1218. The Unity of the Church pt. 1

Welcome to The Daily Platform. Our program features sermons from chapel services at Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. Every day, students are blessed by the preaching and teaching of the Bible from the University Chapel Platform. Today on The Daily Platform, we're continuing a study series entitled, Seeking Things Above, which is a study of the book of Colossians.

I'd like you to take your Bibles and turn with me to Colossians chapter 3. And as we begin this morning, I want you to imagine with me, if you will, that you are a believer living in the city of Colossae 2000 years ago. It was my privilege to go to that area in what we know today as Turkey. It's in central Turkey. And I went to the area where the Church of Colossae was located.

So I have that in my memory. And here you are, you're living there, and suddenly you receive the news that begins to spread like wildfire. And that is a letter has just arrived from Rome. And it had been brought there by an individual, a man named Tychicus or Tychicus, and a runaway slave named Onesimus. And they had just brought a handwritten letter from the great apostle Paul. And the letter was written to the Church of Colossae.

And they're going to read it very soon. And so you can imagine how excited and how much anticipation there would be among the church members. What is it that Paul is going to say? What's he going to write to the church? And so all the Christians gather together and prayer is offered and the reading starts.

And it begins with the formal introduction. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy, our brother to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae, grace to you and peace from God our Father. And then Paul begins to write, remembering it's being written to them.

And as the letter is read, what do we hear? Well, Paul declares that Jesus Christ is exalted as the creator of all things. That as a church, they are connected to Christ, who is the head of this body of believers that are being shaped and formed all over the world. He goes on to tell the believers that they are complete in Christ at the very moment of their conversion experience, that all that they need they have found in Jesus. And then he begins to expose the false teachers.

Those teachers who taught the need of an extra spiritual work beyond one salvation in order to be spiritually complete. And you can say it this way. Paul nails it. And he reiterates the truth that the church has everything it needs to live a life of godliness. And then we come to chapter three. And he tells us to pursue something in our life, all of us. And that is where to seek things above and not things on the earth. And then we come in this passage of scripture, where Paul begins to zero in on our relationship with one another. And in particular, our responsibility to this body that is called the church.

And we learn something. They want to divide the body of Christ through their teaching. They imply that the preaching of Christ's word and the relationship a believer has with the church is not sufficient for the spiritual life of a Christian.

You need something more. And Paul insists that if believers withdraw from the fellowship of the church with the idea that they can get something better, something richer, something more meaningful, is actually in reality a terrible loss. And let me just stop here and say, anything that takes us away from the body of Jesus Christ as believers is always to our detriment. So what does Paul do? He gives the believers four commands with regards to their relationship to the church. And in these commands, he also counteracts the effect of the false teachers. And in these commands, he is developing a strong unity within the church.

So that's my message this morning. And that is the unity of the church. And not so much from a theoretical perspective, but what are we to do as believers within the body of the church? It's been my privilege over my Christian experience. Yesterday was the 46th anniversary of my conversion experience.

I was saved Easter Sunday, 1977. It's been my privilege to be a member of a local church for these 46 years. And I've always been in wonderful churches. And I'm so thankful for the godly pastors that have influenced my life. And I've learned how is it that I, as a church member, live out the unity of the church?

And what am I supposed to do? So let's look this morning at Colossians chapter 3. And I want us to look beginning in verse 14, where Paul writes these words. Paul gives us four commands, four things that we are to do as a believer to keep the unity of the church. And all of you, I'm expecting that when you graduate from Bob Jones, and you go out into the world, that one of the first things you do, even in many cases before getting a job, is that you become a part of a faithful gospel center Bible preaching church. And you become a part of that. And you become involved in that church. And you serve in that church. And not only that, but you work to maintain the unity of that church. And what are the things that we're to do? Notice the first command, he says in verse 14, he says, and above all these things, put on charity or love, which is the bond of perfectness. Paul here tells us that it is love that holds the church together like a belt holds up your pants.

That's the idea of the bond of perfectness. Number of years ago, I was on a missions trip to the country of Columbia, and we took a couple of days off to go down to the great Victoria Falls and the Zambezi River. And one of the things we did is we did a rafting river, a river raft trip down the Zambezi. We went down about nine or ten rapids that you go over.

They classify them. And so I think I was wearing a pair like cut off shorts or jeans. I don't remember exactly what I was wearing, but I didn't wear a belt. We went down to the raft and our guide was an African gentleman. I remember his name. His name was Potato.

