Colossians 3:12-17 | The New Clothes of the Gospel

Let’s open the Bible now to Colossians 3:12-17. The old self is dead, and the new self is now alive in Christ. One of the gifts of that new self is a new way to live together, and that’s our subject today.

Let’s read the passage now.

12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 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. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. 16 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. 17 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.

This is God’s word.

INTRODUCTION

In his book The Church Before the Watching World, Francis Schaeffer said (page 62):

One cannot explain the explosive dynamite of the early church apart from the fact that they practiced two things simultaneously: orthodoxy of doctrine and orthodoxy of community in the midst of the visible church, a community which the world could see. By the grace of God, therefore, the church must be known simultaneously for its purity of doctrine and the reality of its community.

In Colossians 3, we see the gospel culture that gospel doctrine creates. Gospel doctrine is what we believe: the gospel, the message of God’s grace for the undeserving. Gospel culture is the lived experience that doctrine creates. As Ray Ortlund says, “Gospel doctrine creates a gospel culture. The message of grace creates a culture of grace.” (Ortlund, The Gospel, page 21) When a church has gospel doctrine plus gospel culture, that church is a powerful witness to the watching world. The true test of a gospel-centered church is the doctrine it says it believes plus the culture it actually experiences.

Now, a wonderful thing about God is that what he asks of us, he also gives us the power to do. When we come to a passage like this, prescriptive in nature, we must come to it under the same terms of grace that we come to all of Scripture. God’s call is high, and his grace matches the call. God can create a gospel culture in any church that will simply open themselves to his amazing grace.

In our passage today, Paul exhorts us to put on the new clothes of the gospel to live out a gospel culture. It all starts with where we find our identity. Because we are in Christ, we have his characteristics. This is not something we achieve; it is something God gives. Because we are new people, we have new clothes to wear, which display our new nature and lead to a new community.

So we can break the passage down into three simple points:

1.   Our new identity

2.   Our new nature

3.   Our new community

OUR NEW IDENTITY

In verse 5, Paul commanded us to put to death what is earthly in us. In verse 12, he commands us to put on something new. The grimy clothes of sin are to be exchanged for the glorious clothes of the gospel. God has done something transformational in us. We have a new self. This new self supersedes all other selves. We are Christians now.

So Paul says in verse 12, “Put on then….” Now what he says next matters so much. Everything flows from it. If we don’t let the truth of these next few words settle deep in our hearts, we will never be able to live out the rest of the passage. “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved….” Here is the miracle of Christianity for all who believe. Chosen. Holy. Beloved.

We are chosen, holy, and beloved because of the cross of Christ. Jesus paid for our sins and gave us his righteousness. He reconciled us to God on the cross. He didn’t do that for a nameless bunch of people. He did that for you. Why? Because you are God’s chosen one. Because you are his chosen, he made you holy. Because you are chosen, you are his beloved. You didn’t deserve that. You deserved God’s wrath. But in his grace and mercy, he chose you to be his forever. He did all that was necessary to save you from the domain of darkness and transfer you into the kingdom of his beloved son (Col. 1:13). No matter what else you are: a parent, a businessman, an American, whatever, you are first and foremost a Christian—one chosen by God.

This is so massively important to the rest of the passage. It’s Exhibit A that gospel doctrine creates a gospel culture. When we find ourselves wonderfully in the love of God, only then will we be able to truly live out his call on our lives. When we see who we are to God, only then will we be able to live as he desires. When we understand that we are his, by his choice, we can live freely with others. We have to see the grace of this doctrine. We have to understand this isn’t because we knew the right people or paid the set dues or earned our spot on the team. God simply chose us and brought us in by his grace.

So much goes wrong when we are trying to fight up the hill of holiness in our own strength. But when we see that we are made holy in Christ, the weight of the world drops off our shoulders. So much goes wrong when we constantly pine to be loved deep down. But when we see that we are loved by God, and his love took Jesus to the cross, we find peace. Being loved changes us more than anything else. It gives us the power to live as God asks us to live more than anything else.

Paul says on the front end that we are loved by God, by his choice. We are not coercing God to love us. He loves us because he loves us. If God loved us because of something he saw that was loveable in us, we would never have peace. How could we? We might change. We might disappoint him. He might get sick of us at some point, and like we’ve experienced so many times with human love, he might decide to leave us. But that’s not how God’s love for us works. Nothing in us compelled God to love us, so nothing in us can compel him to unlove us. God loves us despite our sins. God loves us despite our failures. God loves us because he loves us, and all God asks us to do is accept his love. We don’t have to earn it. We just have to accept it with the empty hands of faith. All the holiness and love we desire deep down is ours for the taking by the grace of God in the Spirit of God by the cross of Christ.

The motivation for the rest of what Paul wants to say to us is grounded in this one simple truth of the gospel: all in Christ are God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved. Try as we may, we will never live out the rest of this passage if we don’t ground it all in the gospel doctrine of the deep love of God for the undeserving. And conversely, when this gospel doctrine settles on our hearts and keeps settling on our hearts moment by moment as we look to Jesus, the rest of the passage comes naturally. After all, we are new creations in Christ. God’s only asking us to be who we already are in Christ.

