Sermon Transcript
But we do think of these different environments because we’re environment sensitive, aren’t we? Environments affect us in different ways wherever we are. We’re just affected by the environment around us. So for instance, I was thinking about going to college at Westmont College. I thought that it was the right place for me, but then we made a visit to the campus and we began to look around the campus and we saw these different settings there.
And it absolutely convinced me that Westmont was the place I was going to go. I thought that it was the right place. I mean, academically and all of that, when I looked at everything, and I had a friend who went to Westmont and graduated from there, and I really liked what I saw in his life, and I wanted to be like him. And so I figured if I go to this place, you know, then I might inherit some of the qualities that he has. So I went on a campus tour, saw the campus, had a great time.
Ultimately what convinced me was the environment. It was what we saw there as we were walking around the campus. It was also the rose garden and walking through this rose garden, this chapel area and all of that. I remember distinctly feeling I could fall in love here. And that feeling really, it just kind of sealed the deal for me.
And those of you that know our story, Bernice and I actually did fall in in love at Westmont College, and we ended up getting married 8 months after I graduated from there. I wasn’t about to get engaged there because they did really bad things to people that got engaged, you know, pranks and stuff like that. So waited till after we left college and then, you know, went on with this relationship. Now you think about the environments and, and how environments affect you, whether it’s an environment like this this morning Or maybe it’s the coffee shop you go to. There’s a certain special feeling that you have when you get in there.
Maybe it’s just how fast they serve you. That’s part of the environment. Maybe it’s a certain store. They’re very friendly at this store. Maybe it’s your home.
You just absolutely love being in your home because of the feelings that you have in your home. Or maybe it’s going over to somebody’s home because it’s just such a delightful place to be. Or maybe it’s not going over to somebody’s home because of the environment that’s over there. And you just avoid that place like a plague. You know, you’re not going over there.
Maybe it has to do with just your backyard. We visited a friend here at the church, who’s a part of our church, and saw his backyard recently. And he’s got these flowers and plants planted back there by design so that there’s always something in bloom. And it’s this, you know, wonderful environment back there. It may be that’s why you go to a certain gym.
You love the environment. Nobody talks to you. You know, you like that. You like your privacy. It might be why you go to a certain theater.
The reason that Bernice and I love a particular theater is because of the recliners that are in this theater. We love that. You know, we love feeling pampered when we go to this place. So it has a lot to do with the environment. We’re going to teach the Bridges intro class this week, and often in this class I’ll hear about why people not only came to the church but secondly continued to come to the church.
And often as they talk about why they continued to come to the church, it’s connected to an environment. They came on the campus, they felt welcomed here, there were friendly people here, there was this warm feeling, they felt Sometimes they use this word, they felt like they were at home here. Or somebody invited them to a life group, or somebody invited them out to lunch, or they came back the next week and somebody remembered their name, and that really said a lot to them. Or they put their kids over in the, you know, children’s ministries, and their kids really liked it. They came out, they were happy, and they said, we want to go back.
They weren’t sure if they’re going to come back, but then the kids said, we gotta go back there. And so they came back. Sometimes it’s related to the kids, or maybe it was, oh, they had this special music group there, or, you know, we love the music and that really made us want to come back to the church. Or maybe it had to do with Pastor Dave’s message. It was short.
Okay, maybe not, but There are a lot of different environments that people can have even on a campus like this. You say, well, why even bring up the subject of environment? Because it actually comes up in this Colossians study that we’re doing. We’re in chapter 3 now. We’re down in verses 15 and 16.
And Paul’s been talking to this church about their focus. He’s been talking to them about living with an upward focus and a forward focus, with an over-and-done focus. We’re over and done with the old life and with a new life focus. We want to put on the new life. And so having said all of that, then he addresses a couple other subjects, but in the context of what he’s addressing here, he’s actually talking about the environment, the environment that is present in this church.
This is what he says in verses 15 and 16, let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body You are called to peace. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. Now, he’s defining there for us a healthy church environment, the kind of environment that really needed to characterize the church at Colossae. And when we talk about church, you have the word body used here in verse 15, members of one body.
So, when you think about the church, he’s not defining a building. He’s defining a body, a group of people. He’s not defining a place. He’s defining a people group, a community, a gathering. He’s not defining a facility.
