LOVE
BINDS
BIBLE PASSAGE: Colossians 3:12-17
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Picture taken from
Google
Lesson Prepared by:
Krisha of Solomon’s Wisdom FB page
Lesson contents taken
from: https://bible.org/seriespage/lesson-22-priority-love-colossians-314-15
Scheduled Teacher: Teacher
Liza Biado
FEBRUARY 20, 2022
MEMORY
VERSE
And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond
of perfectness.
COLOSSIANS 3:14
INTRODUCTION:
A little girl stayed for dinner at
the home of her first-grade friend. The vegetable was buttered broccoli and the
mother asked if she liked it. The child politely replied, “Oh, yes, I love it!” But when the broccoli was passed, she
declined to take any. The hostess said, “I thought you said you loved
broccoli.” The girl replied sweetly, “Oh, yes ma’am, I do, but not enough to eat it.”
Do you love your fellow Christians in
this church? “Oh, yes,” you say, “the Lord commanded us to love one another. I
love the Lord’s people!” Well, then, why are you and that brother not on
speaking terms? “Him? He ripped me off in a business deal. And he calls himself
a Christian!” I see.
Why are there hard feelings between
you and that sister over there? “Her? She’s a gossip. Do you know what she said
about me behind my back? The Lord knows that I’ve tried to be nice to her, but
there has to be a limit on how much you do for someone like her.” Okay.
Yes, we love broccoli, but not enough
to eat it. We love the
brethren, but not enough to work out our
differences.
Have you ever thought about what it
would have been like to have been a part of the first century church? We often
glamorize it, thinking how wonderful it must have been. But remember, there was
only one church per city. If you lived in Colossae and became a Christian, you
were a member of the church in Colossae. In Colossae, there wasn’t a church for
Jewish Baptists and another for Gentile Presbyterians and another for Scythian
charismatics. If you didn’t like the church or had a falling out with someone in
that church, you were stuck. You couldn’t jump in your chariot and commute to
another church down the road that you liked better. You either had to work out
your problems or stop being a Christian. Those were the only options.
Today, Christians who get their
feelings hurt just move on to another church. Why go through the effort, the
bother, and the pain of working through relational problems? Just go to another
church where the people are more loving. And when you get hurt there, don’t
worry—there are dozens more churches in town. You can go for years without ever
needing to work through hurt feelings and damaged relationships. All the while
you can smile politely and say, “I love broccoli,
but not enough to eat it.”
But if that’s the way you choose to
deal with relational problems, you’ll never learn the reality of practical
Christian love. The truth is, we’re a lot like porcupines. As long as we keep
our distance, everything is fine. But when we start getting close to one
another, someone’s going to get stuck! If every time you get stuck you move on,
you’ll never know the joy of true Christian love and the testimony of the
Lord’s church will suffer.
In Colossae, false teachers were
promoting their philosophy and knowledge. They emphasized certain legalistic
rules as the way to spiritual growth. But such things always lead to pride,
strife, and division. So, Paul is showing the church that true Christianity
means being identified with Jesus Christ in His death and resurrection. We have
put off the old man with its immorality, anger, and lying. We’ve put on the new
man, Christ and His church, in which the old distinctions that divided us no
longer matter, but Christ is all and in all. And, in this new man, as those
chosen of God, holy and beloved, we also must “put on a heart of compassion,
kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience; bearing with one another and
forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord
forgave you, so also should you” (Col.
3:12-13).
And as the uniting bond of maturity,
we are to put on love—not in word only, but the kind of love that eats the
broccoli—love that shows itself in peaceful relationships in the church. The
practical implication of putting on the new man in Christ is that we work out
our relational problems in the body of Christ
LESSON OUTLINE:
1. LOVE MUST BE THE
PRIORITY OF THE BODY OF CHRIST
Colossians 3:14:
“And above all these things put on charity,
which is the bond of perfectness.” Note four things:
A. Paul’s command would
not be needed if love were automatic or effortless for believers.
