WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.259 Good morning. Thank you so much for that. Well, welcome. And for those of you that are guests, 00:00:07.379 --> 00:00:14.540 it's wonderful to have you with us this morning. If you are new here this morning, we are working 00:00:14.540 --> 00:00:19.820 through our way in the New Testament book of Colossians, and we're about halfway through. 00:00:20.240 --> 00:00:27.100 And today we are in chapter three, as it was read to us this morning. Now, just to remind us briefly, 00:00:27.100 --> 00:00:32.399 the book of Colossians is written to a bunch of Christians in this town called Colossae. 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:37.460 And the Christians there, many of them came to know Christ six or seven years earlier, 00:00:37.900 --> 00:00:43.320 and they are being told by the people around them that if they want to experience the fullness of 00:00:43.320 --> 00:00:50.100 life, if they really want to live life to the full, Jesus is good, but you need Jesus plus morality, 00:00:50.560 --> 00:00:57.000 Jesus plus religious observance. And so honor this day, do this thing, do that thing. And 00:00:57.000 --> 00:01:01.060 then you'll experience fullness of life. On the other hand, some of them are being told, 00:01:01.619 --> 00:01:07.299 if you want to experience the fullness of life, Jesus is good, but you must add to Jesus a bit of 00:01:07.299 --> 00:01:13.500 secular thinking, a bit of humanistic philosophy. And so Paul writes them to say, no, Jesus Christ is 00:01:13.500 --> 00:01:19.939 enough. Jesus and his death and his resurrection is what we need to experience the fullness of life. 00:01:19.939 --> 00:01:25.280 And so to be a Christian, therefore, is to be someone whose life is fused into Christ, 00:01:25.420 --> 00:01:30.500 where his story becomes our story. And so his death on the cross becomes our death, 00:01:30.579 --> 00:01:36.079 our spiritual death, our old way of life dies, and his resurrection becomes our new spiritual life. 00:01:36.319 --> 00:01:41.039 And all this because we are in Jesus. And so then last week, we looked at that passage, 00:01:41.120 --> 00:01:47.079 which is, therefore, since this is the case, because you've died with Christ and been raised with Christ, 00:01:47.079 --> 00:01:53.179 set your minds on things above, where Christ is seated, set your hearts on things above. 00:01:53.379 --> 00:01:59.539 And then verse five says, put to death, therefore, all that is earthly in you. Okay. Now today, 00:01:59.539 --> 00:02:08.900 we are continuing the same flow of thought, I guess. And in some ways, today's passage is kind of part B 00:02:08.900 --> 00:02:13.639 to last week. And we're going to pick it up in verse nine. But there's three things we're going to see 00:02:13.639 --> 00:02:21.579 today. Three ways that the Christian church, God's people, is a unique community. Three things that 00:02:21.579 --> 00:02:26.979 distinguish the church from every other community in the world. Okay. We're going to see how the church, 00:02:27.979 --> 00:02:34.779 the gospel calls us to a unique gospel unity, a unique gospel language, and then a unique gospel 00:02:34.779 --> 00:02:40.859 commitment. Okay. So there we go. So let me pray for us. And then we're going to dive in. So let's pray 00:02:40.860 --> 00:02:49.220 together. Father, we come before your word because we want to hear you. We are not here to listen to 00:02:49.220 --> 00:02:55.140 the opinions of man. We're not here to have our ears tickled or to just listen to some interesting 00:02:55.140 --> 00:03:00.500 thoughts. We want to meet with the living God. And so we come before your word. God, we come before 00:03:00.500 --> 00:03:06.160 you in humility. We come before your word in humility, God. We want to take your word seriously 00:03:06.159 --> 00:03:11.879 because we take you seriously. God, won't you speak to us this morning? God, won't you 00:03:11.879 --> 00:03:19.000 restore something of the wonder and the majesty of Jesus in our hearts this morning as we look at 00:03:19.000 --> 00:03:24.579 your word, as we sing your word in our service today? God, we want to leave this place being more 00:03:24.579 --> 00:03:30.259 in awe of you, less in awe of ourselves. God, we pray this for ourselves. We pray this for every 00:03:30.259 --> 00:03:39.139 church in Hong Kong. We pray, Holy Spirit, come and anoint us this morning, anoint every Christian 00:03:39.139 --> 00:03:44.479 in Hong Kong. Come and fill us with your spirit, we pray. We pray these things in your name. Amen. 00:03:45.399 --> 00:03:51.819 Amen. Okay. Three things, a unique gospel unity, a unique gospel language, a unique gospel commitment. 00:03:51.979 --> 00:03:57.780 First thing, a unique gospel unity. So verse 9, Paul writes this. He says, 00:03:57.780 --> 00:04:03.740 do not lie to one another, seeing you've put off the old self with its practices and you've put on 00:04:03.740 --> 00:04:09.500 the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Okay. So remember, 00:04:09.620 --> 00:04:15.120 he's saying because of who Christ is and because of who you are in Christ, the way that you view one 00:04:15.120 --> 00:04:21.439 another and treat one another and respond to one another is going to change. Remember in verse 8 last 00:04:21.439 --> 00:04:29.540 week, he says, do not slander, do not gossip, do not talk unwholesomely to one another. Because of who 00:04:29.540 --> 00:04:36.600 Christ is, the way we relate to one another changes. And then he says in verse 11, for here there is no 00:04:36.600 --> 00:04:46.079 Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, Scythian, barbarian, slave or free, for Christ is all and Christ is 00:04:46.079 --> 00:04:55.939 in all. I, Claire and I, as well as one or two others here, come from a nation which is known, 00:04:56.180 --> 00:05:04.979 infamously known for its historical practices of racial prejudice and discrimination. The very 00:05:04.979 --> 00:05:11.459 South African word, local South African word, apartheid, is the word to segregate or to separate. 