It all starts with who you are. Who you are determines what you do. If you are a Christian, you can live as God calls because your identity is a miracle already. The hard part is done. Jesus died to make you holy. The call of all that comes next may sound impossible to live out, but “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Rom. 8:32)

We are new people now. We are Christians. We are the chosen, the holy, the beloved.

This new identity leads to our new nature. Let’s look at what that is now.

OUR NEW NATURE

We see the new nature beginning in verse 12. It includes certain attributes: compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Verse 13 tells us to bear with and forgive one another. Verse 14 tells us to put on love. Verses 15 and 16 call us to be thankful in all we do. This is all in the context of community. The beauty of the gospel becomes visible to the world in part through the beauty of our relationships with one another. One way we know Jesus is real and living is through the culture of life he creates in his churches.

Paul is paralleling the negative attributes listed in verses 5 and 8. Our old nature was filled with sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, idolatry, anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk. The new clothes are the antithesis of the old clothes, bearing witness to what only God can do among his people.

Now, here’s the amazing thing about this new nature. All these virtues are associated with Jesus himself. When we put on these new clothes, we are putting on Christ. Jesus is not only all these wonderful things for us; he also makes all these wonderful things a reality in us and among us.

Compassionate hearts make us deeply sensitive to the needs and sorrows of others (Wright). Literally translated, it means the “bowels of mercy” (Moo). 1 John 3:17 says, “If anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?” That’s the logic of the new nature. We cannot see someone in need and not feel deeply moved as Jesus does. Remember when the leper came to Jesus? “If you will, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, [Jesus] stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, “I will; be clean.” (Mark 1:40-41). We may not be able to heal with a touch like Jesus, but he’s asking that we care with his compassion—the compassion that takes us close to the weak and needy.

Kindness makes us Christlike toward others, loving them as we love ourselves. We are good to one another like Jesus is to us. He bends down to the children and welcomes them (Matt. 19:14). He makes room for the outsiders and the outcasts (Mark 2:13-17). He goes to the well to talk to the woman no one else would dare be seen with (John 4). He extends kindness. That can be exhausting, but when we wonder if we can go on, Jesus says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heaven laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 28:11). We have a kind savior who creates and sustains kind people.

Humility is the beauty of self-forgetfulness, where we consider others more important than ourselves. It is the low place Jesus took when he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Phil. 2:7-8). We don’t have to be impressive. We can stoop low because Jesus did.

Meekness means we stop jockeying for position. We are not impressed by our own self-importance. The word could be translated as “gentle.” Jesus is the most magnificent person in the universe, yet he is gentle and lowly at heart (Matt. 11:29). A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench (Isa. 42:3; Matt. 12:20). In a world of harshness, we are to be meek and gentle, like Jesus.

Patience means we bear with one another. We don’t pressure each other to change quickly but give time and safety under the gospel to let Jesus change us from one degree of glory to another in his timing, not ours. Jesus was patient with his disciples, who, again and again, just didn’t get it. But he knew they would when he was lifted up on the cross and resurrected on the third day. Gospel truth compels us to be patient and let God do his work. Where would you be without the patience of God? I know some people are difficult to live with. They grate on our nerves, and sometimes we just wish they’d go away. We don’t click with everyone. But Jesus can click with any personality type. And for his sake, he calls us to bear with one another. Like a tapestry made of many parts, the beauty of the gospel is seen in the varied people God unites.

Our new nature gives us the power to forgive. The forgiveness he lavishes on us flows out to others. As Jesus said in the parable of the unforgiving servant, we are not to hold others’ sins against them but to forgive them freely and fully as the Lord has forgiven us. Jesus’s forgiveness is not only our example but also our power.

I was recently reminded of this power. My family and I just got back from Washington, D.C. We went to the Holocaust Museum and learned about the horror of Hitler’s Nazis in the 1930s and 40s. I remember a story from Corrie Ten Boom, who, with her family, was sent to a concentration camp for hiding Jews in their home. Her father was killed. Her sister, Betsie, also died in the camp. Corrie survived. One day after the war, she spoke on forgiveness at a church. Afterward, one of the guards at the concentration camp came forward to greet her. Here’s what she said about that day.

      It was at a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former S.S. man who had stood guard at the shower door in the processing center at Ravensbruck. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly it was all there – the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie’s pain-blanched face.

      He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. ‘How grateful I am for your message.’ He said. ‘To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!’

His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who preached so often to the people the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.

      Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.

      I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me your forgiveness.

      As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.

      And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on his. When he tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.

That’s the new nature of the gospel. Perhaps nothing shows it as powerfully as forgiveness.

