Worship up Close

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I wonder if any of you have ever looked at something and thought it looks really good until you get up close to it. You ever been there? Okay.

Maybe it’s a construction project. Maybe it’s food. I don’t think we’ll have that problem here in a few minutes.

Maybe it’s a person. Sometimes it’s myself in the mirror. Not that I check myself out, but I might be getting ready in the morning and think, Oh, I look pretty good.

And then I turn on the lights and step closer to the mirror. and go, oh, we need some more work here. I’ve been doing a lot of home construction projects and home remodeling projects lately, and I’m running into that with painting.

Nothing frustrates me more than painting. I’ve gone to the effort in the past of taping off, getting the lines with the blue tape. I’ve even bought that expensive green tape.

And you know what? I don’t care what the commercials say. The paint still seeps under the line.

And so I can get almost as good, just freehand, if I go slowly as I can with the painter’s tape. But we have a few of these spots in our house that I stand across the room and I think, man, that looks really good. I did a good job on the painting.

And then my wife gets close to the spot and says, you’re going to fix that, right? Yes, I’m going to fix that. You get up close to something, and that’s really the test of whether it’s done well or not.

And that’s part of what we’re going to look at this morning in the passage that we’re going to read from Colossians. Paul is writing about a changed life, and all of this goes back to the idea that we’ve been talking about the last few weeks, about worshiping God in the way that we live our lives. It’s wrong again.

That’s okay. Well, there we go. I’m sure I forgot to change something.

I’m just making sure y’all are paying attention. See, my wife, she said, it’s wrong. You’re going to fix it, right?

All right. But we’re dealing with the concept of worship in the way that we live our lives. And the test of how well we do that is in how well we do that when our life is up close, when it’s under close examination.

And so this morning we’re going to be in Colossians chapter 3 and chapter 4. Don’t worry about that. It’s one verse of chapter 4.

I’m not preaching through two full chapters. But sometimes the people who decided where to split the chapters, by the way, that was not the original authors, that was hundreds of years later, didn’t always split it in the best places. So I think the thought continues into the first verse of chapter 4.

We’re going to be in Colossians chapter 3 this morning, starting in verse 12. If you can’t find it or don’t have your Bibles with you, it’ll be on the screen here for you. But once you’ve found it, if you would stand with me, if you can, without too much trouble, as we read together from God’s Word this morning.

We’re going to start in verse 12. Here’s what the Apostle Paul says under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, long-suffering, bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, If anyone has a complaint against another, even as Christ forgave you, so you must also do.

But above all these things, put on love, which is the bond of perfection. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body, and be 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 whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. Wives, submit to your own husbands as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be bitter toward them.

Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing to the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children lest they become discouraged. Bond servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eye service as men-pleasers, but in sincerity of heart fearing God.

and whatever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance, for you serve the Lord Christ, but he who does wrong will be repaid for what he has done, and there is no partiality. Masters, give your bond servants what is just and fair, knowing that you also have a master in heaven. And you may be seated.

So we start with the first part of this, really verses 12 through 16, talking about a changed life and what that looks like. and we’re taught here that a believer’s life is transformed by Jesus Christ. You may think, well, I’ve heard that somewhere here before. It’s because we just spent several weeks doing a series on new life in Christ and what that means.

And here we are repeating this again, and I feel like the topic of a lot of sermons, or the point of a lot of sermons here lately, has been on the fact that if we belong to Jesus Christ, we should be different as a result. Now, it’s not just that that’s my theological hobby horse that I like to drive into the ground. I repeat it so frequently because it is so frequently repeated in the New Testament.

It’s almost like God wanted us to remember that, right? Because it’s easy when you are surrounded by the world all day to slip into the old habits of living like the world. And so you and I need, just like they needed, the constant reminder that if we belong to Jesus Christ, we should be different as a result of that.

and he outlines here some of the ways that this is going to show up in a life that’s been transformed. He says in verse 12, therefore is the elect of God, holy and beloved. He’s talking here to people who belong to God, who are loved by him, who have been set apart for his purposes through Christ, and what their life should look like.

If you are somebody who has trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, then he’s talking to you here. If you belong to Jesus Christ, if you’ve trusted him as your Savior, if you’ve been born again, then you are the elect of God, holy and beloved. You’re the ones he’s talking to.

Yes, I know he’s writing to the church at Colossae, but it’s for you as well. And we could go through the whole list of things that he says here in verses 12 through 16 and parse each of these words, and it would be an interesting study. But for our purposes here this morning, just to get at the heart of what he’s talking about, instead I’ve kind of collected these into categories he’s talking about, of ways we should live.