00:05:11.459 --> 00:05:18.199 And it's a word that's become famous around the world to describe racism and oppression by one 00:05:18.199 --> 00:05:25.639 ethnic group towards another. And until 25 years ago, in South Africa, racism, discrimination, 00:05:26.500 --> 00:05:32.759 oppression of one people group against another was not just accepted, it was enshrined in our legal 00:05:32.759 --> 00:05:39.479 framework. It was part of the national constitution. Until 25 years ago, it was illegal for someone like 00:05:39.480 --> 00:05:46.200 myself, a Caucasian man, to marry someone who is not Caucasian. In the language of South Africa, a white 00:05:46.200 --> 00:05:52.780 person to marry a non-white person. And so in South Africa, we used to have buses for white people and 00:05:52.780 --> 00:05:59.720 buses for non-white people. We had beaches for white people and beaches for non-white people. And we had 00:05:59.720 --> 00:06:08.460 swimming pools, schools, washrooms, churches for white people. And we had swimming pools, beaches, washrooms, 00:06:08.459 --> 00:06:12.759 schools, churches for white people. And we had to wear them for white people. And we had to wear them for 00:06:12.759 --> 00:06:18.299 white people. Now, thank God, since 1994, much of that has changed. The law has changed wonderfully. 00:06:18.839 --> 00:06:23.919 All people are legally considered equal. Everyone is allowed to vote. And apartheid has ended. 00:06:24.479 --> 00:06:31.379 But as a nation, what we've discovered is that though the legal framework has changed, actually 00:06:31.379 --> 00:06:37.879 prejudice still lives deep in our hearts. You can change the law, but the heart takes a little bit 00:06:37.879 --> 00:06:45.740 longer to change. And so 25 years later, South Africa still today is grappling with the complexity and the 00:06:45.740 --> 00:06:51.939 polarizing issues of what does it mean to be a nation that is multicultural? What does it mean to be a 00:06:51.939 --> 00:06:58.120 rainbow nation, to live side by side with differences of background and culture and language and ethnicity 00:06:58.120 --> 00:07:05.699 and race? Now, if we're honest, South Africa in many ways is famous for its historic racial prejudice. 00:07:05.699 --> 00:07:12.659 But as we look around the world, in almost every country of the world in which more than one ethnicity 00:07:12.659 --> 00:07:20.480 lives side by side, we find these similar struggles. These are not just peculiar to South Africa. Every 00:07:20.480 --> 00:07:28.000 country struggles with these things. And this was the challenge for the city of Colossae. You see, a century 00:07:28.000 --> 00:07:34.959 before Paul writes this letter, the town of Colossae, which is situated on a river, was a major trading port. 00:07:34.959 --> 00:07:40.639 And so the boats would come up the river, unload a lot of their cargo, and then the surrounding region 00:07:40.639 --> 00:07:48.159 would all flog to Colossae to buy their wares and to trade. And so Colossae became a very cosmopolitan 00:07:48.159 --> 00:07:54.859 town. There were people from all over, various towns and backgrounds and ethnicities. Everyone came to 00:07:54.859 --> 00:08:00.859 Colossae because of the trade. And so you had migrant workers that would come and work, earn some money, and send 00:08:00.860 --> 00:08:07.100 money back home. And because of this, there was differences. People were treated differently. 00:08:07.759 --> 00:08:12.560 Well, Epaphras, that we learned about in chapter one, he hears the gospel in Ephesus, goes back to 00:08:12.560 --> 00:08:17.759 Colossae, and he starts telling everyone he knows about the wonder of Jesus, the fact that Christ has 00:08:17.759 --> 00:08:23.740 died on the cross. And people are getting changed. God breaks into their lives. He changes them by the 00:08:23.740 --> 00:08:28.800 power of the Holy Spirit. They come followers of Jesus. But the gospel does not discriminate. 00:08:29.579 --> 00:08:34.460 And so all sorts of different cultures and ethnicities are coming to know Jesus in the town 00:08:34.460 --> 00:08:43.940 of Colossae. And this church is marked by this strange, uncommon unity. You see, when God saves a 00:08:43.940 --> 00:08:50.620 bunch of people, God wants to put something of his diversity on display. And so Jesus doesn't save 00:08:50.620 --> 00:08:54.919 people and then say, there's a church for the artists. There's a church for those that love 00:08:54.919 --> 00:08:59.659 lattes. And there's a church for the finance people. And there's the church for the liberal arts. 00:09:00.100 --> 00:09:05.899 Now, God fuses his people together as a rich community, but they are diverse. And so this is 00:09:05.899 --> 00:09:11.720 what was happening in the town in Colossae. And so look at some of the diversity that's in this town. 00:09:11.799 --> 00:09:19.379 Look at verse 11. It says, in this church, there were religious and theological barriers that had been 00:09:19.379 --> 00:09:25.419 broken down. It talks about the circumcised and the uncircumcised. So within those that were 00:09:25.419 --> 00:09:31.019 historically Jewish and had come to Christ, there's two groups of people. Those that are circumcised and 00:09:31.019 --> 00:09:36.220 those that are not circumcised. In other words, those that are really committed, those that are not so 00:09:36.220 --> 00:09:42.320 committed. The conservative and the liberals. But here they are in church together, worshiping together, 00:09:42.480 --> 00:09:47.919 shoulder by shoulder. Here in this church, you have cultural divisions that are broken down. You have 00:09:47.919 --> 00:09:54.360 Jews and Gentiles. Now, these days it's a little different. But in this day, a Jew and Gentile 00:09:54.360 --> 00:10:00.179 wouldn't even cross each other's door to go in and have a meal with one another. There's no ways they 00:10:00.179 --> 00:10:06.539 would have dinner together at all. That was forbidden. Culturally, you'd never intermingle with 00:10:06.539 --> 00:10:12.639 someone, a Jew and a Gentile together. You wouldn't do business together. Here in the church, there