He’s talking about a family. So, in some ways, the way that we use this language, we kind of understand what we’re saying when we say, I’m going to go to church. Well, and actually, that’s not accurate. We’re going to go gather with the church on Magdalena Boulevard. That would be more accurate, right?
But I think we kind of understand this. I mean, we often say, that’s a beautiful sunset. When in reality that’s not true because the sun doesn’t set. We should say, that’s a beautiful earth position. Look at that.
That’s beautiful. I like how it rotated just to— So we kind of understand, right? When we say we’re going to go to church today, we kind of understand what we’re saying, but But in order to really understand what he’s saying here, you got to think about this in light of what is the church? The church is a group of people. It’s a gathering.
It’s a community. And so in a sense, if you’re really going to understand the application of this, you got to keep that in mind. It’s not a building. It’s not a facility. Yes, facilities and buildings can help the environment, but ultimately it really comes down to people.
And he says here, there are 2 key things here with regard to what these people must do if they’re going to experience an environment of peace. And you notice peace is talked about a couple of times here, the absence of conflict where abundance of tranquility prevails. If it’s going to be an environment of thanksgiving where they’re giving thanks for God and and to each other for each other, if it’s going to be an environment of learning where there’s an eagerness to learn, where there’s teaching and there’s also admonishment, if it’s going to be an environment of worship where singing is happening, where people can hardly wait to get there to sing among all these people, well, if all of that’s going to happen, then 2 things must happen. 2 things must happen, and you see them in parallel where he says, let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. And then he says in verse 16, and let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.
So you’ve got 2 let words here, right? Let and let. The first let is focused on peace, and the second let is focused on the word of Christ richly dwelling within us. And to use the word let is to say, don’t stand in the way of this happening. Let this happen in your midst.
Don’t fight this. I mean, you know, don’t not want it, but embrace it. Embrace this happening. Cooperate with the work of God in your midst. And you need to cooperate with the work of God in your midst in a couple of specific ways.
Number 1, by letting peace prevail. Let the peace of Christ prevail. Let it fill your midst. When we talk about the peace of Christ, we’re talking about the peace of God. We’re talking about the peace that God gives.
We’re talking about the peace that Jesus Christ demonstrated when He was on planet Earth. I mean, even in circumstances where He could have, you know, called down heaven on people, He walked out of their midst at times instead of create conflict. So we’re talking about the peace that Jesus manifested, and he says we need to let the peace rule in our hearts so that it creates an environment of peace. Now, this idea of rule actually is the word that means umpire, or to sit as an umpire, or to arbitrate, to judge, or to settle something. And the picture here is that the peace of Christ must be the umpire that comes calling, so to speak, that is the final authority on the field.
So the peace of Christ must be the final authority when anger exists or disputes exist or anxiety or indecision. When all of that comes into our lives, whether in relationships or whatever it is, just even in a personal way, Peace must rule in our hearts, and peace then is the freedom from anxiety. Boy, what a great state to live in. Freedom from anxiety. Peace is freedom from agitation.
Peace is freedom from animosity. Peace is freedom from anger, and here we’re talking about the wrong kind of anger, a sinful anger. Peace is God-given tranquility. That encompasses our minds, that fills our minds, and it fills our hearts. It’s the fruit of God’s work in us.
It’s the fruit of conflict resolution.
He says in verse 15, so let the peace of Christ be the umpire, rule in your hearts, because as members you were called to peace. So God put you in His family and He wants His family members to get along. That’s what he’s saying. We need to be relationally at peace with each other. Now, that isn’t always easy, is it?
Because we get on each other’s what? Nerves. Yeah. I mean, we’re imperfect people. We can be problematic.
I mean, you may right now not be at peace because of something somebody said to you or something you said to somebody else, and you feel some agitation in your heart or Could have just happened on the way over here, who knows? Or you pulled in, somebody had already taken your parking place.
It may require for this to happen peace summits where you call a peace summit and say, we got to get together, we got to talk about this. What can we do to get past this problem? How are we going to work this whole thing out? When we teach couples who are preparing for marriage, we say, you know, you got 5 options when you have conflict in your relationship. You can do it my way, you can do it your way, you can do it no way, you can do it halfway, or you can do it our way.
