A message on thankfulness
“15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. ”
Jada’s word for 2022 is “thankful.” For each sermon in Colossians, we are starting with an imaginary person who does the sorts of things we do or faces the sort of situations we face. Every year Jada chooses a virtue she wants to grow in and that becomes her word for the year. Last year it was “joy.” The year before that it was “kindness.” Jada writes this word at the beginning of each week in her planner. She finds an image of the word online—the word kindness spelled out of roses, the word joy spelled with the different colors or the rainbow—and uses that as her desktop image on her computer. This year it’s all about being thankful.
I’ve never met someone who I’ve considered too thankful. I’m certainly not too thankful. Thankfulness is certainly something we could all grow in, and thankfulness is what this section of Colossians is about. We’re studying the fullness of Christ in Colossians and it is being full of Christ that leads to thankfulness. That’s the claim of this sermon: being full of Christ leads to thankfulness.
We will study this in three points. First: let the peace of Christ rule. Second: let the word of Christ dwell. Third: doing it all for Jesus. Each of these verses ends with thankfulness. Verse 15 is about letting the peace of Christ rule. It ends with being thankful. Verse 16 is about letting the word of Christ dwell. It ends with being thankful. Verse 17 is about doing it all for Jesus. It ends with being thankful.
First: let the peace of Christ rule. In our last sermon on Colossians, we ended with love. Paul was focusing on unity amid differences in the church, and he ended on love. It’s no surprise that Paul now moves to peace. Love and peace are the clearest manifestations of unity. That’s true in a friendship. That’s true in a family. That’s true, as is Paul’s focus, in a church. Imagine your family, friendships, or church without love or peace and you see what I mean.
We saw love. Now we see peace. The Colossians—Greek and Jew, slave and free, barbarian and Scythian—had peace with God. They were no longer God’s enemies trying to justify themselves and their sin. They were at peace with God because of what Christ had done for them on the cross. People who are at peace with God ought to be at peace with one another. That’s the idea in verse 17, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace.”
We are to set our hearts on peace with one another. Peace is to be the rule. The language here for “rule” in, “let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts,” is the sort of ruling an umpire does. He decides what’s right in each situation—ball, strike—with an eye to the rules of the game. We decide what’s right in each situation with an eye toward peace with others. It’s as if Paul is saying, “Christ has made peace between you and God. Keep that in mind when you deal with your sister. Keep that in mind when you deal with your sister in Christ. Do with her what Christ has done for you. Keep the peace Christ made.”
The rule is peace. If something a fellow church member does offends you, the question becomes, “what would make for peace?” Is a confession of sin necessary for peace? If that would, in fact, make it right, does the other person even know they offended you? Is reconciliation necessary for peace? If so, what’s necessary for that to happen? Or, perhaps, is only forbearance necessary? Paul is saying that your response to this offence isn’t merely about you, “since,” as he puts it in verse 15, “as members of one body you were called to peace.”
This commitment to peace preserves unity and it is made possible because we are at peace with God. This church relationship isn’t merely about growing up here, or marrying in, or moving to this area, or taking the call to be the pastor of this church. It is about God having made peace with each of us through the cross and then calling us to live this peace out with each other. That’s what holds any church together. That’s what it took to unite Greeks and Jews. That’s what it takes for us.
This call to keep the peace ends in thankfulness because thankfulness is part of unity too. “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.” God had put the circumcised Jews and uncircumcised Greeks together. God had put the refined Romans and the barbaric Scythians together. Each of them could pick at each other or they could be thankful that God had put them together. It is being thankful that leads to unity. “Believers who are full of gratitude to God… will find it easier to extend to fellow believers the grace of love and forgiveness and to put aside petty issues that might inhibit the expression of peace in the community,” as one commentator put it. God has put you together with others who are very different from you. God tells you to be thankful about that.
Look for reasons to be thankful. Look for them in your family. Look for them in your friendships. Look for them in the church. That is the word from God from in verse 15. Now of course, you will see irritations that you don’t like in this congregation. That’s part of dealing with fellow sinners and you are one of those sinners and so am I. Fixating on that, however, will destroy unity. Focusing on the reasons for thanksgiving builds unity. That’s one reason the Thanksgiving worship service is such a warm and inviting service. It is all about our focus on that morning. It’s about focus. What Chesterton said about Rome is true about churches too. “Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her.”
We’ve seen the need to let the peace of Christ rule and be thankful. Now we see the need to let the word of Christ dwell and be thankful. That’s our second point. The church is to be a group characterized by the word of God. Americans for Prosperity is a group characterized by pro-business views. Americans for the Arts is a group characterized by love for the arts. The church is a group of people characterized by the word of God. This word is to inform what we do the way pro-business views inform what Americans for Prosperity does or how love for the arts inform what Americans for the Arts does. Being characterized by the word of God is what verse 16 is all about, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.”
The word of Christ is to be the operating force among us. We can’t merely stand on the fact that we say forgiveness is good. We want forgiveness to be the operating force among us. We don’t merely want to publicly acknowledge that sin is wrong. Repentance from sin is to be the operating force among us.
For the word to dwell richly among us we need to do it. We need to verb this word with each other. We need to 1 Corinthians 13 each other. We need to Colossians 3 each other. The word needs to move from the page into your life. Think about word art from the Bible on the walls of your house. What you really want is “For me and my house, we will serve the Lord,” to be the standard operating procedure in your home. That is, after all, why you put it on your walls. You put it in front of you so that it might dwell richly in you and among your family. That’s what this point is about.
Now each of us needs to change so that this word dwells ever more richly in each of us and among us. That’s the assumption behind verse 16’s, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom.”