is both 00:10:12.639 --> 00:10:18.819 Jew and Gentile. Not just doing business, not just having a meal, but standing next to each other, 00:10:18.960 --> 00:10:25.159 taking communion together, calling one another brother and sister in Christ. And notice the 00:10:25.159 --> 00:10:31.759 socioeconomic divisions that are broken down. They are slaves and free. Imagine you are a slave. You go to 00:10:31.759 --> 00:10:38.120 church with your master. And there in church, you're worshiping together, standing next to each other, arms 00:10:38.120 --> 00:10:44.259 raised, singing songs of worship and devotion. Those that have a lot and those that don't have a lot. 00:10:44.580 --> 00:10:50.620 But here in this church is this incredible uncommon unity. You know, Aristotle said, 00:10:51.179 --> 00:10:57.560 slaves are no better than tools, just like tools are inanimate slaves. That's how the culture viewed it. 00:10:57.899 --> 00:11:04.080 But not in the church. In the church here, both the slaves and slave owners, slaves and free, 00:11:04.080 --> 00:11:10.680 could come together, united under one name and worship together. Incredible community. 00:11:11.300 --> 00:11:16.580 And then look at the last segregation. It says, here in this church is barbarians and Scythians. 00:11:16.900 --> 00:11:22.660 Now, who are the barbarians and the Scythians? Well, in this part of the world, up north, 00:11:22.759 --> 00:11:28.800 was an area where the barbarians came from. And they were Greeks, but they spoke with quite a strange 00:11:28.799 --> 00:11:35.379 kind of tongue or accent or dialect. And so the refined, the educated Greeks listened to them and 00:11:35.379 --> 00:11:39.639 thought, these guys don't even know how to talk properly. When they talk, it just sounds like 00:11:39.639 --> 00:11:44.299 they're going blah, blah, blah. And so they called them the blah, blah, blarians. They're saying, 00:11:44.379 --> 00:11:48.740 these guys are idiots. They can't even talk properly, man. And someone needs to give them an education. 00:11:49.399 --> 00:11:55.039 That's how they viewed them in that day and age. And what about the Scythians? Well, the Scythians 00:11:55.039 --> 00:12:02.439 were a group of barbarians, but they were even a lower class of barbarians. The Scythians were 00:12:02.439 --> 00:12:08.860 considered just wild beasts. They were thugs. In fact, Josephus, who's a historian, said the Scythians 00:12:08.860 --> 00:12:17.000 are little better than wild animals, right? Think Nunfairin, all right? So if you're a Scythian, 00:12:17.379 --> 00:12:23.419 it's like that's how people consider you. You don't have any brains. You're just a thug. In fact, 00:12:23.419 --> 00:12:29.019 they used to employ them as bouncers when people got out of hand, riot police in the old world, 00:12:29.059 --> 00:12:36.559 right? Friends, here in this church, in the town of Colossae, where there's all this division and 00:12:36.559 --> 00:12:42.699 segregation going on, here in the church, you have Jew and Gentile. Here you have circumcised and 00:12:42.699 --> 00:12:49.759 uncircumcised. Here you have slave and free. Here you have barbarian and Scythians. Here you have 00:12:49.759 --> 00:12:58.639 educated Greek and sophisticated elites, worshipping shoulder to shoulder with uneducated low-cost 00:12:58.639 --> 00:13:04.559 Scythians, so to speak. Here in this church, you have Harvard professors, educated professors, 00:13:04.759 --> 00:13:10.100 and those who never finished elementary school. Here you have millionaire businessmen and migrant 00:13:10.100 --> 00:13:15.580 workers, and they're standing together, worshipping Christ, taking communion together, 00:13:15.580 --> 00:13:21.620 kneeling on the floor, confessing their sins one to another because of the gospel message. 00:13:22.440 --> 00:13:26.300 And Paul writes and he says, here, look what he says in verse 11, here in the church, 00:13:26.620 --> 00:13:32.180 not out there. Out there, you would never see these groups of people interacting. You go to a 00:13:32.180 --> 00:13:36.520 restaurant and you have one group over there, another group over there, no chance these people 00:13:36.520 --> 00:13:41.900 are going to interact together. Out there, you're never going to find this unity. But here, 00:13:41.899 --> 00:13:49.919 here in the church, something's different. Here in the church, another story is unfolding. It's a new 00:13:49.919 --> 00:13:58.600 community is emerging. Now, why is this? Why is it that this church in Colossae, hundreds, thousands of 00:13:58.600 --> 00:14:04.980 years ago, could experience this uncommon unity? Well, a couple of things. Firstly, because of everything 00:14:04.980 --> 00:14:11.420 Colossians has been telling us, right? Because Colossians says that if you are in Christ, your old life, 00:14:11.820 --> 00:14:18.659 your old identity, the things by which the world defines you, where you live, how much you earn, 00:14:19.460 --> 00:14:26.180 your background, what language you speak, your ethnicity, your culture, those things by which the world says 00:14:26.180 --> 00:14:32.240 you are esteemed or you are not esteemed, has died to Christ. That's no longer your identity. 