Sometimes
we idealize the church, thinking that it’s all one big, loving family where
there are no conflicts or hurt feelings. Everyone just gets along and you can
feel the love the minute you walk in the door of the church. But I don’t know
of any happy families where there are never any conflicts or misunderstandings.
If there is love in a family or in a church, it’s the result of deliberate
effort to work through disagreements and hurt feelings.
We
wouldn’t need to be kind and patient, bearing with one another and forgiving
each other (Col. 3:12-13)
if we all got along all the time. Paul assumes that in the church, there will
be complaints against one another (Col.
3:13). So, the command to put on love above all of these other
virtues assumes that life in the church will be less than perfect. We will need
to work at maintaining and restoring loving relationships with one another. We
can’t just move on to the church down the street.
B. Love is not an
optional or minor command for believers.
There
are at least 55 direct commandments in the New Testament telling us to love one
another, plus many other exhortations to practice loving qualities (like
compassion, kindness, and patience). We can’t look at them all, but let’s just
read a few so that you see the strong emphasis God’s Word puts on love.
Matthew 5:44:
“Love your enemies.”
Matthew 22:39:
After stating that the greatest commandment is to love God with your entire
being, Jesus added, “The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as
yourself.’”
John 13:34-35:
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have
loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you
are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
John 15:12, 17:
“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you….
This I command you, that you love one another.”
Romans 13:8, 10:
“Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his
neighbor has fulfilled the law…. Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore
love is the fulfillment of the law.”
1 Corinthians 13:13-14:1:
“But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is
love. Pursue love ….” Moffatt translates, “Make love your aim.”
1 Corinthians 16:14:
“Let all that you do be done in love.”
Galatians 5:6:
“For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything,
but faith working through love.”
Galatians 5:13b-14:
“Through love serve one another. For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in
the statement, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”
Galatians 5:22:
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love ….”
Ephesians 5:1-2:
“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as
Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice
to God as a fragrant aroma.”
Philippians 1:9:
“And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real
knowledge and all discernment ….”
1 Thessalonians 3:12:
“may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another, and for
all people, just as we also do for you.”
These
are just a few of the references. Love is a major theme throughout 1 John,
where it is a test of true Christianity. So love is not optional or minor. It’s
absolutely essential for all Christians!
C. To obey the command
to love one another we must understand what biblical love means.
If
you think that love is a warm, fuzzy feeling or that it means always being
nice, you’re missing the heart of biblical love. It involves the emotions, but
it isn’t primarily a feeling. If it were, it couldn’t be commanded. You can’t
work up warm, fuzzy feelings for someone at will. But you can love others. To
see love personified, look at Jesus. Sometimes He spoke harshly to His
disciples: “Get behind Me, Satan” (Matt.
16:23). He blasted the Pharisees as hypocrites and a brood of vipers
(Matt. 23:33).
He deliberately provoked them by healing people on the Sabbath, when He could
have been “nice” and waited until the next day. Yet, Jesus always acted in
love.
Here’s
my definition, which I derived from several texts, such as Ephesians 5:2 &
25): Love is a self-sacrificing, caring commitment which shows itself
in seeking the highest good of the one loved.
The
core of love is not emotion, but commitment. It’s not
a commitment to make the other person immediately happy, but rather to seek the person’s highest good. Glorifying God is the
highest good for every person. Thus, sometimes love has to gently confront the
other person, seeking to help him or her grow to be more like Christ.
Biblical
love is also self-sacrificing. Christ loved us
by sacrificing Himself on the cross. To love another person means that you lay
aside your rights and your comfort by doing unto him what you would want done
for you if you were in his situation. Convenient “love” is not love at all.
Biblical
love is also caring. This is the emotional side
of love. If you must confront the person, you do it with genuine concern for
his well-being. You don’t blast him, but rather speak the truth in love (Eph. 4:15).
“Love is kind” (1 Cor. 13:4).