Then there is love. Love is what binds this all together. Without love, it's all just clanging symbols, a bunch of noise (1 Cor.13:1). Forgiveness might be the most shocking of the new nature, but love is the key that drives it all. It’s the outer garment that holds it all together. In every interaction, love is to set the tone. Love is to lead. It was love that compelled God to send his Son. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son” (John 3:16). Only when love is real will unity be real, and that is Paul’s aim. As Jesus said, they will know us by our love (John 13:35). Love from God flows into God’s beloved, and love from the beloved flows out to others. It’s a river of love, sweeping others into its flow.

Finally, our new nature makes us thankful in everything we do. Jesus was the perfect model of this. He thanked his Father for everything constantly. He accepted with thanksgiving every good thing and every hard thing. He only asks us to do the same. And shouldn’t we? All we want most deeply is ours in Christ and will be forever. Christ has saved us! Jesus has restored our fortunes. He has paid for our sins. He has promised abundant life. He is coming again to restore this broken world. He is going to make everything sad come untrue. He is our Lord and Savior, and he will never leave us nor forsake us. He will love us when we’re unlovable. He will be gracious and merciful forever. He will care for us in all our needs and sorrows. He will go before us in all our trials. He will stand with us when no one else will. He will be for us even though the world is against us. He will be all we need anyone to be for us and more. The new nature is kind of like Whoville. The Grinch can take what he wants, but he can’t take our joy. He can’t take our thankfulness. He can’t take our song.

That’s the new nature our new identity creates. Now, the new community that flows from it all.

OUR NEW COMMUNITY

Our new identity and our new nature create a new community. Gospel doctrine creates a gospel culture. All that Paul has said applies to each one of us individually, but when individuals like that gather, God creates among them a radiant community centered on his gospel and sustained by his love. God calls that a church.

The key verse is verse 15. “And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.” Our way forward in beauty and unity and radiance in the gospel is by letting the peace of Christ rule in our hearts. The Greek word for “rule” refers to “umpire.” What do umpires do? They render a verdict on situations. They call balls and strikes. They call safe or out. They interpret the rules and apply them. In baseball, it is the official rule book that is the decisive factor. In the church, it’s the peace of Christ.

When the peace of Christ rules in a church, that church shines bright for all the world to see. Have you noticed how unpeaceful the world is? You can’t open social media without witnessing a fight. How many office meetings tomorrow morning will be filled with tension? How many ex-coworkers and ex-friends and ex-whatevers in the world will be created just in this next week? But inside the church, as we let the peace of Christ rule, we find a way forward even when the light ahead is dim. We have been united by Christ, and his kingdom is a kingdom of peace. He is a ruler of peace. Whatever our disagreements may be, however much we may be suspicious of others, we are to deal with it all in terms of the peace Christ has made. He has reconciled us to God. Can he not bring peace among us? We do not have a dead savior. In all our disputes, he is living and active.

Verse 16 helps us see one way the peace of Christ can rule in our hearts. “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly….” The word of Christ means, essentially, the gospel. The Bible is front and center. It’s where we see the gospel in black and white. It’s on the authority of the Bible that we teach and admonish one another. But notice also what else Paul mentions: singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Then, to expand it even further, he says in verse 17, “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus.” In other words, Paul is presenting a community in which the message of the gospel of Christ is preeminent, where Christ is all in all in the Church’s individual and corporate experience. The gospel must go deep in us and wide among us.

When the gospel goes deep and wide, God creates a radiant community that proves the gospel is true. Now, the gospel is true whether we act like it or not. We don’t make the gospel true; God does. But we can bear witness to it. We can say to the watching world, “Here’s what Jesus can do.” The church is where the gospel is field-tested for real life (Ray Ortlund, The Gospel, page 66).

The church is the model house in the new neighborhood God is building in this world. We have a message of grace that frees captives from sin and death. We have a Savior who loves and cares and saves the undeserving. The center of the church must be Jesus and Jesus alone. And we must never leave him nor stray from his message.

When we put on the new clothes of Jesus, we become in God’s gracious hands the kind of community everyone in this world longs for. A place where they can be loved and forgiven and find freedom and peace and safety. Here’s how we get there. We look to Jesus alone, and we never stop looking. We let him define us, and we stop defining ourselves. We let him be the center and stop putting ourselves there in that sacred circle where only he belongs. We live a life of faith, moment by moment, letting the peace of Christ rule and letting the word of Christ dwell in us richly, and we become in his merciful hands a thoroughly thankful community that looks like an outpost of heaven on earth.

It’s not easy, but it is possible because we aren’t who we once were. We’re new creations in Christ, empowered by his Spirit to live as he desires. In all our needs, he is there. In all our failures, he is our success. All we have to do is humbly submit to his way of life, and then we will see what only God can do, and it will be radiant, and it will say to this world, “Jesus is beautiful. Come and see.” And we will be happy beyond our wildest dreams. It won’t be easy. Living for Jesus never is. But it will be glorious. And, really, what choice do we have? It’s who God has made us to be. Isn’t that amazing? Who could ask for a more glorious community? That’s what God is granting. All we have to do is accept it and live into it, by his power, for his glory, and for our joy.

Let’s pray.