Bear With Each Other (Colossians 3:12-13)

Okay. Uh, pretty sure it's recording. So, uh, doing this again from home because sadly I forgot to push record on Thursday. So, uh, this past week we had talked about forgiveness, forgiving and being forgiven. And, uh, the last day on Thursday, we were talking about the difference between forgiving those that aren't a part of the body of Christ and that those that are. And so today, that's where we're going to end this. Um what does what does the word say about forgiving those that are in the body of Christ? And so Paul writes in Colossians um in his letter to the church of Coloss, he writes in chapter 3 uh in verses 12 and 13.

And I'll let me read this for you. He says, "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, bear with each other, and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone, forgive as the Lord forgave you." And so, as we kind of break this process down, first of all, who is he talking to? The text is very clear. He says, "As God's chosen people." So he's talking about the church. He's talking about the body of believers. He calls us holy and dearly loved.

And so inside this passage, he says, "Clothe yourselves with these particular items. Compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience." Um forgiveness is not just being kind. It's being gentle. It's being patient. He says, "Bar with one another." uh bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance. Bearing with someone as Paul talks about it here means to to come alongside uh to to walk with them even in even in their difficulty even in their not not in their moment of difficulty but in your difficulty in dealing with them.

And so he wants us to uh to get along. He wants us to be able to come together. Paul recognizes and realizes that this church body is made up of an entire group of people uh from different walks, from different nationalities, from different uh socioeconomic backgrounds. There are going to be wealthy, there's going to be poor, there's going to be there's just a vast group of people and we're not all going to just automatically get along. And I think he knew that which is why he pens this verse. bear with each other because he knows that there's going to be times when I just don't see eye to eye with someone else inside the church.

Maybe our personalities just don't go together very well. But he tells us that uh that to bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance. And so he doesn't say only in this circumstance or only at this time. Christ goes on to say in Matthew in chapter 18 verse 21 and 22 and this is this is where uh Peter comes to him and he wants to know uh he says this says rabbi teacher how how many times should I forgive my my neighbor should I forgive them seven times and and that was Levitical law back then was that you were supposed to forgive seven times there's a there's a whole passage and teaching on on Jubilee which is seven times but Christ says no I tell you seven times 70.

He's not saying uh 490 times and then you're done. What Christ is saying is that we should continue to forgive people. The the measure isn't uh how badly we've been hurt, but the measure is really how much have we been forgiven. Look at we wake up every day and and through the course of our our day, our week, our month, our year, we're we're going to fall short of the glory of God. And yet every morning when we wake up, those graces and those mercies have been completely renewed. That God keeps no record of wrong. That his son died on the cross once and for all for all of us.

And so that forgiveness for us happens second by senate second, minute by minute. And so what Christ is saying is that I'm forgiving you, you should forgive them. And when always it does not mean that we're to be a doormat. It doesn't mean that we just continually put oursel in harm's way to continue to be hurt or abused or taken advantage of. That is not what Christ is saying either. In fact, in his first uh uh uh the first time that the disciples were sent out, Christ gave them advice. He said, "Listen, if they don't accept you, shake the dust off your sandals and move on." And so he doesn't want us to continue to be in that in that place where we're in abusive relationship or or this person continues to keep doing things that they shouldn't be doing while they're growing in their walk.

And so we have to we have to employ u discernment and and and the wisdom from Solomon to say, "Okay, this is enough. Uh I can forgive you, but I'm going to take away that thing. I can forgive you, but but our relationship is going to be at arms length until you start to grow in your walk. And so that's what Paul tells us here in Colossians that we are to forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. And he ends it with what we just talked about. Forgive as I have forgiven you. And so as a body of believers, the formula is different.

We are to always to forgive. We are to go together. If if there's a problem with someone else, you can take someone from the church to go with you. That's a that's a whole another series and a whole another set of scriptures that we can cover. But but uh the difference between the forgiveness of a believer and the forgiveness of an unbeliever is that here we want restor restoration. We want we want this this relationship for sure to be restored. Why? Because this is part of our family. That's what God wants us to do. For an unbeliever, we want to continue to forgive them because we may be the only Bible or the only Jesus that they see.

And so the the the the goal is different, but the process is the same. We are to always forgive. Always. As Christ always forgives us, he wants us to always forgive others. Perfect picture of the cross. We get forgiveness this way. We we spread that forgiveness out left and right. Hopefully uh that lands well. Hopefully, this was something that someone needed to hear. I pray it was um we normally would pray out. So, let's go ahead and even though I don't have an audience, let's pray. Uh let's continue to just seek God's face. So, Father, thank you for today.

Thank you for uh for this technology. Thank you for the ability to reach people. Lord, I just pray that that you would give us that courage and strength because forgiving others when they've hurt us or done wrong to us is probably one of the most difficult things that your word commands us to do. and that we know that we can't do that inside of our own strength. And so, Lord, we call on you and we call on your strength, Father. We want to bring this and and put these things at the foot of the cross to allow you to be able to uh to handle them, Father, that you would give us the wisdom to know uh to know when we've we've done our part, Father.

We will always forgive. We should always forgive as Christ forgave us. Uh Lord, but let us know when it's time to to to have that forgiveness at arms length, Father. Give us the strength, courage to do exactly that. uh walk with us, guide us. We love you, we praise you, and as always, in your son's name we pray. Amen.

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly edited for readability.