And really, the best of this isn’t my way. It’s going to be my way or the highway kind of thing. And the best isn’t always your way. I mean, sometimes That might be the best, but usually it’s not if you’re trying to work together on something. Certainly, it’s not no way, this is not going to happen.
Even halfway isn’t the best compromise. Best is our way. Let’s get on the same page. Let’s work this out. Let’s resolve this problem.
Let’s come to peace with each other. And Paul says in the church, in the body of Christ, there needs to be an environment of peace where people are at peace with each other. And yes, at times this may mean peace summits, but other times it may mean just canceling debt. It may mean love covering a multitude of sins. It may mean not making an issue out of it, just letting it go.
So I can’t let it go? Well, why not? That might be a part of just actually finally getting some kind of peace in this relationship. As far as it depends upon you, be at peace with others. And if you can’t work it out, it may be necessary to just let it go.
Just let it go so that there can be peace. And he goes on and he says immediately, and be thankful. Now, why in the world would he bring thankful into this whole context of peace? Because thankfulness oftentimes leads to tranquility in relationships. Think about that.
Thankfulness often leads to tranquility in relationships if we can be thankful for that other person at a moment when we don’t feel thankful. In fact, I’ve had a counselor say to me as I was struggling with some bitterness in my life several years ago, say to me, so Dave, are you being thankful?
Are you thanking God for that person that’s hurt you? Are you able to express thanks to God for them? Are you able to express thanks to God that they’re a part of the family, that they’re a part of the body of Christ? See, often there is a connection, a direct connection between thankfulness and peace. When there’s thankfulness in relationships, peace is given a greater chance to prevail.
In these relationships. So he’s talking about a peace that is interrelational, but he’s also talking about a peace that should rule in our hearts. We want peace to be the umpire in our hearts. So if you’re making a decision right now and you don’t have any peace about it, you need to pay attention to the umpire that’s in your heart trying to arbitrate this decision, trying to lead you in a certain way. The first time Bernice and I really came across this was shortly after I graduated from seminary.
There was a church in the Sacramento area that brought us up to candidate for a possible senior pastor position. I never went to seminary thinking I would ever be a senior pastor. I mean that. That was never in my mind. I never thought I could sit at the desk that many hours and study and prepare week after week and, you know, have every week another final exam on Sunday morning.
I didn’t think I could go through that, you know. And so God opened these doors and began to lead us this direction, and it was fascinating to see him lead. And all of a sudden this door opens in this community in the foothills above Sacramento, kind of in the Folsom area, if you’ve ever been up in that area. It was at this place called Rescue. Have you ever heard of Rescue?
Well, there was a church in Rescue, California that wanted me to come and rescue them. But anyway, so, you know, be a part of their congregation. So we went up there, we were there for about 4 days, and, you know, as we’re going up, I mean, we’re looking, we went down to AAA because this is what you had to do back in those days. We had to go to AAA to get the little, you know, book to read about that area and all that stuff because there was no Google and online and all the rest of it. And so we did all of that And we prepared our hearts and our minds, and we’re thinking, this is going to be so great.
We’re going to be able to live in the foothills. This is going to be wonderful. And we had a great 4 days. And after the 4 days, though, we’re on the airplane flying back to Southern California, and all the way back we’re thinking, oh, we hope that they call us up and say no. That’s what we’re thinking.
We don’t feel like God wants us to do this. We’re just— there’s something inside of us that is saying this isn’t right, this isn’t a fit, there’s something wrong here. That’s all we had to go on. And then a day later they called us up and they said we had a church vote and everybody in the church voted for you to come. Everybody.
It was a 100% vote. I mean, you know, 10 people, it’s easy to get there, right?
But anyway, so it was more than that, but you get the idea. So they voted and they wanted us to come and we’re like Oh no, you know, we don’t— oh, what are we going to do? And ultimately we said no because we didn’t have peace. That was the ultimate reason we said no to this career decision. This was a big decision.
We said no because we didn’t have peace in our hearts. And I believe that’s what this text is also teaching. Not only is this a relational thing, but really it starts with you personally, because us personally have to be at peace if we’re going to be able to be at peace with other people. So it starts here and it spreads there. And sometimes it could be related to where God’s got you right now and what’s going on in your life right now, and he’s trying to direct you.