That
biblical love shows itself means that it’s
not empty talk. It takes action. It’s not enough, husbands, to say with
kindness and sympathy, “I’m sorry, honey, that you’ve got to do all those
dishes, get the kids bathed and into bed, and finish doing the laundry. I’ll
pray for you!” Rather, you get up and help! The goal of love is always to
present every person mature in Christ (Col.
1:28), so that God may be glorified through each person.
D. Biblical love is the
basis for mature Christian unity.
Some
commentators think that when Paul calls love “the perfect bond of unity,” he
means that love binds or ties into one all of the virtues mentioned in verses
12 & 13, much as a belt or sash in that day held together all the other
pieces of clothing.
But
others say that Paul means that love is the quality that binds the various
members of the body of Christ together in perfect or mature unity. (“Perfect”
means “mature”; see Heb.
6:1). “Bond” is the same word translated “ligaments” in Colossians 2:19.
The ligaments hold different body parts together. Since Paul’s concern here is
not so much the unity of the various virtues, but rather the unity of the
Greeks and Jews, barbarians, Scythians, slaves and freemen in the one body (Col. 3:11),
I understand him to mean that biblical love is what binds us together as we
grow to maturity in Christ (Eph.
4:13-16).
While
we must hold to the fundamental doctrines of
the faith, we need to remember that love is a fundamental practice of
the faith. To hold to fundamental doctrines in an arrogant or unloving manner
is to violate this supreme virtue, which is the basis for mature Christian
unity. Paul goes on to show how biblical love works in the church:
2. LOVE IS SHOWN IN
PEACEFUL RELATIONSHIPS IN THE CHURCH
Colossians 3:15:
“And let the peace of God rule in your hearts,
to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.” Note
four things:
A. To let the peace of
Christ rule in your heart, you must have the peace
of Christ in your heart.
The
peace with God that comes from trusting in Christ as your Savior and Lord is
the basis for peace with other believers. As Paul says (Eph. 2:14),
“He Himself is our peace, who made both groups [Jew & Gentile] into one and
broke down the barrier of the dividing wall.” Outside of Christ, the Jews and
the Gentiles despised each other. There was mutual contempt. So, to have peace
between these culturally diverse groups, not just a tense cease-fire, but peace
on the heart level, these very different groups had to have hearts that had
been changed by Jesus Christ. In other words, true conversion that brings peace
with God is the basis for peaceful relationships on the heart level with
others, even with others who are very different than you are. Outward “peace”
is only superficial if your heart is not right with God.
B. To have the peace of Christ rule in your relationships,
remember that God called you to Christ, which includes being a member of His
one body, the church.
“Calling”
refers to God’s effectual call to salvation, based on His choosing you (Col. 3:12; 1 Cor. 1:26-31; Rom. 8:30).
The Spirit baptizes all who are called into the one body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:13).
Just as you don’t have the choice of picking your natural brothers and sisters,
so you don’t have the choice of picking your spiritual brothers and sisters.
The Lord picks them, and you’ve got to get along with them.
The
fact that God called you and placed you in the one body of Christ means that
being a Christian means being committed to a local church. Just attending
church occasionally but not getting to know others in the body and not serving
in some capacity is increasingly common to Catholic churches. But that is
foreign to New Testament Christianity. If God called you to Himself in
salvation, He called you into the one body of Christ.
C. To have peaceful
relationships, you must let His peace be the deciding factor in how you relate
to other believers, especially when there is a conflict or misunderstanding.
Colossians 3:15 is
one of the most misused verses in the Bible. I’ve heard some respected Bible
teachers pull this verse totally out of context and say that it’s teaching that
an inner feeling of peace is a major factor in how you determine God’s will for
your life. While that may be a factor (2
Cor. 2:12-13), that’s not even close to what Paul is talking about here.
The
context of verse 15 is corporate—he’s talking about love and peaceful
relationships in the one body of Christ (that phrase even occurs in the verse).
There is nothing in the context about how an individual determines God’s will.