That's what they called him, Potato. And he looked at me and he says, you don't have a belt on. I said, well, I didn't want to wear a belt because it's leather and I didn't want to ruin the belt. He says, you must have a belt. I said, why do I need a belt? He says, you're going to find out. He says, because when you go down that river and you get thrown out in the river, he says, the river will take your belt. The river will take your pants off. And you know what?

He was absolutely right. Now, it didn't happen to me because I got like a rope to hold my pants together. But I can tell you that I was pulling them up the whole time. Because there was such power that would pull them off. So here's the apostle Paul and he's writing to the church of Colossae and he says, what is it that holds the church together? And the answer is, it is always love. And if there is an absence of love in the church, then what does it do?

It takes the unity right out. And beginning in verse 14, Paul starts this verse, if you'll notice, with the conjunction and and above all these things. He's connecting it back to verse 12. And in verse 12, Paul commands us to put on the grace qualities that reflect the new life. Look at what he says, put on therefore is the elect of God, holy and beloved. And he gives a list of things, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, and long suffering.

What do we call these? We call these grace qualities. And I'd like to emphasize that they're not necessarily what we call common character things. For example, character can be developed in your life, whether you're a Christian or not, like being on time, cleaning your room, those are all character qualities. But those are not grace qualities.

Qualities are the things that can be developed in your life only by the grace of God. Only God's grace can give us compassion and love for people that we would not naturally love. Only grace can keep us humble and meek and not rebellious or retaliatory. And so what Paul is saying is, you need to put on these grace qualities.

And the greatest grace quality is the quality of love. And when we put on love, that is the foundation for a unified church. And it's always important to remember that the church is a body of saved sinners.

Can I say that again? The church is a body of saved sinners. Let me put it this way, Bob Jones University is a school for saved sinners.

And I'm not sure sometimes which one to emphasize. Or sinners. And if we look at each other always from the viewpoint of sinners, at times it's really hard to love each other. Because you know what? We all see the hypocrisy of those that live among us.

You see it all the time. There are people that say one thing and they live another way. How do you live among those who are saved sinners? And the answer is that we have to put on the grace of God. Of love. And that's why we actually need each other. Let me put it this way. God has so created the church that the church is the atmosphere where we learn to love.

I'll give you an illustration. A number of years ago on our revival team back when I was an evangelist, we had a young lady on the team who graduated from Bob Jones. She had her Masters degree from here and she played the flute, sang on the team. Around her she would get really, really nervous. For whatever reason I was intimidating to her.

And I don't know why. People say sometimes I'm intimidating. I said you should meet my mother. And every time she got afraid she just played the flute terrible. And I knew she was good.

I'm like it's a fear issue. So one day after practice, after really a bad practice and she messed up really bad, I met her in the parking lot. And I looked at her and I said Danielle, can I ask you a question? I said are you afraid of me?

She went uh-huh. I said Danielle, please don't be afraid of me. I said look, I need you.

She looked at me and said no, no, no really. I said because everybody that comes to travel on this team teaches me things about myself. And teaches me how, or let me put it this way, expands my capacity to love different people. And I said actually we need each other. So please, I love you. And don't be afraid.

There's no point. I know you can do this. And that was every time I see Danielle, we get together and we look at each other and start laughing because we talk about the parking lot conversation. And honest and transparent with each other. And suddenly there was a complete change in our relationship. You and I need the church.

Why? Because in the church we learn to love people. We learn to love saved sinners. And this is really, really simple but sometimes it's really hard for us to grasp that really God uses the people that are around me, even the ones that irritate me.

God uses those people to help me to learn to love. It seems like the Apostle Paul was implying in his statements in the church that there were some that wanted to break away from the church because they wanted to have a deeper spiritual experience and they wanted to be a part of a more spiritually elite group. And the problem is that they're missing one of the greatest values of the church because the church gives believers the opportunity to be perfected or to be matured in learning to love and imperfect body. It is within the church that we have multiple opportunities to love believers with so many different backgrounds. And Paul says that the greater unity in the church is developed when the church decides to put on love.

Join the church and decide by the grace of God I'm going to love everybody in the church. That's the first thing he says to do. So I can simply say let peace rule. God's peace is to rule the church.