By the way, the end of that story is a couple months later, the pastor that I was under at the church that I was at there in Southern California resigned. He took a position and went over to Hawaii. He said it was the call of God. I’m going to Hawaii.
And the church asked us if we would be their interim pastor. And we said, okay, sure, and go through the process, find somebody else. And they finished the process and said, you’re the one. And God kept us there as the pastor for 21 years, all just because we said no when we didn’t have peace. I’ve had people in my office before, I’ve asked them the question related to their lifestyle.
Whether or not their lifestyle was congruent with what they knew God wanted for them. I mean, knowing God, and they would— many of these people I have this conversation with know him as their personal Savior. And I just say, is your lifestyle right now congruent? Is it in line with how God wants you to live? And I’ve had people start crying at that question.
And when there’s tears at that point, that’s an indication that there’s some kind of misalignment in their hearts with God’s will.
There’s a lack of peace, and that peace has been replaced by guilt.
See, God wants the church to be a place where peace prevails. There must be peace. There must be peace internally, and there must be peace relationally. But then he goes on and he gives a second let. He says, and let God’s Word richly dwell within you.
He says, let the Word of Christ dwell in you, verse 16, richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. The word of Christ— what are we talking about there? We’re talking about the word that Christ taught. We’re talking about the word that Jesus lived. We’re talking about the gospel.
We’re talking about the good news, the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ. If you’ve never heard this message, this is the good news, that God since the beginning has wanted a relationship with us, but we’ve played hard to get. That’s the true story. We’ve played hard to get. Well, I don’t really know if I want a relationship with God because I think I could do it much better.
And so God, because He loves us so much, has been relentless in His love for us, ultimately sends Jesus Christ to give His life, to live and to die on the cross for our sins so that we might have a forever life with God. That’s the Word of Christ. And this Word, he says, should dwell within us. It should be at home within us. It should be welcome there.
So put the welcome mat out with the Word of God, with the Word of Christ, and let it richly dwell within you. I think about verses, a couple verses came to mind of the Word of Christ richly dwelling there, the Word of God richly dwelling within us. I thought of Joshua 1:8. Some of you know exactly where I’m going with this, one right now because you’ve memorized this verse. Joshua 1:8, the book of the law, or this book of the law, shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written within it.
For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success. Success, prosperity, talking to Joshua and them moving into the Promised Land. Is all connected to holding on to the Word of God, to meditating on it, holding on so that it’s a part of our mouths, it’s a part of our lives, it changes the way that we live. That’s letting the Word of God richly dwell within you. And then you may remember Jeremiah, where Jeremiah says, your words were found and I ate them, and your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart.
For I have been called by your name, O Lord God of hosts. I mean, can’t you just see Jeremiah at this point finding the Word of God and he’s just having a feast? He is delighting on the Word of God. That’s the picture that we have here in Colossians chapter 3 and verse 16, is to let it richly abide within you. Jesus talked about there are 4 kinds of soils, and each of these soils are a different response to hearing the Word of God.
Remember the soils? There’s the hard soil, and so the Word of God doesn’t penetrate into the heart of that person. And there’s the rocky soil, and this rocky soil allows a little bit of penetration, but it’s shallow and there’s no depth there and there’s no moisture there. And so in short order, ultimately the Word of God is lost in this person’s life. It dies, dries up.
And then there’s a thorny soil, and this thorny soil, the problem here is that eventually God’s word is going to be choked out. It’s going to be choked out by the cares of life. But then there’s the good soil, and this good soil, when it receives the word of God, it produces a crop 100 times more than what was sown. It hears the word of God, retains it, it uses it, And the result is fruit. And the fruit that’s found in Colossians 3:16 is wisdom.
Let the Word of God, let the Word of Christ richly dwell within you with all wisdom. What’s wisdom? Well, wisdom is the God-given ability to say and do the right thing in the right way at the right time with the right tone and for the right reasons. That’s what wisdom is. You ever had anybody come alongside and say the right thing at the right time with the right tone?
Did it help? Oh, absolutely it helped. Did it keep you from messing up? Yeah, I can think of times where it kept me from messing up. Can you think conversely about somebody, somebody else coming along and saying the wrong thing at the wrong time with the wrong tone.