00:14:32.240 --> 00:14:39.080 Your identity is now that you are in Jesus. Christ is in you and you are in Christ. Friends, 00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:46.759 if you are here this morning and you are a foreign domestic helper, I know that sometimes society 00:14:46.759 --> 00:14:54.899 can put you in a box because of maybe your language or your culture or where you come from 00:14:54.899 --> 00:15:01.120 or what the government says about you or what your visa status is. Society might say, this is who you are. 00:15:01.120 --> 00:15:07.480 Friends, if you're a follower of Jesus, the Bible says that's not who you are. You are in Christ and 00:15:07.480 --> 00:15:12.519 Christ is in you and your identity is found in him and not in any of those things. But friends, 00:15:12.580 --> 00:15:17.820 if you are here this morning and you are a billionaire, society will tell you that where you live and how 00:15:17.820 --> 00:15:23.399 much you earn and who you interact with defines you. That's who you are. And I want to say that's not 00:15:23.399 --> 00:15:29.000 true you are. That's not true as well. If you are in Christ, who you are is defined by the fact that you are in 00:15:29.000 --> 00:15:36.159 Christ and Christ is in you. And so this gospel produces this radical, unique, out of this world 00:15:36.159 --> 00:15:42.980 unity that people from every culture and every language and every ethnicity and every socioeconomic 00:15:42.980 --> 00:15:49.419 background can come together and find unity in the church. There's another reason Paul says, 00:15:49.480 --> 00:15:56.100 look what he says in verse 11. He says, because, so here there's no Greek or Jew, circumcised or 00:15:56.100 --> 00:16:03.460 uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, for, second reason, Christ is all. In other words, 00:16:03.800 --> 00:16:10.440 Christ is all important. In other words, what Paul is saying, here in the church there are lots of things 00:16:10.440 --> 00:16:16.540 that are important. There are lots of things that you value and you like and you esteem, but Christ is over 00:16:16.540 --> 00:16:23.879 all those things. And because we are in Christ and Christ is in us, those, Christ trumps over all those 00:16:23.879 --> 00:16:30.220 important things. You see friends, because Jesus is at the center of the gospel, the moment Jesus 00:16:30.220 --> 00:16:37.620 becomes of secondary importance to us, the other things that are more important will be the things 00:16:37.620 --> 00:16:44.480 that divide us and drive a wedge in between us. Okay? So take, for example, something that's very good 00:16:44.480 --> 00:16:50.820 but should remain secondary. Your culture, your ethnicity. Is culture a good thing? Of course it is. 00:16:50.820 --> 00:16:55.120 All right? It's a wonderful thing. We should celebrate our culture. But if culture becomes 00:16:55.120 --> 00:17:00.600 more important than Christ, if culture is over all, well then culture will be the means by which 00:17:00.600 --> 00:17:05.320 we separate and divide and get into our groups, those that are like us and those that we are like. 00:17:05.640 --> 00:17:11.340 What about theology and what the Bible teaches? Is theology important? Absolutely. We want to be a 00:17:11.340 --> 00:17:17.480 church that loves the Bible. But if what I believe, if my theological convictions are more important to me 00:17:17.480 --> 00:17:23.220 than Jesus, when I meet someone that has a different view to me, I'm going to use that as a tool to divide 00:17:23.220 --> 00:17:29.920 and separate and alienate them. What about social justice? Is that a good thing? Of course it is. 00:17:30.360 --> 00:17:35.960 But if that becomes more important than Jesus, that'll be a means to which we separate and divide one another. 00:17:36.500 --> 00:17:42.539 And so Paul writes and says, because Christ is all, all important, these good things actually find their 00:17:42.539 --> 00:17:50.799 place, but they don't divide us. So three reasons why the church has this unique unity. Firstly, because of 00:17:50.799 --> 00:17:56.299 the gospel, because we are in Christ and Christ is us. Secondly, because Christ is all important. But 00:17:56.299 --> 00:18:04.079 thirdly, look what he says, Christ is all and Christ is in all. So the last few weeks we've been talking 00:18:04.079 --> 00:18:10.500 about how if you're a follower of Jesus, you are in Christ, in him. That's true. But also this verse 00:18:10.500 --> 00:18:15.539 is that Christ is in you. And when Christ comes and makes his home in somebody, when you say, 00:18:15.660 --> 00:18:22.220 Jesus, have your way into my life, Jesus has no degrees of his presence. He's not, you know, 00:18:22.259 --> 00:18:27.839 more in me and less in you or more in you and less in someone else. If Christ is in you, Christ is in 00:18:27.839 --> 00:18:35.160 you. And what that means is that when the church separates or segregates, if I turn my back on another 00:18:35.160 --> 00:18:39.779 follower of Jesus, because they're from a different culture, or I don't understand their language, 00:18:39.779 --> 00:18:45.920 or they maybe think differently to me, in a way there's an element of me turning my back, 00:18:46.039 --> 00:18:51.639 not just on them, but on Christ in them. And so Paul says, because Christ is in you, 00:18:51.980 --> 00:18:57.480 here there's no divisions, no separations. Now in one sense, this is true of every human being, 00:18:57.700 --> 00:19:04.259 right? Genesis 1 tells us that every human being is made in the image of God, loved by God, 00:19:04.259 --> 00:19:11.339 equal dignity and value and respect, no matter whether you're male or female, Chinese, white, 00:19:11.579 --> 00:19:17.920 black, wherever you come from, Filipino, Indonesian, Brazilian, because you're made in the image of God, 00:19:17.980 --> 00:19:22.359 we're all equal. In fact, the Bible even says that because we are made in the image of God, 00:19:22.740 --> 00:19:27.859 every life is sacred, even if it's only one day old in the womb, even if the mother and father 00:19:27.859 --> 00:19:33.660 haven't discovered it, every life is sacred in the life of God. And so what this means is even people 00:19:34.259 --> 00:19:39.579 as a church may not agree with, maybe people from a different religion, people don't love Jesus, 00:19:39.980 --> 00:19:45.160 we can still honor them, we still value them, still respect them, because they're made in the image of 00:19:45.160 --> 00:19:51.700 God. But then the Colossians tells us that in addition to that, your fellow brother, your fellow 00:19:51.700 --> 00:19:56.819 follower of Christ, your brother, your fellow sister sitting next to you, not only has the image of God 00:19:56.819 --> 00:20:02.579 written on their DNA, they have the life of Christ living in their hearts. And that reason, God says, 00:20:02.579 --> 00:20:12.199 gives us reason to unify. The church is this unique community because of an uncommon, unique gospel unity. 