Verse 12 teaches us that we should exhibit grace toward one another. He tells us, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, long-suffering. All of this is a gracious way of dealing with one another.

We’ve all encountered people in our lives who are not gracious. You know, the kind of person who’s constantly on the lookout for everything you’re doing wrong and does not miss an opportunity to point it out to you. Some of us have encountered that in church.

Some of us might have been that person in church. And nobody’s looking around the room, right? But in particular, talking to this group of believers in Colossae, he says, you’re supposed to exhibit grace toward one another.

We are supposed to be merciful. We’re supposed to be kind. We are supposed to be humble.

That deals with a lot of our issues. If we just have the humility to admit that, you know what, you were wrong, it’s fine, I’ve been wrong too. And life from that perspective, it takes care of a lot of this.

Meekness, which is a combination of power with self-control. It’s not the same thing as weakness, but it’s a gentleness to our strength in Christ. Long-suffering, that’s another word for patience, but I like to think of it as being patience on steroids. You’re willing to put up with somebody for a long time.

You’re willing to suffer through what they put you through, and you’re willing to do it. We just should exhibit grace toward one another. We should give each other a wide latitude because we are all, none of us are perfect.

None of us are going to be that perfect person until we are united with the Lord in glory, all right, until He completely transforms us. None of us are perfect here on earth. And so we’re supposed to exhibit grace toward one another.

He tells us to be forgiving and patient in verse 13, bearing with one another, forgiving one another. If anyone has a complaint against another, even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. It’s easy to be gracious toward people you like, right?

It’s easier. It’s easy. I was going to say it’s easy to be gracious to my kids.

It’s easy most of the time to be gracious with my kids. Not always, but it’s easier than with people that I have kind of a history of we don’t get along. That’s a little harder.

So we could look at this and say, well, yeah, I’ll be gracious. But you know that so-and-so, you know what they did? I don’t have to be gracious to them because look at how they act.

Look at how they do. No, he says, if you have a complaint against another, he’s talking here about the people we don’t get along with. He says, if you have a complaint against them, he doesn’t say get over it.

He doesn’t say pretend like it doesn’t exist. He says, forgive them even as Christ forgave you. Even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. I’m going to be honest with you here.

I mean, I can’t think of a time that I’m not. That is not fun to hear because he doesn’t leave us any wiggle room there. He doesn’t say, think about forgiving them, try to forgive them.

He says, you must forgive them, even as Christ forgave you. Because you and I have to realize the wrong that we’ve done and what we deserve from Jesus Christ was nothing but condemnation, was nothing but separation, and yet He forgave us. And if an infinitely holy God can look at us in spite of what we deserve and can forgive us, then we as sinners should surely be able or should surely be willing to extend that grace to one another.

And he tells us in verse 14 that love is what makes these things possible. But above all these, excuse me, but above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. And here he’s talking about the kind of love that only God can love.

The kind of love that only God can give. You and I don’t have the capacity on our own to love in this way until we have first received the love of God and then allow him to love through us. It’s an unconditional self-sacrificial love.

That’s not to say that people who don’t belong to Jesus Christ can’t feel love, can’t show love, but we’re talking about this supernatural kind of love that comes only from God, this agape love. and the world apart from God is not capable of agape love. We can only do that as He loves through us.

And that makes the rest of this possible. We should dwell together in the peace of God. Verse 15 tells us, let the peace of God rule in your hearts.

Are there times in your life that you just feel stirred up about stuff that happens? I feel like we’ve all kind of been in that boat since about 2020. If you’ve been around here any length of time at all, you know that I follow politics very closely.

I’ve been in that world my whole adult life. And I’ve been watching closely for a couple weeks, well, leading up into the election and then afterwards, what was happening, what was supposed to happen, what did happen, and the mess. And I don’t care which side you’re on, it was exhausting, wasn’t it?

And listening to the commentary about, well, they’re doing this in Arizona. I don’t know that they even know what they’re doing in Arizona. But they’re doing this in Arizona.

They’re doing this in Nevada. This is happening in Georgia. I want to keep track, but I found myself getting worked up about this or that.

I found myself worked up about what’s going on in the city. You know what? I finally just had to turn some of that off and say, we’re going to listen to worship music on the way into town today.

I can’t do this anymore. Sometimes we get so addicted to being stirred up and being worked up about things. And he says we’re supposed to let the peace of God rule in our hearts.

