August 10-12, 2019 Pastor Timothy J. Spaude Sermon Text: Colossians 3:12-17 "KEYS TO A SUCCESSFUL REMODELING/EXPANSION"

PENTECOST 8

August 10-12, 2019

Pastor Timothy J. Spaude

Sermon Text: Colossians 3:12-17

"KEYS TO A SUCCESSFUL REMODELING/EXPANSION"

1. Clothe Yourself with Christ.

2. Immerse Yourself in the Word.

 Colossians 3:12-17 (NIV 1984) “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. ¹³Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. ¹⁴And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. ¹⁵Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. ¹⁶Let 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. ¹⁷And 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.”



          This weekend brings us to an exciting point in our building expansion program. After services on Sunday our construction firm, Catalyst Construction, will be meeting with you to let you know how each of you can be involved in our building expansion and narthex remodeling project. With all their experience they have the keys to successful church projects. The word of God before us today also gives us some keys to some more important remodeling and expansion, the remodeling of our sinful selves for the expansion of Christ’s Church. Let’s see what they are.

          The word of God before us today comes from Paul’s letter to the church in the city of Colossae. Paul, the great missionary Apostle, was in prison at the time he wrote his letter, but even with Paul on the sidelines the work of the Church would go on through the Christians in the church at Colossae, like it does with us. But for that to happen there needed to be some remodeling done.

Paul first addresses why remodeling and expansion was important. “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved.” It’s been a long process so maybe you’ve forgotten. How would you answer this question? Why are we doing a building expansion and remodeling project? Some possible answers: To have a bigger, more open welcoming space coming into church. To get those bathrooms up to code. Because the current MPR is often too small and overused. To have a modern EC center. All good answers but not the ultimate answer. The ultimate answer is because we are God’s chosen people. He picked us for His family. We didn’t pick him. He made us holy by giving His only Son Jesus to take our sins away. He dearly loves us. How else can we respond but with our best? We want to do the best work for Jesus we can. Buildings serve ministry so we are building together to serve God better. That’s why. It’s also why we need to remodel ourselves daily. We can’t be content to let sin have a place in our lives. We can’t be content to look, talk and act like people who aren’t God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved. Only our best for the Lord will do.

How to remodel? “Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. ¹³Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. ¹⁴And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. ¹⁵Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.” There’s a word picture here. Putting on clothes. Kids, have you ever read the story, “The Emperor’s New Clothes?” It’s a good one. You have to read it. In it a couple of tailors convince the emperor to wear invisible clothes so he ends up walking around naked. Can you imagine? As God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, we don’t want to walk around naked. The clothes we are to wear is Christ. All the characteristics listed are really Him! Compassion, that’s caring when someone else is hurting or in trouble. Kindness which leads to doing things that bring a smile to someone else’s face. Humility, thinking of the needs of others first, gentleness, staying calm in dealing with other people, having a smily face not an ugly one. Patience, absorbing life’s yuck without getting yucky in return. Bear with each other. This part of God’s word always makes me smile. The ones we have to put up with, God says, are each other, not the unbelievers. He knows us so well! Forgive as we have been forgiven. Be at peace. The reason we need to put on Christ is because our sinful natures are the exact opposite. Without Christ on we are irritable, uncaring, arrogant, quick tempered and prone to bitter feelings against each other. Kind of reminds me of a great prayer I read. It goes like this: “Dear Lord, So far today I’m doing alright. I have not gossiped, lost my temper, been greedy, grumpy, thoughtless or selfish. I have not whined or complained. But I will be getting out of bed in a minute and I need your help.”

How do we get it? Immerse yourself in the Word. That’s our second key for a successful remodeling and expansion. “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. ¹⁷And 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.” Three times this word of God urged an attitude of gratitude. “Be thankful, with gratitude in your hearts to God, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” We are urged to teach and admonish one another with all wisdom. But there is only one way we are equipped to do that. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Richly. Not miserly. Richly. Not a little bit. Richly. Why did Eli finally tell Samuel to say, “Speak Lord, your servant is listening?” What did Jesus say was the one thing needed? It’s God’s word. What did God use to create? His word. Why is the Devil working so hard in your life and my life to distract us from the Word? He knows where God has placed His power. It seems so unassuming. Words in a book. But they come from the mouth of God and they are filled with His power. They are faith food. Some of you may remember a story I told years ago of how one of our Apache brothers in faith described to some of his friends how his life was different as a Christian. He said, “Before Christ came into my life only a black dog lived in my heart and it was mean and nasty and liked to get drunk and fight and so that is what I would do. But when Jesus came into my heart He brought a white dog to live there too. And the white dog loves Jesus and wants only to please Him and so now the black dog and the white dog they fight in my heart over what I will do.” To that one of his friends replied, “Well how do you keep the black dog from winning.” To which our brother replied, “Ah, the white dog I feed.” So smart. A sinful nature. A Christian nature inside each one of us. How do we keep the sinful nature from winning? The Christian nature we feed with God’s Word. After service I’ll share some ways to help you do just that.

But let’s go back to why. Why is it so important for us to do the daily remodeling of our sinful selves. Let’s say that after we build they come. They meaning people from our community. They bring their children to our brand new Early Childhood Center. They enter our brighter more open welcome space. They come to some community outreach or service event that we hold in our new beautiful and large multi purpose room. Now remember again why we are doing this. Our best for our Lord Jesus with the express purpose of drawing souls to Jesus so they can be saved. But what do you suppose will happen with those folks if when they come they find people who don’t seem to care, who bicker and fight, who are grumpy and  complaining, who have no attitude of gratitude and appear not to even like each other. How’s that going to go? On the other hand what if they find a bunch of people who kind of look and act like Christ? Remodeled Christians get many more opportunities for expansion of Christ’s kingdom. And like our other remodeling/expansion it takes work and planning and daily diligence and we all can be involved as we follow the keys presented in God’s Word. Clothe yourself with Christ and immerse yourself in the word. Amen.