00:20:14.199 --> 00:20:23.019 Going back to South Africa, in the 1970s, in the height of apartheid, okay, so I'm told, I wasn't born yet, 00:20:23.179 --> 00:20:28.179 but in the 1970s, South Africa was burning. Graham, you can probably tell us, right? 00:20:28.180 --> 00:20:32.160 Graham, what was it like being a university student there, okay? 00:20:35.700 --> 00:20:42.440 South Africa is on fire. I mean, there was animosity, people were making petrol bombs at home, 00:20:42.940 --> 00:20:50.140 it was absolutely strife. The tension was in the air, nobody was trusting anybody, nobody liked anybody, 00:20:50.140 --> 00:20:56.060 people were looking down and hated each other across the racial spectrums. It was an absolute 00:20:56.060 --> 00:21:05.540 melting pot of anger. And in the middle of this, a black South African Anglican minister called Desmond 00:21:05.540 --> 00:21:12.759 Tutu writes a letter to the white prime minister of South Africa called B.J. Forster, and this is what 00:21:12.759 --> 00:21:19.779 he writes. He says, I'm writing to you, sir, as one Christian to another. For through our common 00:21:19.779 --> 00:21:27.279 baptism, we have been made members of and are united in the body of our dear Lord Jesus. This Jesus 00:21:27.279 --> 00:21:34.480 Christ, whatever we may have done, has broken down all that separates us irrelevantly, such as race, 00:21:34.960 --> 00:21:42.200 gender, culture, status. In this Jesus Christ, you and I are forever bound together. 00:21:42.200 --> 00:21:50.799 As one redeemed humanity, black and white together. I can just imagine this man receiving this letter 00:21:50.799 --> 00:21:56.660 from another man that he considered less than human, a man that he considered definitely not as equal, 00:21:56.779 --> 00:22:03.840 and being told, I've got news for you. You and I are bound together, forever. One common humanity, 00:22:04.039 --> 00:22:11.380 black and white together, because of Jesus. Friends, that's what the gospel is. The gospel takes people 00:22:11.380 --> 00:22:16.360 that are very unlike us from different cultures, different ethnicities, different backgrounds, 00:22:16.920 --> 00:22:23.900 different socioeconomic statuses, different everything, and says, because of Jesus, you're one 00:22:23.900 --> 00:22:33.140 new humanity. You know, in many senses, I am a white male South African. In many senses, I have more in 00:22:33.140 --> 00:22:42.520 common with a Filipino female foreign domestic helper than I do with other white South African males that 00:22:42.520 --> 00:22:47.380 don't know Jesus, because there's something in our heart that is connected. We are brothers and sisters 00:22:47.380 --> 00:22:56.140 in Christ. The gospel causes this uncommon, unique unity because of Jesus. Secondly, a unique gospel 00:22:56.140 --> 00:23:03.040 language. Now, when you hear about this vision of a radical gospel unity, this diversity of people 00:23:03.040 --> 00:23:10.140 worshiping together side by side, we may think that is just dreamland stuff, okay? That doesn't really 00:23:10.140 --> 00:23:16.180 happen. That is completely unrealistic. And the truth is that you're probably right. It doesn't happen 00:23:16.180 --> 00:23:24.560 very often. Now, why doesn't this happen? Why is this unity amidst diversity so uncommon? And the reason is 00:23:24.559 --> 00:23:31.379 because it's messy. It's complicated. It's uncomfortable, right? There's a lot of room for 00:23:31.379 --> 00:23:36.639 misunderstanding and miscommunicating. You think you're saying one thing and someone from a different 00:23:36.639 --> 00:23:41.899 culture hears something completely different and there's a lot of room for misunderstanding, right? 00:23:42.480 --> 00:23:48.460 And so the question is, when you have these diverse groups of people and cultures and ethnicities, 00:23:48.460 --> 00:23:54.680 what language should you speak together to eradicate the miscommunication? 00:23:55.279 --> 00:24:00.720 How do you, what language should you speak that helps you understand one another? Even in a church 00:24:00.720 --> 00:24:06.880 like ours, what language should we speak in our church? Well, Paul tells us, he says, speak the language 00:24:06.880 --> 00:24:15.259 of humility. Speak the language of patience. Speak the language of kindness. Speak the language of love. 00:24:15.259 --> 00:24:22.240 Look what he says in verse 12. He has put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, kindness, 00:24:23.160 --> 00:24:31.579 humility, meekness, patience, bear with one another. And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving 00:24:31.579 --> 00:24:37.900 each other, just as Christ has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. And above all of these, put on love, 00:24:38.259 --> 00:24:44.879 which binds everything together in perfect harmony. You see, friends, when the church is multicultural and 00:24:44.880 --> 00:24:49.180 diverse, there's going to be times when it's uncomfortable. There's going to be times when 00:24:49.180 --> 00:24:54.120 there's miscommunication. And when that happens, what do we do? Do we say, well, I can't do this 00:24:54.120 --> 00:24:59.100 anymore. I'm going to go find a South African church. I'm going to go find something else. No, no, no. 00:24:59.340 --> 00:25:05.620 We dabble down and we get better at communicating the language of love. You see, what's going to stop us 00:25:05.620 --> 00:25:12.060 from running away from the complexity of diversity? Well, look at the list that Paul gives. Paul gives a 00:25:12.059 --> 00:25:18.039 whole bunch of character conducts, right, or behaviors. But every one of these behaviors is 00:25:18.039 --> 00:25:24.639 the exact way that God has treated us. So for instance, he says, put on compassionate hearts. 00:25:25.240 --> 00:25:30.480 Or think of how God describes himself in Exodus 34. He says, the Lord, the Lord, the compassionate 00:25:30.480 --> 00:25:36.500 and merciful one, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Or think of how Paul says, 00:25:36.500 --> 00:25:43.380 treat one another with kindness. Well, in Hosea 11, God says, I led them with cords of kindness, 00:25:43.680 --> 00:25:49.839 with bands of love. I became to them as one who eases their pain. I bent down and I fed them. 00:25:50.319 --> 00:25:55.960 Or I think of how Paul says, treat one another with humility. I think of Philippians 2. 