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Introduction / Review:
Last week we started looking at Col. 3:12-17, and the title I gave
to this series is “the Believer’s profile.” I am using the term
“profile” not in the sense of a silhouette, but in the sense of
observing a person’s external characteristics and drawing a
reasonable conclusion about that person based on observable
evidence. The question I posed was, “Should a casual observer be
able to watch a believer for a little while and reasonably conclude
that we have been born again?” And as I shared last week, I believe
that is the way our lives should be.
Last week’s sermon focused on
answering the question, “Who am I?” As a person who has accepted
Jesus Christ as the payment for my sins, who am I? What
characterizes my life now? Now that I am a “new person” because my
old ways have been put aside, what is this “new person”
characterized by? And the answer to this question was found in the
first phrase of verse 12 where Paul gives us three descriptions of
the believer. “And so, as those who have been chosen of God,
holy and beloved . . .” First of all, we have been chosen
for salvation. That is seen in the phrase “chosen of God.”
Secondly, “we are set apart.” That is seen in the
word “holy.” Finally, we are “beloved.” We are the
objects of God’s purposeful, willful decision to love us. And my
overall point last week was that we are God’s hand-picked, elite,
representatives here on earth to carry out His plan. This is why I
was using illustrations taken from the United States Armed Forces
Special Forces.
Now the reason we have to start
this series on the believer’s profile by thinking about who we are
is because it is our identity that determines our activity.
What do I spend most of my day doing? Painting houses. Why do I
engage in this activity for so many hours a week? Because I am a
painter. My identity (painter) determines my activity (painting).
If I were to spend the majority of my week welding, no one would
look at me and think to themselves, what a wonderful, caring,
compassionate doctor Murray is. What I am determines how I live.
My being dictates my doing. This is why we start this series on the
believer’s profile by thinking about who we are.
So with this in mind, I want us to
read verse 12 again and I am going to change the order of some of
the words to illustrate this truth. “As those who have been
chosen of God, holy and beloved , therefore put on a heart of
compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.”
Paul’s point is that since we have been chosen,
set apart, and loved by God we should have lives characterized by
compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. As
believers in Christ, these qualities should be just as much a part
of our lives as eating and drinking and sleeping. What I am
determines how I live.
Transition: So
let’s get into this list that runs down through verse 17 and see
what we should look like.
II. What I Should
Look Like
We are going to start looking at
this list of character traits by noting that some of them are
external and some are internal. The external traits are
listed through verse 14, and starting with verse 15, we see internal
traits. Note the external traits in verse 14, “compassion,
kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.” They continue in
verse 13 with “bearing with one another” and “forgiving each
other.” They conclude in verse 14 with “loving” one another.
Starting in verse 15, Paul turns
his attention inward. Note his command to “let the word of Christ
richly dwell” where? “Within you.” That is an internal trait. He
also says that we are to be thankful where? “In our hearts.”
Another internal characteristic of the believer. So as we go
through this passage, remember that a believer has both internal and
external characteristics.
A. Externally - 12b - 14
Let’s start our study of the
external profile of a believer by looking at the words “put on” in
verse 12 - “and so, as those chosen of God, holy and beloved,
put on . . .” This word is what triggered the whole idea
in my mind of “profiling,” because literally this word means to “get
dressed in” or “clothe yourself.” The imagery Paul is appealing to
is that just as you get up in the morning and put on your shirt and
pants or whatever it is you wear for the day; in the same way a
believer is to get up in the morning and “put on,” or “clothe
himself” with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and
patience. It is an activity that is purposeful, conscious,
deliberate, and repeated.
Let me give you several points of
application. First of all, remember that doing these things we are
going to talk about is going to require a deliberate choice on your
part. When you get up in the morning, your clothes do not
mysteriously make their way out of the closet and onto your body.
You consciously choose what you are going to wear and you
deliberately put them on. Being compassionate and kind and gentle
and humble and patient is not going to mysteriously pervade your
life. You are going to have to consciously choose to live this way
and deliberately do these things. Deliberate choice.
The second point of application
taken from this word “put on” is that none of these things come to
us naturally. By nature we are no more patient and kind and gentle
and humble than we are naturally born with a shirt on our backs. We
are born naked and we would remain so all our lives if we did not
make the effort to clothe ourselves. If you want to be a kind and
humble person who is compassionate and gentle, you are going to have
to reverse nature. Now let that thought sink in for a moment.