We’re not supposed to let the chaos of the world. I’m not saying that those things don’t matter. But the chaos of the world doesn’t get to be in charge here.

The peace of God should be the guiding principle to everything that’s going on. To which you were also called in one body and be thankful. When we are ruled by the peace of God instead of the chaos of this world, it makes it much easier for us to live at peace with one another.

And he teaches us to walk in his truth and encourage one another in it. verse 16, 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. Tells us to remind ourselves of God’s truth, to remind one another of his truth and to encourage one another in what we find there.

And so I don’t pretend that this is a list of everything that we as Christians are supposed to do in this new transformed life, but it’s what he talks about here. But we need to understand when he lists things like this, it’s more than just a to-do list. There is more to this than just, here’s a checklist of things you’re supposed to do because you’re supposed to be nice. The Bible, by the way, that I recall, never tells us be nice.

It does tell us to be kind, but kind and nice are not always the same thing. But we get this idea that Christianity is all about being nice, and just do these things, and go to church, and be religious, and be nice, and you’ll be fine. There’s more to it than this, because all of this is dealing with the concept of worship, as we’ve been talking about over the last few weeks.

You say, where does it mention worship in this passage? Verse 17 says, and whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. And as we’ve talked about the last couple of weeks, we have to move beyond the idea that worship is just what we did together here in this room, and on this stage since 1045 this morning that we come together a couple times a week and we sing songs and that’s worship.

That is part of worship. But worship is living our lives day by day in reflection of who God is and desiring to glorify Him for that. So when we go about our daily lives and we glorify God in all that we say and do, when we do what He says here in verse 17, whatever you do in word or deed, everything you say, everything you do, when you’re doing it to glorify Him and lift up his name, that is worship.

And so verse 17 here is kind of a bow that is tied on verses 12 through 16, saying you’re doing all of these things not just to be nice and be religious, you’re doing these things to bring glory to Jesus Christ. Everything we do is meant to be an act of worship that brings glory to Jesus Christ. Now, I’m not telling you that because I’m so good at it. I fall short of this every day. I’m telling you this because it’s what God’s Word says we’re supposed to do.

He says word or deed, that encompasses everything we do and say. We could look at it as summarizing every aspect of our lives. There is no part of our lives that is not supposed to bring glory to God.

We don’t get to compartmentalize and say, I’m going to give him control of these parts of my life, these boxes here, I’m going to use these to bring glory to him. But this over here, it doesn’t matter. This is just my personal choices over here.

It really doesn’t matter. No, the whole thing is to be thrown open. All the doors are thrown open.

All the locks are taken off, and everything is turned over to Jesus Christ and used to bring glory to Him. And as I said last week, if there’s something in our lives that we’re doing that we can’t glorify Jesus through it, then we ought not to be doing it. Everything, in word or deed, that every aspect of our lives is to bring Him glory.

When He says, do all in the name of Jesus Christ, It means every bit of it should bring honor to him. To do something in his name means to represent him. And if we’re representing him, I mean, he’s not asking us to represent him poorly, is he?

I’m a little bit sarcastic. You probably have picked up on this if you’ve talked with me one-on-one. I don’t mean it to be mean.

Sometimes it comes across that way, and I have to apologize. But I love when teenagers or college students will ask me, will you write me a letter of recommendation? Because my answer is usually, do you want a good recommendation or a bad recommendation?

Some of them will laugh. Others of them will look at me like I’m an idiot because, of course, they want a good recommendation. Nobody wants you to write a letter saying, tell them all about my bad qualities, right?

Nobody’s wanting to be represented poorly. When I graduated high school and my sister started there the next year and I used to drop her off at school before I’d drive down to OU, I used to tell her, much to her irritation, now remember whose name you have when you walk in that school I was not telling her to go and and represent go and represent our family poorly I was telling her you know be on your best behavior when he tells us that we’re doing things in his name he’s not saying go out and run my name through the mud when he says in everything you say in word or deed do all in the name of the lord jesus christ he’s saying that we’re supposed to represent him well that everything we’re supposed to do is to bring Him glory. Giving thanks.

We’re supposed to, in the way that we live, we are supposed to express our gratitude to Him. Because it’s a tall order to say, bring Him glory in everything. It’s hard work to try to bring Him glory in everything.

Because many times in our daily lives, we are faced with a choice of how we’re going to act or react in a situation. And the flesh wants to do one thing, and the Spirit wants to do another, right? You’ve been in those situations?

I love this picture that goes around on Facebook that says that face you make when the Holy Spirit tells you to delete the whole message and just write okay back. We have these situations in life. Yes, the Holy Spirit does that a lot.