None of us comes out of the womb knowing God’s ways. The idea that children are born innocent and pure is a dangerous error. We are all born with a rebellious bent a mile wide. We need to learn and love who God is and what He expects. This calls for teaching. This calls for admonishments.
We need both teaching and admonishment. Children need to be taught about electricity and they need to be admonished—warned—not to go near a downed power line. We need to be taught about what is sinful and we need to be admonished not to go near sin.
Now the concern here was to make sure that the church members in Colossae were teaching and admonishing according to the word of God. It was the “word of Christ” that was to dwell richly among them not the traditions that some wanted to impose or the severe practices that others said would lead to exciting spirituality.
This is a call to be careful because so much of what we teach and admonish as we go through the day—and we teach and admonish in so many ways, an unguarded comment, a disapproving look—so much of that has much more to do with our family background, our wisdom, our bent, and our preferences than it has to do with the word of God. Those cannot control a church. We are to be characterized by the word of God—no more, no less.
When we do warn according to what God says, we must put on the clothing we studied last time. We are to speak, teach, and admonish with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forbearance, forgiveness, and love. You are more likely to receive. Warning wrapped up in that. The same goes for others.
Now none of us will ever admonish perfectly, but that’s when we hope that others also clothe themselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, and bear with us and forgive us if they have any grievance against us forgiving us as the Lord forgave them. That’s the word of Christ dwelling richly in them.
So as this word of Christ dwells richly among us, wise words of teaching and admonishment come out of us. Words of thankfulness come out of us as well. That’s the second half of verse 16 just as the second half of all these verses are about thanksgiving, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.”
Singing words of thankfulness is part of the new heart. The old heart spoke words of anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthiness as we studied a few weeks ago. The new heart teaches, admonishes, and sings words of thankfulness.
Letting your own worries, grudges, and self-absorption dwell in you richly is the path to anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthiness. Letting the word of God dwell in your richly is the path to singing songs of thankfulness. Jada will never sing thankful songs until she stops letting word of Jada dwell in her richly and starts letting the word of Christ dwell in her richly. She can write the word “thankful” on her planner all she wants. It’s the word inside her that needs to change.
What comes out of us has much more to do with what’s dwelling in us than it does with our circumstances. That’s why Jesus said, “out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.” He’s worth taking seriously on this matter. He lived in far worse circumstances than any of us, saw far more pettiness in everyone he dealt with than we do, yet he was supremely thankful rather than living a life filled with anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthiness. It’s no surprise that the goal of the Christian is to be more like him. It’s all about him. It’s all for him. That’s what our last point is about: doing it all for Jesus.
This last point is the shortest because it’s just a summary and expansion of what we’ve studied so far. Verse 15 was about doing relationships for Jesus. Verse 16 was about hearing and speaking for Jesus. Verse 17 is a summary and expansion because it tells us to do everything for Jesus—relationships, hearing and speaking, and everything, “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
If you want to live the full life of Colossians, you just do it all for Jesus. You do your work for Jesus, which Paul will explain in a few weeks. You recognize that you belong to God and not to your boss so you don’t work just to please your boss and get something from him; you work to please God and get something from Him. You are thankful that God has provided you with a job by which you can provide for yourself and for others. That’s, “whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him,” applied to your job. That’s the fullness of Christ applied to your job, and that’s certainly a much fuller picture of work than, “I owe, I owe so it’s off to work I go.”
Apply it to food. God has done good to you in Jesus. Do good to others with food. Recognize that God has created people with palates that can discern between sweet, salty, spicy, and sour. Do good to others by making dishes that tickle those taste buds. We saw that with the wings on Friday night. And be thankful for the food that you have in such a way that you realize that you wouldn’t have any of it were not for God’s kindness. That’s, “whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him,” applied to food.
Your homework is to think about how you can apply that to other areas of your life. Do it for friendship. Think about how you can do friendship in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Paul will show us next week how do family in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Do it for dating. Do it for your hobbies. Do it for whatever you do. That’s the full life.
The full life is all about Jesus. It’s all about fullness in him. Just look back at verse 15. It’s about him—the peace of Christ. Look at verse 16. That’s about the word of Christ. Verse 17 is about doing everything in the name of Jesus. It’s all about Jesus Christ. The full life is not about you. It’s about him.
That leads to thankfulness. Notice how these three verses end. Verse 15, “And be thankful.” Verse 16, “with gratitude in your hearts to God.” Verse 17, “giving thanks to God the Father through him.” Being full of Christ leads to thankfulness.
Are you full of Christ? I’ve told this story before, but I need to remember it. Years ago, when I was a youth and assistant pastor, I visited an older lady from the congregation in the hospital. I was in a grumbly mood that day about everything in my life that I wished were different. “If only…” “If only…” “If only…” Then I’d be happy. I visited this lady in quarantine because they thought she had the swine flu. She also had a broken hip, which is why she was rushed to the hospital in the first place. On top of that, she had recently buried her husband of sixty years. Since she was in quarantine, I needed to get something like a hazmat suit on to see her. She didn’t have her hearing aids in or her glasses on; she could only see my eyes with that hazmat suit on so it took me a while to explain who I was, but when she made the connection she grabbed my hand and said, “Oh, Pastor. God is so good to me.” So, you’ve got a healthy man in his mid-twenties grumbling about his life and you’ve got a grieving, ninety-year-old lady with a broken hip in quarantine for the swine flu giving thanks to God. Now which heart do you think was set on Christ in the hour before that lady and I sat together in that hospital room? It wasn’t mine. Being full of Christ leads to thankfulness. Does that describe your 2022? Does that describe this church’s 2022? That’s what this passage is all about. It’s about doing it all for Jesus for everything he does for us. Amen.