Christmas Eve Service – December 24 @ 4 p.m.
Good morning. Happy Thanksgiving. This morning we are going to be talking about thankfulness. There are many passages in the Bible that we could go to learn what God has to say, but I am excited that we’re going to be in one of my favorite passages in the Bible today, which is Colossians 3.
The first thing we’re going to do is we’re going to see how our thankfulness is rooted first in who we are in Christ. Then after that, we’ll go through about four different ways that we use thankfulness, that thankfulness is useful in our everyday lives. My hope is that, by the end, you will be encouraged to be more intentional with your thanksgiving. Does that sound good? All right.
Before we dive into the passage, I do have a question for you guys: Who in here is familiar with the term “everyday carry” or EDC? Have you guys ever heard that term before? Everyday carry.
“Everyday carry” refers to the useful things that we take with us every day— the stuff that’s in your pocket, the stuff that’s in your purse, what you’re making sure you’re not going out the door without. So it’s going to be your phone, your wallet, your keys. For some of you, maybe it’s your pocket knife. Or your Stanley cup or a Owala bottle or Gatorade bottle— whatever iteration of bottle we’re on today. Right?
One of the interesting things about everyday carry, about your EDC, is that it reflects something about us. It says something about us, what’s important to us, what we feel like we need to be prepared for throughout the day, maybe what we do. Let me show you some examples of what I mean.
This first picture that you’re looking at — this is what us EDC nerds call a “pocket dump,” where people show everybody in the world what’s in their pockets. I am a geek about that kind of stuff. This pocket dump is done by a gentleman who is a military mechanic. This is some pretty normal stuff in there, right? He has his pocket knife, he has a little multi-tool in there, he has his watch… But there are a couple of things in there that maybe not all of us are carrying around every day.
The first one is that Rite In The Rain notebook. It’s a little waterproof notepad. You can imagine that, for a military mechanic, it would make sense as he’s not always getting to choose his location for taking down notes and orders, and things of that nature. Regardless of what the conditions are outside, he needs to have something reliable.
Then the other thing that you see that he has up there is a headlamp, which–again–makes sense for a military mechanic, being able to see what he’s working on. But one of the things that he mentioned about that headlamp that I thought was interesting that he likes is that it has a red light in addition to the white light. Again, being in the military, that makes perfect sense because you wouldn’t necessarily want a big white beacon telling the world where your head is in certain situations, if he’s on a battlefield. So that makes sense of why that would be important to him.
Let’s look at another one. This is one where you women get to put us to shame when it comes to everyday carry. This is not called a “pocket dump.” We tend to have pockets in our pants to carry stuff. This is called a “what’s in my bag.”
You can see, again, some very typical stuff that I imagine many of the ladies in here have in their purses. There’s Kleenex, there’s keys, there’s a wallet, a little zip pouch… Then she has makeup and a comb and a mirror. That tells us that this is somebody who cares about their appearance. They want to look nice before they walk in somewhere.
Another thing that caught my attention in this one was that black box in the middle of Lactojoy. A lactose intolerance pill. This tells us this is the kind of lady who wakes up in the morning and chooses cheese. “Doesn’t matter what my body’s telling me, if the opportunity presents itself, we’re doing cheese today.”
One more that we have here: This is neither a pocket dump nor a “what’s in my bag.” This is called a “tread bracelet.” This is made by Leatherman. Believe it or not, that bracelet supposedly has 29 tools on it. It’s hard to see from that distance, but in the middle of the link, that’s a little hex wrench. Then you can see between the links, there are little bit drivers. I imagine there’s a bottle opener or something on there as well. I have no idea.
I don’t know—this guy didn’t post this, it was an advertisement—but what I’m seeing about this guy, something tells me this is probably the kind of guy who is praying that your car is going to break down in his vicinity. He really wants to rebuild your engine with just his bracelet and some duct tape.
So your everyday carry, again, tells us something about us. It reflects who you are and what’s important to you. Sometimes the Bible gives us lists of virtues or tools that we’re supposed to have with us every day, things we’re supposed to “put on,” so to speak.