Did it hurt? Oh yeah, it hurt. Did it mess you up? Yeah, it still has. See what he’s saying here?
He’s saying we gotta let the word of Christ richly dwell within us so that then we have wisdom. We have wisdom. And this wisdom then guides us in this responsibility that we have to teach and to admonish one another. You say, why is teaching and admonishing so important? Well, because we’re still learning.
We’re all still learning. We’re all still growing. Is that not true? We still need other people to come alongside and to teach us. That’s why a Sunday morning like this could be so helpful, or life groups, or whatever it is.
We need people to come along and to give us wise teaching from wisdom. Sometimes we need it in formal ways like this. Other times we just need it in informal ways. And sometimes when you’re filled with wisdom and your heart is filled with the Word of God, this teaching just kind of just oozes out of you. You’re not even thinking.
You’re just speaking out of what God has put in your heart. I had a— Bernice and I had a lunch this week with some friends that we haven’t seen for probably over 6 years. And so it was great to welcome them here in town and to find a little restaurant where the environment there is very quiet. We didn’t go to BJ’s restaurant. Sometimes that’s where I want to go, you know, because it’s really loud over there.
You just want to go crazy. But I just need to hear this guy talk. And so we went to this little restaurant where nobody’s around, everybody’s quiet, and if anybody else talks, you know, you could hear their conversation. You know, that kind of restaurant. It was great.
But anyway, so we’re there and, and I just am asking him a little bit about what he’s been up to. He said, well, one of the things I’m doing right now is I’m teaching in a public school. This is a real strong Christian missionary couple. I’m teaching in public school. I said, that’s great.
He said, yeah, I love it. In fact, I love it from the first day I go into the classroom because I go in the classroom as a substitute teacher. And I get to just introduce myself. And so I introduce myself and then I’ll say, and my wife and I have been married for 40 years. 40 years.
And the kids are sitting there like, really? You know, I mean, come on. How does that happen? Because they’re coming from broken homes and they haven’t seen anything like this, so many of them. And he says, so oftentimes there’s usually one, at least one, how is that possible?
How is that possible, Mr. Elgin? You know, how could you do that? And so he says, so I just love to get them thinking. And so I’ll often say it’s not possible without a transcendent idea. A transcendent idea.
And then he just goes on. Inevitably they pick this up. What are you talking about? What’s the transcendent idea? And this is a public school.
So now he’s got an open door, right? Yeah, let me tell you what the transcendent idea is. And he shares about God and his relationship with God and the place that God has in their marriage and how that’s made all the difference in the world.
As he shared that, he wasn’t thinking about teaching me, but he taught me something. And when he shares that with the students in his classroom, Especially those who are Christ followers. They all of a sudden got an idea of how they can talk about Christ in a way that might open up a conversation. Wouldn’t that be great? This transcendent idea.
We need teaching. We need wise teaching. We need wise admonishment. That’s all the yo pros leaving to go get us some food ready for, for the break. You guys do a good job with that environment, okay?
But we also need admonishment, right? We need corrective help. We need people to come alongside and to help us at times where we blow it. Bernice, a couple days ago, she said something to me that I didn’t realize, but she said, you know, Dave, you just kind of blew off what I said to you recently about— I’m not going to get too specific here— about this this matter. You just blew it off.
And what she was doing was she was admonishing me. Do I need to be admonished? Yes. She admonished me gently. I like it like that.
But anyway, you get the idea. And I remember feeling sorry until the next morning when I got up and I am doing my prayer time and so forth. And that’s when it really hit me. And that’s when I got convicted. It.
So sorrow moved to conviction, and conviction moved into an apology to Bernice. We need that. We need people who are filled with the Word of God, who speak with all wisdom, and they teach us and they admonish us. We need to be those people to others as well, where we’re filled with the Word of God. We don’t fight the Word of God, we receive it.
And we receive it and it gives us wisdom so that we can teach and we can admonish. It’s richly dwelling within us. Howard Hendricks, when he was a student— he ultimately became a seminary professor at Dallas Theological Seminary— but when he was a student, he said, I could remember walking by this one professor’s home late at night and I would see his light on, the light on in his study. And I used to think, wow, what’s he doing in there? And so I asked him, you know, it seems like you’re up late at night studying.