00:25:56.480 --> 00:26:02.180 How it talks about Jesus, the Son of God, humbled himself like a servant and came not to be served, 00:26:02.180 --> 00:26:08.420 but to serve. Every one of these characteristics, Paul is saying this, treat one another the way 00:26:08.420 --> 00:26:14.620 that God has treated you. In other words, preach the gospel to yourself. Preach the gospel to yourself. 00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:21.180 And Paul actually says this exact thing, or maybe before we get there, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote this. 00:26:21.320 --> 00:26:26.200 He said, the person who loves their idea of community, their dream of community, 00:26:26.200 --> 00:26:33.420 will destroy community. But the person who loves those around them will find himself creating 00:26:33.420 --> 00:26:39.180 community. You see what Paul's saying? The way to get this unity and community in the church is not 00:26:39.180 --> 00:26:44.140 just by having a post in the front that says, we believe in community, right? It's not just by writing 00:26:44.140 --> 00:26:49.960 that on your mission statement, we believe in community. Actually, it's by being committed to the 00:26:49.960 --> 00:26:55.080 idea of loving one another around us. And the overflow of that is that we will form community. 00:26:55.079 --> 00:27:00.119 So we don't just write that on our mission statement or say, this is what we believe in. 00:27:00.679 --> 00:27:05.619 Forget that. Just love and serve one another the way that Christ has loved and served us. And the 00:27:05.619 --> 00:27:10.980 overflow, the fruit of that will be this amazing gospel community. And Paul says that exact thing 00:27:10.980 --> 00:27:17.939 in verse 13. He says here, bear with one another. And in fact, if someone has a complaint with someone, 00:27:18.439 --> 00:27:24.039 forgive them, just as Jesus Christ the Lord forgave you. Friends, 00:27:25.079 --> 00:27:31.740 I've been around the church a long time in various churches. When someone does something that 00:27:31.740 --> 00:27:37.099 irritates me or lets me down, someone maybe treats me unfairly, let's just say, 00:27:37.960 --> 00:27:43.539 what am I tempted to do? I'll tell you what I'm tempted to do. I'm tempted to feel sorry for myself. 00:27:44.159 --> 00:27:49.439 I'm tempted to have the conversation in my head a hundred times and play it over and over and over 00:27:49.440 --> 00:27:56.140 just to justify to myself why I am right and they are wrong. I'm tempted to project all sorts of 00:27:56.140 --> 00:27:59.860 motives onto them and say, well, this is what I'm sure they were thinking when they said that. 00:28:00.380 --> 00:28:07.240 I'm tempted to feel sorry for myself and I'm tempted to feel entitled to being treated better than that. 00:28:07.240 --> 00:28:14.200 But there is a better way. There's a better way. And that's to remind myself of how Christ treated me 00:28:14.200 --> 00:28:19.500 when I sent him to the cross. And he said, I'll take your sins. I'll forgive you. 00:28:20.099 --> 00:28:26.440 And then to offer that same grace and kindness to those around us. Friends, this gospel unity, 00:28:26.440 --> 00:28:32.279 which the church and Colossians experience with sophisticated elites and uneducated others, 00:28:32.279 --> 00:28:38.480 this wasn't some social experiment. This wasn't some liberal arts studies or project. 00:28:39.139 --> 00:28:44.339 This was reality as the people of God decided to treat one another the way that Christ had treated 00:28:44.339 --> 00:28:50.420 them. As they preached the gospel to themselves, as they said, we're all sinners. You and me alike. 00:28:50.500 --> 00:28:54.379 I'm a sinner in need of grace. You're a sinner in need of grace. Let's forgive one another. As they 00:28:54.379 --> 00:29:00.839 preached the gospel to their own heart, to create this incredible gospel unity. I spoke about 00:29:00.839 --> 00:29:06.299 Dietrich Bonhoeffer earlier. He was one of the greatest Christian kind of thinkers and theologians 00:29:06.299 --> 00:29:14.799 in the 1930s and 40s at the time of the world war. He was a German man. And he wrote that when Christ 00:29:14.799 --> 00:29:21.139 calls a man, he bids him to come and die. But Dietrich Bonhoeffer lived out that maxim because 10 years 00:29:21.139 --> 00:29:27.439 later, he was arrested by the Nazis in Germany for treason. And a few weeks before the end of the war, 00:29:27.440 --> 00:29:33.100 9th of April, 1945, he's taken out of his prison cell with some others into the woods and he's 00:29:33.100 --> 00:29:41.299 executed, you know, just shot execution style, just before the end of the war. But Dietrich Bonhoeffer 00:29:41.299 --> 00:29:46.600 was writing before that, obviously, a time when everyone was very suspicious of everyone else. 00:29:47.160 --> 00:29:53.259 It's the time the Nazis are rising in Germany. You don't know who to trust, who's a spy, who's with 00:29:53.259 --> 00:29:59.579 you, who's against you. Everyone is very suspicious of everyone else. And suspicion has a way of breaking 00:29:59.579 --> 00:30:06.759 down community, right? But Bonhoeffer was committed to community. And so he recognized that community, 00:30:06.960 --> 00:30:12.220 while formed on the basis of Christ and his grace that brought community together, he realized that 00:30:12.220 --> 00:30:16.099 we need to preach the gospel to ourselves. And so this is what he writes. He says, 00:30:16.099 --> 00:30:24.980 if my sinfulness appears to me to be in any way smaller or less detestable in comparison to the 00:30:24.980 --> 00:30:30.099 sins of others, in other words, if I look down at others and think their sin is worse than mine, 00:30:30.480 --> 00:30:36.399 I'm still not recognizing my sin at all. How can I then possibly serve another person 00:30:36.399 --> 00:30:43.279 with humility if I seriously regard their sinfulness as worse than my own? You see what he's saying? 