Reversing nature is not easy (cf. making water run uphill is
possible but not easy). And I want to warn you at the outset that
reversing your nature is not easy either. Now thankfully we have
the assistance of the Holy Spirit of God that enables us to reverse
nature, but the operative word here is assist. He helps our
infirmities and weaknesses, He does not eradicate them.
Determined activity.
The third point of application is
that living this way requires life long effort. Getting dressed is
a daily activity for most of us. It is a repetitive activity. Just
because you got dressed this morning before you came to church does
not mean that you will wake up tomorrow morning already dressed for
the day. Every single morning of your life you are going to have to
get dressed. In the same way, just because you are compassionate
and kind today does not mean you will automatically be kind and
compassionate tomorrow. These are activities that require a
daily focus. So the phrases to remember as we consider
the words “put on” are deliberate choice, determined activity, and
daily focus.
Transition: So what
is it that we are to put on? Let’s look at the first quality of a
believer that requires deliberate choice, determined activity, and a
daily focus. And we see that it is a “heart of compassion.”
A. Compassion
Now if you are using a KJV this
morning, the phrase we are looking at is the phrase “bowels of
mercy.” That is a very literal translation of the two words Paul
uses. The NAS combines them and calls it “compassion.” And even
though “bowels of mercy” is archaic, it is a very descriptive
translation and conveys an important point that the word
“compassion” misses. This is one of the instances where I prefer
the KJV over the NAS. The word “bowels” is an old word for your
intestines, or internal organs. One of the divisions of your
intestines is your large bowel. Our word bowel comes from the Latin
word for sausage, botulus, because sausage is stuffed into
cleaned out pig intestines. But the thing to remember here is that
this is a reference to a literal part of your body. It is not a
metaphorical word.
How many of you are familiar with
the physical sensation you get down around your belly or below your
navel when you see something particularly painful? I read once
about a police officer who was investigating a particularly gruesome
accident and he said “it turned his stomach.” What did he mean? He
was referring to that physiological sensation we get down in our
lower belly area when we see something that is painful or
distressing.
Now my point is that when Paul
used the phrase spla,gcnon
oivktirmo,j, he is
referring to something more than simple compassion. In our minds,
compassion is usually feeling sorry for someone else. But the
thrust of this phrase involves two additional elements that move
compassion from simply feeling pity to being biblical compassion.
And those elements are 1) physical reaction and 2) personal
alleviation of the pain. The physical reaction is seen in the
deliberate use of the word “bowels,” and the personal alleviation of
the pain is seen in the particular word for mercy that Paul uses
here. This word for mercy is not the usual word for mercy we see in
the Bible. This word for mercy carries with it the idea of a
motivating emotion.
Lets say we were to have a guest
missionary here some day talking about the horrific condition of the
people in the Sudan. And he show us slides of the abject poverty
and starving babies with swollen bellies and the maimed people who
have stepped on land mines or cruelly tortured in the civil war.
There is a very good chance that we will experience the physical
sensation in our bellies that accompany this, but if we stop there,
have we demonstrated biblical compassion? No. Because compassion,
or bowels of mercy motivates us to personally be involved in the
alleviation of the suffering. This is what separates biblical
compassion from pity or sympathy.
We all feel pity for the unwed
mothers who feel forced by their circumstances to get an abortion,
but compassion is when we actually get involved in alleviating their
distress. This is why I am opposed to groups who limit their
pro-life activities to protesting at abortion clinics. What are
they doing to alleviate the distressing circumstances of the woman
seeking the abortion? Where are the free counseling services that
show and even pay for the alternatives to abortion? Where are the
safe refuges that woman can go to for the next year so she can give
birth to that child? That is compassion - personal involvement in
alleviating the suffering.
Application: The
point of application I want to make is that it is very easy for us
to fall into the trap of pity. As believers, we need to move beyond
simply feeling bad about the suffering that goes on around us. I
call it the “trap of pity” because we pride ourselves on not being
calloused to the suffering of humanity - we genuinely do feel bad
for people who are in pain of various types. In the story of the
Good Samaritan, the Priest and the Levite probably felt pity for the
poor man who had been robbed and beaten. But did Jesus commend
their actions? No. Only the Samaritan demonstrated compassion. He
had “bowels of mercy.”
And that is the challenge for
us today. Put on compassion. And as we leave the building this
morning, we are going to have the opportunity to practice what we
have talked about. Compassion. It will require us to make a
deliberate choice. |