When you’re deciding whether something should be part of your everyday carry, one of the questions you have to ask is, “In what situation would I use this?” I don’t want to take stuff with me and take up space in my pockets if I’m never going to use it. So how am I supposed to use this tool?
As we’re considering thankfulness today, one of the questions I think we should ask is, “In what situation would I use that?” Because it’s not just the stereotypical ones of Thanksgiving and birthday gifts and things of that nature. Paul answers this question for us, and the way he answers it is he starts by reminding us of who we are.
As we move through the book of Colossians, one of the things we see is that Paul actually puts a good bit of emphasis on who we are. I’m going to rapid fire. I’m going to back us up a little bit in the book, and I’m going to rapid-fire a few examples here of what I mean when I say that.
In chapter 2:10, Paul says,
“You [the church] have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority” (Colossians 2:10).
“You were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh” (Colossians 2:11).
You were “buried with him in baptism, raised with him through faith” (Colossians 2:12).
“You who were dead…now you are alive…forgiven” (Colossians 2:13).
“You have been raised with Christ, who is your life” (Colossians 3:1).
“You have put off the old self” (Colossians 3:9).
You have put off Adam. Then verse 10,
“You have put on the new self [you have put on Christ, the new self], which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (Colossians 3:10).
By the time we get to our passage that we’re going to focus on today, starting in verse 12, Paul is still reminding us of who we are. Here we see God’s heart for us. Let’s look at this in verse 12.
“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved…” (Colossians 3:12a)
God has chosen us.
We are his elect from every nation.
We are a chosen race (us, the Church).
He has written our names in the book of life from before the foundation of the world.
His loving gaze is on us, and he has transferred us from the domain of darkness to the kingdom of his beloved Son.
We are his holy ones, created for good works, set apart to proclaim his excellencies.
We are dearly loved by the God of the Bible, by the King of creation, who hung the stars and spoke the galaxies into being by the power of his word. That God loves us. That’s who we are as the Church.
As that Church, Paul is giving us a list of EDC (of everyday carry) for believers, because that’s who we are. The first thing we’re going to see as we go through this passage, that thankfulness is useful for (going back to that question)—
1. Thankfulness defeats divisions, conquers conflicts.
The first thing that we see that thankfulness is useful for is thankfulness defeats divisions and conquers conflicts. Thankfulness defeats divisions and conquers conflicts. Where are we getting that? We’re going to look at verses 12 through 15 together, kind of as one unit.
“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience” (Colossians 3:12).
What’s the theme there? What’s he addressing? How do those all go together? He makes it pretty plain in the next couple of verses: bearing with one another. Because you have to do that, right?
“…bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you [you’ve been forgiven], so you must also forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Colossians 3:13-14).
What is he addressing here? What is the theme? These are the virtues, these are the tools we need in order to live as a family. To maintain the unity in the body of Christ, we have to be humble, we have to be meek, we have to be patient. Then he goes on in verse 15, and he continues with the same thought. He says,
“And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts—” (Colossians 3:15)
Now, when I hear the word “rule” when I’m reading it, it would seem to make sense that it would be “rule” as in the way a king would rule. “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.” That sounds like that would fit, but that’s actually not the word that’s being used here.
When it says “rule” in the Greek, what that’s actually referring to is more how a judge would rule. Or how more accurately, how an umpire would rule. Different word. You see the difference there between how a king rules and how an umpire makes a ruling? And when do we need umpires? When we have opposing teams. So it’s still that same idea of conflict here.
“And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts,” that peace of Christ, which was hard won on the cross by the Son of God, who gave us peace with God. Let that be the umpire in our hearts as a church. And then he says, “to which you were called in one body.”
A few weeks ago, if you guys were here for the baptism service (which was amazing), you guys remember that Peter preached out of Acts 2, and he highlighted the fact that we are called individually. “Each one of you” is the phrase out of Acts 2 that he was emphasizing, and that’s very true. But here, Paul is drawing attention to the fact that—yes, we are called individually—but we are also called as one body.
What is the implication there? What is he saying? He’s saying, “Yes, you were called individually. You were not called as God’s lone soldier.” The Bible doesn’t have a context for individual Christianity away from the body of Christ. You can’t just go out there and not be part of the Church. Remember back in 2:10 that we read where he says, “you [plural] have been filled in him.” It’s because God has equipped his Church, and the gates of hell cannot stand against it. And as his church, sometimes we have to deal with conflict.