00:30:43.279 --> 00:30:49.519 He's saying the way to maintain this unity in the midst of diversity is to remember my own 00:30:49.519 --> 00:30:54.379 sinfulness, to remember what Christ has done for me, to remember how Christ forgave me and therefore 00:30:54.379 --> 00:31:01.259 to forgive one another's, to preach the gospel to myself. Friends, I can promise you this. 00:31:01.920 --> 00:31:07.539 There are going to be times as a church when we let one another down. There are going to be times 00:31:07.539 --> 00:31:12.339 when we disappoint one another or we say something to one another or we don't say something. 00:31:12.339 --> 00:31:16.879 There are going to be times when we hurt one another. In those times, can we remember the 00:31:16.879 --> 00:31:22.459 gospel? Can we remember what Jesus did for us? Can we preach the gospel to our own hearts and 00:31:22.459 --> 00:31:29.159 maintain this uncommon unity because of this unique gospel language? Firstly, a unique gospel unity. 00:31:29.359 --> 00:31:34.519 Secondly, a unique gospel language. Thirdly, a unique gospel commitment. We're almost done. 00:31:34.519 --> 00:31:44.519 Paul is urging this community to preach the gospel to themselves, right? Now, the problem is when you do 00:31:44.519 --> 00:31:51.740 that, you're in danger or we are in danger of becoming individualistic and isolated. And what I mean by that 00:31:51.740 --> 00:32:00.480 is this. I know that for myself, and I guess I'm not the only one, that sometimes in order to avoid 00:32:00.480 --> 00:32:07.759 conflict or in order to avoid difficulty, I kind of speak this Christianese language to myself, right? 00:32:08.039 --> 00:32:13.539 So, for instance, someone lets me down, or I think there's miscommunication or we've misunderstood 00:32:13.539 --> 00:32:19.599 someone. What do I say to myself? I say, Kevin, you're also a sinner. Just don't be so judgmental, 00:32:19.779 --> 00:32:25.200 okay? And then it happens again, and I say, I read in Colossians that I must put on patience, 00:32:25.200 --> 00:32:29.440 and I say, Kevin, just be patient with them, right? And then there's some other misunderstanding, 00:32:29.720 --> 00:32:35.000 because I'm a very misunderstanding kind of person, okay? And I read here that I must put on love, 00:32:35.120 --> 00:32:38.759 and so I say, Kevin, just be loving. Just don't go and talk to them about it. Just put on love. 00:32:39.440 --> 00:32:44.120 And then I read here I must put on kindness, and so what happens? I start avoiding people, 00:32:44.220 --> 00:32:49.840 and I avoid conflict, and I don't talk through things because I just pretend that I'm being a very 00:32:49.840 --> 00:32:54.680 nice Christian by doing all these Christian things, but actually I'm avoiding the situation. Does that 00:32:54.680 --> 00:33:01.180 make sense, okay? So what does Paul tell us to do here? Well, before we get to what Paul tells us, 00:33:01.519 --> 00:33:06.200 this is exactly what Friedrich Nietzsche said. Remember he said about Christianity, he said, 00:33:06.279 --> 00:33:11.539 Christians are just weak. They don't know how to deal with the realities of life, and so Christians 00:33:11.539 --> 00:33:16.460 invent these religious words to cover over their weakness. He said, you're weak, and you don't know 00:33:16.460 --> 00:33:20.840 how to deal with things, so you just make up these words. For instance, instead of weakness, 00:33:20.839 --> 00:33:27.339 you talk about goodness. Instead of cowardice, you talk about humility. Instead of saying that you're 00:33:27.339 --> 00:33:33.879 too weak to take revenge, you talk about forgiving one another, okay? But friends, actually, that's not 00:33:33.879 --> 00:33:40.139 the gospel response at all. That's not what we do when we love our neighbors. That's the path we 00:33:40.139 --> 00:33:46.000 committed to when we commit to the path of self-preservation or the path of loving myself, 00:33:46.000 --> 00:33:51.619 the path of least resistance. And so what does Paul tell these Christians to do? He tells them 00:33:51.619 --> 00:33:58.380 to not only preach the gospel to themselves, they must do that, but also to gospelize one another. 00:33:58.619 --> 00:34:02.440 Now, I know there's no such word as gospelize. Okay, we made it up in the office this week. 00:34:02.880 --> 00:34:07.720 But he's saying, don't just preach the gospel. Don't just gospelize your own heart. 00:34:08.260 --> 00:34:13.000 Gospelize one another. In other words, help one another understand the gospel. And so how does he say 00:34:13.000 --> 00:34:19.380 to do that? Well, look what he says. He says in verse 16, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. 00:34:19.500 --> 00:34:25.099 Let the gospel, the word about Jesus, let who Christ is and what he's done on the cross dwell in you, 00:34:25.239 --> 00:34:31.219 reside in you, live deep in your heart. Let it dwell in you richly. And then he says, 00:34:31.219 --> 00:34:41.559 by teaching and admonishing or warning one another in all wisdom, okay? Now, that phrase, 00:34:41.559 --> 00:34:48.119 teach and warn one another in all wisdom. Graham preached about that three weeks ago. Do you 00:34:48.119 --> 00:34:54.000 remember? In chapter one, Paul writes this and he says, him we proclaim, Jesus we proclaim, 00:34:54.440 --> 00:35:00.079 warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom. So what's he saying? He says, we've gone 00:35:00.079 --> 00:35:07.799 all over the world from Jerusalem to Rome to Spain to Colossae to Ephesus. Him we proclaim, 00:35:07.800 --> 00:35:13.420 telling everyone about the wonder of Jesus, about Christ dying on the cross, warning everyone and 00:35:13.420 --> 00:35:18.160 teaching everyone about the problem of sin and the dangers of sin and telling everyone about the 00:35:18.160 --> 00:35:23.720 majesty of Jesus. So Paul says, we've gone all over the known world telling people about Jesus. And now 00:35:23.720 --> 00:35:30.960 he uses the exact same phrase, not for out there, not just for here in my own heart, but for here. 00:35:30.960 --> 00:35:37.500 And so Paul says, we preach the gospel out there. We preach the gospel to our own hearts, but we also 00:35:37.500 --> 00:35:45.240 gospelize one another, warning everyone, teaching everyone about the wonder of Jesus in all wisdom. 