The peace he’s talking about isn’t primarily inner subjective peace, but rather
the objective peace which Christ secured at the cross. He broke down the
barrier between hostile groups of people, such as Jews and Gentiles, “so that
in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace” (Eph. 2:15;
cf. Eph. 2:14-18; Col. 3:11).
The
word translated “rule” means “to act as umpire.” It focuses on making a
decision in a given situation. So Paul is saying, “When you’re faced with a
potential or real conflict, decide how you act or what you say based on the
peace Christ secured on the cross between you and the other person, no matter
how different the two of you may be. You are now one body in Christ. Let
preserving that unity be the deciding factor in how you act.” He makes a
similar point in Romans
14:19: “Let us pursue the things which make for peace and the
building up of one another.”
You
put love into shoe leather by seeking peace in difficult situations, realizing
that we were not called to be individual Christians; we were called to be one
body. If, in a fit of anger, you cut yourself off from another Christian,
whether in the church or in your own family, it’s like amputating part of
your body. So, your words, your attitudes, your nonverbal communication,
your actions—whatever you do—must be aimed at peace and biblical unity with the
other person.
D. To have peaceful
relationships in the church, you must be thankful for your salvation and for
your brothers and sisters in the body of Christ.
Paul
was not a fool; he knew human nature. He knew that we all would be inclined to
skate around his command by giving a grudging “peace.” We’re all wired to look
out for our own interests by saying, “I’ll meet him in the middle, but I’m not
going to go all the way. I’ll grant him peace, but he’s got to do his part.”
So, Paul pulls the plug on that kind of attitude by adding, “And be thankful.”
Grant the peace that you give with a heart of overflowing gratitude to God who
has forgiven all your sins and made you a part of the body of Christ even
though you didn’t deserve it.
So,
when you’re wronged by a fellow Christian, don’t focus on your rights that were
violated. Don’t gossip to others about what that person did to you, trying to
line up people on your side. Don’t throw a pity party and adopt a martyr
complex. Rather, seek and extend Christ’s peace between you and the one who
offended you with a thankful heart as you realize how gracious God was to call
you to salvation and to place you in the body of Christ. Thankfulness focuses
on God and His blessings, not on me and my offended rights.
And
such gratitude toward God never stops there. It always slops over onto my
brother as I remember that God graciously has saved him, too. God is at work in
his life, in spite of how he may have wronged me. So, I can extend grace to him
and use our common bond in Christ as the basis for working on reconciliation
over whatever has divided us. Your desire should be for him and you to grow
through this conflict, so that his life and yours would bring more glory to our
Savior, who loved us and gave Himself for us. Practical love demonstrated in
peaceful relationships must be our priority in the body of Christ.
CONLUSION:
Christ: from whom the whole body
fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth,
according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh
increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love" (Eph 4:15-16).
"Charity (love)," or
spiritual beneficent love, brings the people of God closer together – like a
healthy ligament pulls the ball more perfectly into the joint. It makes the
connection more secure, healthy, and stable. Because of this, "charity"
also causes the various members of the body of Christ to exude life – to
express it by edifying the members with whom they are connected. This is the
"edifying of itself in love," mentioned in Ephesians 4:16. This
edification is produced by the flow of spiritual life from one member to
another – and "charity" is what enables that flow.
Where "charity" is not
"put on," edification is not possible. Unity also becomes impossible,
for those who do not love each other cannot be united – at least not in the
sense in which the Scriptures speak of unity. Further, where there is no unity,
God will not work. That is one of the primary reasons for "the unity of
the Spirit in the bond of peace." That unity produces an environment in
which Divine workings are realized. That is why it is appropriately called
"the bond of perfectness." It is also why James reminds us, "And
the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace"
(James 3:18).
Giving due attention to this
admonition would resolve all church squabbles and dissensions. It would
dissipate division and bring an accord that would scatter the forces of
darkness. It would produce an environment in which Divine workings would be
evident – a domain in which edification, exhortation, and comfort would be
administered and spiritual maturity would result.
http://injesus.com/message-archives/teaching-education/wotruth/the-bond-of-perfectness
