Walking in the Spirit

 

Text: Colossians 3:12-17

Focus: Holiness

Function: to help folks learn to forgive

¹² Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. ¹³ Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. ¹⁴ Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. ¹⁵ And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. ¹⁶ Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. ¹⁷ And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Good morning beloved! Don’t you just love that word from today’s text?

We are the beloved of God, and God holds all of creation lovingly in their hand. (hold out hand) Holding us… Loving us… keeping us close to God’s own self through the relationship we have with him through the Spirit of Christ living inside of us.

At times, I describe a Christian as a person who listens to and for the Holy Spirit leading them to love each other.

That may seem like a difficult and mysterious task since we have no control over the Spirit and their moving in our own spirits.

As Jody said last week, one of the ways to listen to the Spirit of God is to pay attention and look out for their presence and affect.

This passage kind of gives us some key points to living the Spirit filled life, or walking in the Spirit.

First off, instead of being worldly and using, pride, arrogance and blustering, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience.

I find that looking for the presence of Christ in another person helps me to clothe myself with these virtues and then hopefully reflect the love and peace of Christ back to the world around me.

He explains patience a little bit when he says that we should bear with each other. People are not perfect and they may mis-speak or offend another without intentionally trying to be mean.

People are not perfect and they may be going through some hard and difficult times of stress and they may react in ways that do not reflect the love of Christ. Love them anyway. Be patient with them and remember that we too have bad days and are not perfect.

I find it this way, “In other words, don’t be quick to be offended.”

I Corinthians 13, that great chapter on love says that love for others believes the best about them, not the worse. Practice believing the best about people because most people really do want to be good and caring people inside. Give them a break.

In conversations with my Uber passengers, I love trying to find that spark of Christ in them and bring it out.

Then, as he explains patience, he goes into the most important point to walking in God’s Spirit: Forgive each other.

As I mentioned, we make allowances for each other when they get off track and we do that by forgiving them.

He says, as Christ has forgiven you, forgive others.

And that forgiveness is without condition.

That is hard for us.

Real harm has come to some of us by the hands of other people. We have abandonment, abuse, neglect, selfishness and all those other sins that keep us from loving others to contend with in our lives and in the lives of the ones who may have hurt us.

Forgive anyway. God has forgiven us without shame or judgment because God is Love and embodies love to the world. Jesus, the Christ, came to show us how to love and forgive each other.

I love the fac that Jesus was criticized by the religious folks for associating with people that they called sinners. Jesus hung out with them and that means a lot.

He showed them that he loved them by welcoming them into his presence. He broke down the barriers between bitter rivals and enemies when he showed compassion to the woman at the well and the whole village became followers of the way.

In John 20:23, Jesus gives us the spiritual authority to either forgive or withhold forgiveness.

He gives us the choice to forgive and does not force us. But he does command us to forgive. It is almost like the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden. They had the choice to obey or disobey, God allowed them free will. We have the free will to forgive or condemn.

Abut remember, we have the Spirit of God inside of us leading us to obey the Christ, to follow him and to forgive others.

My experience has taught me that forgiveness is a Spiritual Discipline, just like prayer, bible study, devotional reading, and gathering in community on Sunday mornings. Spiritual disciplines are spiritual exercises that help keep our spirits healthy and in communion with God. We are literally taking the time to acknowledge the presence of God in our lives and our dependence on them.

And my experience teaches me that forgiveness is something that we practice, something we take time to diligently focus on.

And I do that because when I refuse to forgive someone, I just don’t feel connected to God anymore. It is like the heavens are dried up to me.

When I pray about it in that situation, the Spirit always shows me whom I resent and leads me to forgive.

And forgiveness goes beyond releasing revenge from someone who has harmed you. It goes to the point where we provide God’s mercy to someone else. We are salt and light, called to be peacemakers in a world full of conflict.

And since forgiveness, restoration and healing have come to us, we see the possibility of what Christ’s forgiveness can do for others. So, we forgive them because we have that power.

Look at Jesus. There was a woman caught in adultery. He forgave her. There was a crooked tax collector named Zaccheaus, he forgave him and the man was restored to God and to the community. As I mentioned, he was criticized for hanging out with what they called sinners. He was called a friend of sinners. He loved them, forgave them and didn’t judge them. His willingness to associate with them and actually enjoy their company showed them that God loves them. It healed them.

They early church picked up Jesus’ tradition of love and forgiveness and welcomed people like us, the hated Gentiles ,into God’s family even though the Old Testament strictly forbade our association with them.

Forgiveness breaks down the barriers that separate us and I believe, frees up the power of the Holy Spirit to transform people into light bearers for Christ.

Unforgiveness gets in the way of love. He tells us in today’s text, “Above all, clothe yourselves with love.” Love as a priority in our lives brings more harmony with others especially when, as we started out with in the passage, we make allowances for the fact that others are as imperfect as us we are and we want people to forgive us and make allowances for us.

Maybe there is a formula here in the end of the passage that will help us focus on the positive instead of seeing the negative in someone else.

He says, Be thankful. Discipline your energy to be positive because God is there and God is with us.

We are the beloved of God, so let us enjoy that power of God’s peace in our hearts as we fulfill Christ’s destiny through us.