We have those situations where the easy thing is to do what does not bring Him glory. The hard thing is to do what brings Him glory, or at least the thing that doesn’t feel good in the moment, the thing that feels hard in the moment is to bring Him glory. So why are we putting ourselves through the hard work of doing this?

It’s out of gratitude for what He’s done. It’s expressing our thankfulness to the Father for what He’s done through Jesus Christ. And so all of this in verse 17 teaches us that everything we do as Christians is meant to be an act of worship. And we don’t get there by changing our behavior.

This is, again, not a checklist of saying, just do this and you’ll be fine. As with so many things that the Bible deals with, it’s not a change of behavior. It’s a change of heart and a change of mind that is required here.

It’s not enough for us to say, well, I’m just going to do things that glorify God. We have to change the way we think. We have to recognize that our job is not to do X, Y, and Z.

It’s to glorify God and that we do that by the way we do X, Y, and Z. It may surprise you to know that my job in the kingdom is not to pastor this church. Now, don’t fire me.

I love what I get to do. But my job is to glorify Jesus Christ, and I’m fortunate that I get to do that in the way I pastor this church. If you’re a farmer, your job is not to be a farmer.

Your job is to glorify Jesus Christ in the way you farm. If you’re a plumber, your job is not to be a plumber. Your job is to glorify Jesus Christ in the way you plumb.

I don’t have to spend too much time on that. You can fill in the blanks there with whatever it is you do. in relationships my job is not to be a husband and a dad my job is to glorify jesus christ in the way I fulfill the roles of husband and dad and I hope to improve at how I do that but even the most mundane things that we deal with in life even the most basic choices we deal with we have to consider how we can best glorify jesus christ that’s why paul told them in first corinthians whatever you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

We think eating and drinking, that’s so simple. How does that have anything to do with the way we glorify God? Well, they were dealing with some specific issues about idolatry and meat sacrifice to idols in the marketplace.

But the point is clear, even in what we eat or drink, even in how we go about the most mundane questions of life, the goal is to bring glory to Jesus Christ. And when we do that, that’s worship. But the real test of this, as if this wasn’t hard enough, all right, the real test of this is living this out day by day and up close. Because it’s easy, it’s easy to come in an hour a week around other people at church and look like you’ve got it all together.

Let me phrase it this way, it’s easy to be on your best behavior an hour a week at church. And sometimes we call this hypocritical. I don’t think it’s hypocritical unless it’s intended to be hypocritical. unless we’re deliberately saying, I’m going to live this way on Sunday morning, and I’m going to go live another way the other six days. But I think what happens with us more often is because this is such a challenge, it is easier to keep that together for an hour a week than it is to do it consistently with the people we live with the other 167 hours.

We know what we’re supposed to do, and we want, as believers, we want to do what He’s called us to do. But it’s easier to do it consistently one hour a week than the whole week. We are more likely, no matter how hard we’re trying, we are more likely to fall short with those who see us up close.

That’s why I look a whole lot, and I’m not up here putting on a show, pretending to be anything I’m not, but I look a whole lot more put together on Sunday mornings here than I do in front of the people in the office. And I think they would tell you that, no, he’s the same person he is, he’s just not as well put together. He has more flaws than probably what you see in an hour.

Shaking your head. no I’m just teasing I just happen to look Christy’s way when I said they tell you he has a lot more flaws and she’s doing that but it’s true you don’t see the flaws not because I’m trying to hide them but because it’s easier to be the person I want to be for an hour than to keep it up eight or nine hours a day five days a week and it’s much harder with my family because they see all the flaws and I know I mean I don’t have cameras in your houses or anything but I know this is not unique to me And I believe this is why he says what he says, starting in verse 18, about our relationships. How do we live this out among those closest to us?

He says, basically, don’t forget that you’re supposed to bring glory to Jesus Christ, even among those you live closest with. And he talks about the husband and wife relationship. He talks about the parent and child relationship.

He talks about the employer-employee relationship, or his master and servant back then. But to bring it forward into our context, it would be employer and employee. We really see how well we’re doing at trying to live a life that glorifies Jesus by looking at how we do it up close with those who get to see everything.

And this morning is not meant to discourage you and make you feel like, well, I’m failing at this. It’s meant to say we need to think about this. We need to remember this.