Then we’re going to see for the first time, out of three times that we’re going to notice here in this passage, where he says, “and be thankful.” That seems like an odd place to put “thankful,” if you ask me. If I’m thinking about conflict—if you can imagine maybe a recent conflict that you’ve had with anyone—thankfulness is not the first thing that comes to mind. That doesn’t just naturally flow up in me when I’m thinking about being hurt or being angry or being sad or whatever it is.
You could be tempted to think, “Well, maybe Paul’s just saying, ‘Put on a smiling face through this.’ Be positive.” There’s nothing in the context that would tell us that. He’s not saying, “Grin and bear it.” He’s not saying, “Fake it ’till you make it.” He’s saying, “And be thankful.”
The context here is that, again, we have put off the old man. We’ve put off Adam, and we’ve put on a new man. Regardless of the situation that you find yourself in, you do have a reason to be thankful. That may sound trite, but it’s not meant to be.
It’s the truth that we as believers have a reason to be thankful based on who we are and what he’s done for us. If nothing else, in this conflict in this hard time, we have an opportunity to live like Christ. That’s actually something to be thankful for. Paul talks about suffering being like a reward sometimes. You’re thinking, “Really? That’s a reward?” But that’s the Christian life. We’ve been counted worthy to live like Christ through a difficult situation.
Thankfulness is one of the ways that God reminds us that all good things come by his grace, not because we deserve them. Patience and kindness and these other things are obviously necessary for dealing with conflict, but we see Paul using thankfulness right here in the midst of all of them. So we see that thankfulness is useful for conquering conflicts.
2. Thankfulness builds up the body.
What else is thankfulness useful for? Paul showed us how we can use it in divisions and conflicts, but now we’re going to see him flip the tool over, and he’s going to start using it for a more constructive purpose. We see that thankfulness is also useful for building up the body. Thankfulness builds up the body. Let’s look at verse 16 for that. He says,
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly—”
I have to stop there. I always have to stop there because I love that phrase. Isn’t that beautiful? Let the word of Christ, let the message of Christ dwell in you richly. What does that mean? What does that look like? He tells us what it looks like:
“…teaching and admonishing one another—”
“Teaching,” I think we have a good handle on. We use that word all the time. “Admonishing” is not something that we talk about every day, necessarily. But what admonish means is “a caring caution.” It’s corrective instruction, as opposed to harsh condemnation, because the situation in which the need for admonishment arises is when someone has done something they shouldn’t have. There’s sin involved. There’s error. Intentional or unintentional, it’s something that needs to be gently corrected. Recognizing that we are all still putting to death the deeds of the body.
What we see here is that the word of Christ is dwelling in us richly. By its own nature, it starts coming back out of us. When it says “dwell” in us, it doesn’t mean it just sits there. It comes back out in the form of “teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom” (3:16a).
The wisdom part is important because—we talked about how the church has conflict—but also conflicts can be messy. It’s not always clean-cut. This is how you deal with it. Where does that wisdom come from? It comes from above. It comes from the message of Christ dwelling in us.
What else does it look like?
It looks like singing. He says,
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly…singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” (Colossians 3:16a).
Isn’t that a beautiful visual of that word of Christ, that message of Christ, bubbling back out of the body, in singing? But don’t make the mistake of separating the singing from the teaching and admonishing. It’s not the only way that we teach and admonish, but they go together. Here, we’re doing one by the other.
That’s why it’s so important for the songs that we sing to be doctrinally sound. We’re not at a concert. We’re not here just singing along to our favorite songs with the band on stage, are we? We’re singing the praises of the God of the universe. We’re encouraging one another, and we’re teaching one another and admonishing one another.
How can you admonish someone with a song? Let me ask, have you guys ever sung “It Is Well?” And just felt that conviction in your heart of not fully trusting God through a tough situation?
How do you teach someone with a song? There are so many examples of that. We sang some this morning. One of my favorites is the old hymn “The Church’s One Foundation.” There’s another one right here in the book of Colossians, in chapter one. I wish we had time to go over it. We don’t, but verses 15-20, if you want to go back and look at Colossians 1), that’s a hymn. It is the most dense, God-glorifying hymn that I think I’ve ever read, just really loving on Jesus and glorifying him.
