs to your mutual help, and to the mutual encouragement of
one another in the fellowship of the Lord's people. Let me
make a point and with this I'm going to bring our thoughts to
an end. People ask me, they say, what
can I do? What have I to do? What can I
do and what can I not do as a believer? Is it okay to do this? Is it
okay to do that? Let me tell you, child of God,
there are two principles by which you are to test every such question. Two principles. And here's the
first one. Paul says, verse 15, does the peace of God
rule in your heart? Here's the second one, verse
16. Does the word of Christ dwell in you richly? What can I do and what can I
not do as a believer? Does the peace of God rule in
your heart? Does the word of Christ dwell
in you richly? Then do whatever you want to
do. Do whatever you want to do. Do
what you desire. Follow your heart's desire. That is your Christian liberty. That is your freedom in Christ. And whatever you do, says the
apostle, whatever you do, in word or in deed, do it freely. Do it joyfully. Do it confidently. Do it in the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God. and the Father by him. Amen and amen. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us and encourage our heart in this freedom and Christian
liberty that we have been given in the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank
you once again for your sharing with me in the gospel.