What is this? Why do you do that? I mean, this is a professor, you know, in Hendricks’ mind at this point, this guy already knows it all, right? Why do you do that? And the professor said, well, I would rather have my students drinking from a running spring than a stagnant pond.
That’s why I do that.
See, what he’s describing is a person who’s a lifelong learner. This is a person who doesn’t think, I did it, you know, I got it all together and I’m okay now. No, God wants us to be lifelong learners so that we are people who are constantly taking in the Word of God and it is richly dwelling within us, not partially Not sort of dwelling within us, but it is fully dwelling within us and it is changing us. And one of the indications that it is changing us is that we will sing. We will sing with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with gratitudes in our heart toward God.
Have you ever thought about singing as an expression of the Word of God richly dwelling within you? That’s what this is saying. That when the Word of God richly dwells within us, we’re going to sing in a variety of ways. We’re going to sing with psalms. What would that be?
Those are scripture songs. So we’ll sing scripture such as the majesty and glory of your name. That’s from Psalm 8. And we’ll sing hymns. These are songs about Christ.
All hail the power of Jesus’ name. That’s a hymn about Christ in this description here, or the Solid Rock, or Christ Is Enough. Or spiritual songs— these are testimony songs such as I Surrender All, Take My Life and Let It Be, Always Only for Thee, right? See, when God’s Word is richly dwelling within us, we’re going to just sing. And it says we’re gonna sing with gratitude.
That’s just a natural, normal expression of God dwelling within us. In fact, there is a parallel passage here to Ephesians chapter 5 where it gives us the same result. The result is singing with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. But the, the reason that this is happening is different in Ephesians chapter 5. Here it’s because the word of Christ is richly dwelling within you, and if it’s richly dwelling within you, you’re going to worship.
You’re going to worship through song. In Ephesians 5, it’s the Spirit is filling you, and as the Spirit is filling you, it’s controlling you. You’re going to worship with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. See, what, what is this saying? Worship through song ought to be a natural expression of our love for God and for his word that’s filling our lives.
Said differently, if you don’t sing, you need to have a conversation with God. Seriously, if there isn’t a desire in your heart to sing to God in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, if you don’t look forward to opportunities to express to God in song your love for him, you really need to ask God, what’s missing here?
This isn’t about how well you sing. The Bible says, make a joyful noise unto the Lord. Okay, so it’s not about how well you sing, it’s that you sing. I can remember, you know, being involved in a youth group where the youth pastor used to sing in the car. Get in the car and start singing.
I’m like, what’s this? Because I wasn’t used to that. And I can remember in the church that we grew up in, Pastor Hayler down on the front row, he’s like singing at the top of his lungs. And I remember thinking, what’s that? And I’ve come to understand what’s that.
That is an expression of a person who the word of Christ is richly dwelling within them. That is an expression of a person who is filled by the Holy Spirit. In other words, if you come purposely late to a worship service so you don’t have to sing, you need to stop and ask God, what’s missing in me?
Is it possible Is it possible that you’re not in touch with God’s Word in such a way that ultimately it would cause you to want to express gratitude to him in song? Is it possible? Certainly it’s possible. Is it something else? Did somebody one time say to you, you sing terrible, and so you haven’t sung since?
Is that what it is? You’re listening to the wrong person. You’re suppressing the work that God wants to do in you because he wants to use you to create an environment, an environment, an environment that impacts other people, an environment that reaches out and touches people that aren’t a part of Christ’s family, an environment that changes our hearts so that we become people of peace and changes our minds so that we are people who are filled with the truth. The outcome of all of that is fantastic, isn’t it? People then come to say, I love this church, I love it here, I love this church.
I’ve heard people come over the years to worship services, it’s the same Sunday that they come, maybe somebody brand new, first time they’ve ever come, and leave, and leave the place with a different opinion about the place. I don’t know if you’ve ever, you know, had this experience yourself or you’ve heard it from other people where people come the same time, same place, same worship service, all of that, And they leave and some of them say, I’m never going back there again. Didn’t feel very welcoming. Didn’t seem like people really cared. Nobody reached out to us.
I was talking to somebody actually earlier this week and they were talking about this church they’re trying to get plugged into and they said, you know, we’ve gone there a few times and it just doesn’t seem like they want us there. In fact, we’ve made a couple phone calls and we haven’t even had a call back. They said on the Sunday we were there, we went back to the guest table and nobody was at the guest table. So we’re not sure what to think about this. In other words, people can come to a gathering of the church and have a negative experience.