00:35:45.720 --> 00:35:52.720 Again, Dietrich Bonhoeffer says this, nothing can be more cruel than the leniency which abandons one 00:35:52.720 --> 00:36:00.000 another in their sin. And nothing can be more compassionate or kind than the admonishments which calls another 00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:07.139 Christian in your community back from the path of destruction. Friends, when the gospel gets inside 00:36:07.139 --> 00:36:12.340 of us as a community, it unites us and it brings people from all sorts of different backgrounds and 00:36:12.340 --> 00:36:18.099 cultures together. When the gospel gets inside of us as a community, it makes us humble and less 00:36:18.099 --> 00:36:23.539 judgmental. It helps us to forgive one another, be kind to one another. But it also, when the gospel 00:36:23.539 --> 00:36:29.400 gets inside of us, it helps us to gospelize one another, to come alongside each other and to help each other 00:36:29.400 --> 00:36:36.139 grow in our walk with Jesus. And how do we do this? Well, strangely, Paul says, not by sitting in 00:36:36.139 --> 00:36:43.280 lectures, not even by sitting in Bible studies. We do this, he says, with psalms and hymns and spiritual 00:36:43.280 --> 00:36:49.260 songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. You see, there's something so important about 00:36:49.260 --> 00:36:53.579 the worship service when we come together on a Sunday. We don't just sing songs because we like 00:36:53.579 --> 00:36:58.500 singing. We don't just sing songs because we like to be entertained or because we like Jeremy's voice, 00:36:58.500 --> 00:37:05.239 as beautiful as it is. The reason we sing is because as we sing the gospel, as we take communion together, 00:37:05.239 --> 00:37:12.460 as we pray together, as we greet one another, we're worshiping God, but we are also massaging the gospel 00:37:12.460 --> 00:37:18.440 into one another. As I stand in church and I've had a rough week, I'm feeling down, I'm feeling discouraged, 00:37:18.980 --> 00:37:24.440 and I see my brothers and sisters, hands raised, worshiping Christ. As I see and take in communion, 00:37:24.440 --> 00:37:30.039 saying Christ's body broken few. As we worship together as a family, it builds my faith. It 00:37:30.039 --> 00:37:37.460 gospelizes my own heart. Let me close with this. Brett McCracken wrote this amazing book, and he 00:37:37.460 --> 00:37:44.079 says this, the church was never meant to be a cultural, comfortable, social club that affirms 00:37:44.079 --> 00:37:50.340 people in their idolatry and helps them along a journey to discover their best life now. No, 00:37:50.340 --> 00:37:57.000 the church was always meant to be a counter-cultural, a set-apart community embodying a radically 00:37:57.000 --> 00:38:04.740 different vision for human flourishing by gathering together to pray, sing, and break bread together. 00:38:05.300 --> 00:38:10.120 Friends, the Christian community isn't just about finding solidarity in the fact that we're all sinners. 00:38:10.579 --> 00:38:14.600 It's finding solidarity in the fact that Christ has called us to become more like him, 00:38:14.599 --> 00:38:21.119 to gospelize one another as we seek to honor and glorify him. Friends, when the gospel gets inside 00:38:21.119 --> 00:38:26.960 of us, because of who Jesus is and what he did on the cross, Christ takes individuals from every 00:38:26.960 --> 00:38:33.799 background and culture and tongue and nationality, and he unites them together as one common brotherhood 00:38:33.799 --> 00:38:40.719 and sisterhood in Christ. Not only that, Jesus humbles us, and he changes our hearts, and he equips us to 00:38:40.719 --> 00:38:45.919 speak the language of love and kindness and grace and forgiveness to one another. But not only that, 00:38:46.439 --> 00:38:51.699 Christ doesn't leave us there. He calls us to love and serve one another, to apply the scandalous 00:38:51.699 --> 00:38:56.679 message of the gospel and Christ-likeness to one another, helping each other to grow and become more 00:38:56.679 --> 00:39:02.639 like Jesus, who we love and serve. Friends, this is what the church is. This is what the gospel does. 00:39:03.239 --> 00:39:07.159 Let us be a church in which the word of Christ dwells deeply in our heart, 00:39:07.159 --> 00:39:11.579 and doing all this for the glory of Christ and his name. Let's pray together. 00:39:14.039 --> 00:39:15.940 Will you close your eyes with me as we pray? 00:39:18.519 --> 00:39:20.839 Fathers, we consider your word this morning. 00:39:22.179 --> 00:39:26.679 We are both encouraged and challenged. We are encouraged that you, God, 00:39:28.480 --> 00:39:30.500 you do what we couldn't do, God. 00:39:30.500 --> 00:39:37.559 God, where the world is divided and separated, looking down upon one another, judging one another, 00:39:37.719 --> 00:39:44.940 you, God, by your gospel, bring us together. God, you give us a means to love and serve one another. 00:39:45.760 --> 00:39:51.860 You give us a way, Father God, to see people that are so different from ourselves as brothers and 00:39:51.860 --> 00:39:57.139 sisters. God, I pray won't you help us as a church to get the gospel deep into our hearts. 00:39:57.139 --> 00:40:03.199 God, make us a church, Lord God, that really loves and serves one another, as you, Christ, have loved and 00:40:03.199 --> 00:40:09.440 served us. God, won't you make Watermark a picture of heaven on earth? May it be in Hong Kong as it is 00:40:09.440 --> 00:40:15.440 in heaven, because you, God, are getting your gospel deeper into our hearts. Lord, we pray that we will be 00:40:15.440 --> 00:40:21.879 a church in which the word of Christ dwells deeply within us. We pray these things in your powerful name. 00:40:22.599 --> 00:40:23.759 Amen. Amen.