So we can teach one another. Then again, we see Paul break out that thankfulness tool. All of this is done with thankfulness in your hearts to God. This message of Christ dwelling in us and bubbling back out of us through teaching and admonishing and singing to each other and to God— we do that with thankfulness. So we see that thankfulness is also useful for building up the body of Christ.
3. Thankfulness characterizes the Christian life.
All right, last verse, verse 17, we’re going to see two more things quickly that thankfulness accomplishes. The first thing in verse 17 is that thankfulness characterizes the Christian life. Thankfulness characterizes the Christian life. I’ll read part of it. I’m going to skip a phrase, just a heads up. I will come back and get it, I promise.
“And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything…” (Colossians 17a)
We’ve talked about a few situations already (conflict; on the reverse side, building up the church) in which we would use thankfulness. Now Paul’s going back, and he’s widening the scope here: whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything with thankfulness.
There is no situation in which we can’t use thankfulness, is what he’s saying here. It’s not the tool that you take with you occasionally. It’s not the passport that you only bring with you on days that you’re traveling internationally. It’s EDC. It’s your phone, it’s your keys, it’s your wallet. It’s useful in every single situation.
4. Thankfulness glorifies God.
Then the last thing that we see is that thankfulness glorifies God. Thankfulness glorifies God. I’m going to back up and catch that phrase now:
“…do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Colossians 3:17b).
This is the time of year when, all around the country, people are gathering to be thankful. We hear the refrain on TV, we definitely see it on social media: “be thankful.” Maybe you guys have noticed— I don’t mean to sound cynical here, but maybe you guys have noticed, like I have, that sometimes it just sounds empty. Like, the thankfulness is stripped of its power.
The thing about thankfulness is thankfulness, by definition, requires an object. Not just of what you’re thankful for, but to whom you’re thankful. It’s assuming that someone is at least partially responsible for something that you have, so we express that thanksgiving.
Here, Paul makes it clear that we are thankful to God. He is the owner of the cattle on a thousand hills. He is the source of all good things in life, so it is to him that we are thankful. We have been shown an amazing grace beyond comprehension.
One of the unfortunate things about the English language is that sometimes we miss the connection between thanks and grace that we see in other languages. For example, in the biblical Greek here, it’s actually the exact same word. The word is “charis,” grace and thanks. Same word.
But we see it in other languages, right? How do you say “thank you” in Spanish? Gracias. What do you think the Spanish word for grace is? Gracia. Right. Not hard to find that connection.
What about French? Not the exact same thing. How do you say “thank you” in French? “Merci,” which looks suspiciously like our word “mercy,” right? It’s a nice little feature they have in these other languages where you can see that direct connection between grace and mercy and thanks.
]The closest thing we have in English is “gratitude.” For those of you who it’s bothering or wondering, it’s because the word “thanks” has Germanic roots, and “grace” has Latin roots. We didn’t do it on purpose. It’s just one of those things that happens. But we do have the word “gratitude” that has that echo.
When we carry thanksgiving around with us everywhere we go, and we have it ready to use in everyday situations, just like other EDC, it says something about who we are and what’s important to us, and what we need to be prepared to do every day. We are the ones who have been shown grace, and so we are grateful.
I spent a good bit of time today emphasizing the fact that in this passage, God is reminding us of who we are. We are new creations, chosen ones, holy and beloved, forgiven. In a minute, we’re going to have an opportunity to come up here and express that gratitude for the grace that God has given us. We’re going to have a time of testimonies. Heather’s going to come first. She’s going to sing a song of gratitude over us. Let’s pray.
Father, thank you so much for the time to be together with the body of Christ, that your Spirit is working to maintain unity here by your word dwelling in us richly. Thank you for the opportunities that we have throughout our weeks and our months. Father, we want to be thankful for hard situations, even if it doesn’t come at first. We pray that you would help us to be thankful and to be prepared for it, to be ready to give you thanks and praise. We love you. We pray these things in Christ’s name, amen.