I need to remember this when I’m getting frustrated with a child who just is not being reasonable. Well, you know, it’s kind of not in their job description. Five-year-olds are not known for their rationality, right?

not usually and so I start to get frustrated well I need to remember that I represent Jesus Christ in that situation and try to be calm for for starters but he says here wives submit to your own husbands as is fitting in the Lord this word submitting gets attacked so much in our culture it just means to represent the appropriate authority of it doesn’t mean that the husband is is a slave master over the house and whatever he says goes. But it means that God has put men and women in the family to fulfill different roles, and there ought to be a respect for the husband. The wife ought to respect her husband.

My wife knows some ladies that have no problem making fun of their husbands on Facebook. I don’t think any of them are in this room. But she has even come to me and said, would this bother you?

Yeah, that would bother me. I’ve got a sense of humor. I can laugh at self, but some of these things are just disrespectful.

And so if you know my wife, you know she’s no shrinking violet herself. It’s not like I’m running roughshod over her, but her being submissive means she’s respectful to what matters to me. In the same way, he says for husbands to love their wives and not be bitter against them.

Because what you had going on a lot of times in the Roman world is because men had this unlimited power in their households, they would just treat their wives like property in many cases. Treat them like servants or worse. They had no value.

And the wives in turn would rebel against their husbands. And he’s saying the way the world lives, this is not the way you’re supposed to treat one another. You’re supposed to love one another.

You’re supposed to care for one another. There’s supposed to be this submission and this sacrifice that go hand in hand and demonstrates to the world around you that Jesus Christ has changed you. He says, children, obey your parents in all things for this is well-pleasing to the Lord.

Again, responding appropriately to the authority of the parents. It doesn’t mean that God has made it so that the parents have unlimited authority and can just abuse their children, but he’s talking about this interaction where he says, do not provoke your children unless they become discouraged. Don’t overcorrect.

Don’t treat them with harshness to the point where you break their spirits. And in a world where children rebel and parents are harsh, he looks to them and says, Show through your relationship, through this loving care and correction and this willing submission, show that Christ has made you different. Bond servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eye service as men pleasers, but in sincerity of heart fearing God.

Verse 22. He’s telling the workers, don’t just try to get by and do the minimum. Don’t just try to look busy.

Serve with your whole heart. Whatever God has put in front of you to do, do that with your whole heart. I remember being in an hourly job and people trying to sneak in an extra break here.

Or trying to hide out when they’re on the clock. My goodness, I remember working at the county. And my favorite joke back then was, do you know how many people work for Oklahoma County?

One out of four. That’ll take a second. One out of four employees work at Oklahoma County.

I don’t know if it’s still that way. But that was the joke then. But he says, you as a believer, don’t just do the natural thing and try to get by with the minimum you can do.

Serve as though you’re serving the Lord. And employers, don’t try to cheat your employees. He tells them this in verse 1.

Give them what they’re due, recognizing that you also have a master who’s in heaven. Give them what they’ve earned. As a matter of fact, be generous with them the way that your master is with you.

And verses 23 and 25 give us this little aside that’s meant toward the servants, but I think it applies to all of us. He says, whatever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of your inheritance. for you serve the Lord Christ, but he who does wrong will be repaid for what he has done and there is no partiality.

So in all of these relationships, whether we’re talking about husband and wife, whether we’re talking about parents and children, whether we’re talking about employer or employee, we’re talking about these relationships that you and I all have that are some of the people we spend the most time with and are going to see all of our flaws. There’s this reminder that our flesh rises up in us and tells us to demand what’s ours or even more, demand whatever we can get, and try to push for our own way. And he’s reminding us that Jesus has made us different.

And the way we deal with one another should not reflect what our flesh tells us is important, but should reflect what he wants. That we should try to glorify him in these relationships. The bottom line to all of this is that even the way we treat others should be an act of worship.

And as I’m telling you this, I recognize how difficult this is. It’s not written to us because it’s easy. If it was easy, if it was natural, he wouldn’t have to tell us to do it.

He wouldn’t have to teach us about it. But he teaches us because it is difficult. And yet it’s possible because of the power of the Holy Spirit, because Jesus has changed us.

But it’s a reminder to us that our worship, again, is not just what we do here together. If we consider that our worship is everything that we do to bring glory to Jesus Christ, then that extends to every part of our lives, including just the mundane ways of how we deal with one another, how we deal with others closest to us in life, how we deal with those that we spend the most time with, those that we get the most comfortable with, and sometimes treat the worst. Even that should glorify Jesus Christ. And again, I know it’s hard, but we do this, as he says, out of thankfulness for what God has done for us, because of what Jesus did for us on the cross. He deserves all of our worship in whatever context it comes.

He deserves to be worshipped here on Sunday morning. He de