I’ve also heard of others who came on that same Sunday and they left saying, I’m coming back. That place was friendly. They just seemed to welcome us. And it was just such a warm— you used the word warm, Sarah, back there at the Go back to the table. It’s warm back there.
But we understand that. Yeah, it was such a— it’s such a warm environment. And it seemed like they really cared about us. And we could be at home there. And we could be a part of the family and we could belong.
Why the difference on the same Sunday? Why the difference? It’s not hard to figure out, is it? It just depends upon what people they ran into.
That’s why the difference. Or did not run into.
See, we are the church. This building isn’t the church. We are the church. We are the body. We are the people.
We are the gathering. We are the community. And Paul is saying to this church at Colossae, be a church that expresses peace and expresses thanksgiving and expresses learning, a place of learning, and expresses worship and expresses gratitude. Let that be who you are. And when that is who we are, God is pleased and it impacts us and it impacts others and ways that change us for all eternity.
Is that not true? So this is such a practical, practical, practical section. I was over in Phoenix yesterday and I was speaking at a church there, and just as I was beginning to leave, I got caught by the leaders and they wanted to talk about a few things about what went on in the session. The way it was impacting others in this session. It’s interesting because they are seeing more and more people come to their premarital classes, which I was over to teach at yesterday, that don’t have any type of church connection.
And in speaking to this group, it’s the largest group that they’ve ever had, they told me, I experienced more resistance from this audience than I’ve ever experienced in the years that I’ve been going over. They usually bring me over a couple times a year, but there was just a lot of resistance there. And some of it, no doubt, is related to the fact that there are people sitting there in the room that just don’t want a relationship with God, but they want to have a wedding in the beautiful chapel that they have on the campus, that environment there. But it’s wonderful that they would even come and be a part of these classes, and so you hope and pray that maybe at some point they would open up their hearts to what God would love to do and the relationship he’d like to have in their life. And so you’re hopeful for that.
But in this conversation, we started talking about some of the events that they’ve had, and they said, you know, we recently did this date night. It was a comedy thing that started the date night. It was called a comedy date night anyway. But they said that we had this group come and this this group, they were just fantastic. But they said, you know what, this group told us that they’ll never come to California again.
And the reason that they said they would never come to California again is because people there don’t care. That’s what they said. And I remember, you know, my immediate thought was, that certainly doesn’t characterize all of California. But it probably does characterize wherever they’ve come and the experience that they had. And I’m sure part of what it characterizes also is the lack of appreciation that they experienced for the people that they were performing for.
In other words, a lack of thanksgiving, a lack of gratitude.
I think that kind of thing can easily creep into the church, don’t you? And isn’t it interesting that a couple times in this section, see, they’re both connected to one, letting the peace of God richly dwell within you. Do that with a heart of thanksgiving, a heart of appreciation. Don’t take it for granted. And let the word of God richly dwell within you and do that in such a way that ultimately results in gratitude that you express song.
Don’t become people that don’t care about these kinds of things. They matter. They really do, that the church might be everything God wants the church to be. Amen. Amen.
Let’s pray. Lord, thanks for helping us this morning see this passage in a perspective that hopefully will help us as individuals and as a church family Be the church that you want us to be. May it not be about going to church, but may it all be about being this church. This church that the peace of Christ rules in our hearts and in our relationships, and where the Word of God, the Word of Christ richly dwells within us, not in a little way, but in a significant way. May that be so in our personal lives and in our life together as a family.
And Lord, if, if today there is an openness on the part of those that you have been expressing love to but have never yet said yes to a love relationship to you, may this be the moment of salvation for them. And if in your heart you’ve not received the gift of life that’s found in Christ, God would long for you to be in his family. That’s why he sent Jesus.
Open your heart up to that and receive the gift of life by faith. Step out in faith and say, Lord, I want that. Forgive me of my sins. Make me a member of your family. Adopt me into your family.
Family. Change me. Change my life from the inside out. I want to be one of your children. God hears those prayers, and we pray these prayers, Lord, in Jesus’ name.
And everybody said amen.