Now this verse is sometimes used as a proof text for those who are trying to determine God's will. I have peace about it. And I'm not saying that you can't get peace about God's will. Philippians 4 tells us to don't be anxious about anything and pray and God gives you a peace that passes understanding. So that's more of a subjective peace that God gives you. But that's not what this verse is all about. This verse is commanding believers to make peace a priority in the church. Christ is the head of the church.

He's also the prince of peace. Therefore it would be wrong for Christians who have been reconciled to God to live with unreconciled relationships and unresolved conflicts within the church body. I've seen this, experienced this. I go to church and brother so and so sits here and brother so and so sits here. They've been members of the same church for 20 years and they haven't talked to each other in 15 years.

That's just not right. And when he says let the peace rule, the word rule there means to act as an umpire or a referee. It's like when you play a game and a player files another player. What does the referee do? He blows the whistle.

He stops the game because the piece of the game has been broken. He says let peace be the referee. If the doctrine of the false teachers is leading you to a disruption of the peace and the disunity of the congregation, then somebody needs to blow the whistle. And it is James that tells us that we are to seek peace and by seeking peace we actually experience the fruit of righteousness. So when I come into a church setting, I want first of all to choose to love the people and then secondly to seek the peace of that body where we have warm, healthy relationships. And by the way, there's nothing more wonderful than to be in a church where you have that experience.

And then notice number three, the third command. He gives us in verse 16 when he says let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Here we see that the unifying focus of the church is to be the word of Christ.

That is, it's the glue that holds us together. I've said this about the discipleship groups and chapel here at Bob Jones, that the glue that holds us together is always the word of Christ. And specifically we see the word of Christ in two ways.

Number one, we see it through preaching. It is the duty of pastors to enrich the congregation with an abundant supply of Christ centered Bible expositional preaching. I love going to my church on Sundays. Not only do I love seeing the congregation and seeing the blessing of God on the congregation, but I love to hear my pastor preach.

And as I sat there in church yesterday morning as we had communion at 930 and the preaching of the word of God at 1045 and we heard a tremendous sermon on the resurrection, I thought what a blessing for this church. That we are growing spiritually and we're growing numerically as a body of believers through the faithful preaching of God's word. Paul is saying that the preaching of Christ is sufficient for the spiritual growth of the church. The preaching of Christ is bread to the hungry. It is water to the thirsty.

It is guidance for the traveler. It is truth for the seeker. It is strength for the weary and it is comfort for the broken hearted.

What a wonderful blessing to be in a church where Jesus has become the super glue that holds us all together. So number one, we see the word of Christ through the ministry of the word, through the preaching of the word. But secondly, Paul says that the word of Christ enriches us through the singing of the gospel. Notice what he says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another.

How? In psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. What Paul is saying is this. The psalms are enriched through the preaching and through the singing of the congregation. I'd like to emphasize here that the primary focal point here is on congregational singing. Not that we can't sing in solos or duets or trios or choirs, but the primary emphasis here is congregational singing. And it should be noted that the music, the singing brings a sense of unity.

We're all singing together. It brings a sense of harmony and it also builds up and edifies the church. Music should never divide the church.

It should build the church. And so how is it that we approach music correctly? Obviously, music is a big deal today. Everybody here listens to music. Most every one of you have headphones. Most every one of you have access to Spotify or Apple Music or whatever.

Your digital platform is. Everybody has music. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking primarily about the church. And what does he say here about how we should sing in the church? He first of all tells us what we should sing.

What do we sing? We sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Now some have suggested that these should come out of the book of Psalms because the book of Psalms was the Jewish hymnal.

And of course, nothing wrong with singing psalms. But there are others who believe that they could be the psalms or they could be songs that are written by God's people throughout church history. In either case, let me suggest this, that the text of the hymn or song must find its source directly in scripture. It must clearly and accurately reflect the truth of God's word. The lyrics of sacred music must be balanced, reflecting both doctrine and practice in emphasizing the complete experience of the Christian life. They should be beautiful in both order and meter and presented in a clear manner. In other words, it should be singable.

It should be understandable. It should be the kind of song that when I sing it, it builds up. It strengthens. It motivates me to believe.

It motivates me to act. That's what a good song does. Now a lot of people today make a big deal about who writes the song. And let me just first of all say that to say that it's not a deal at all is really not wise. But let me also say this, that in the scriptures, the main issue is not the messenger. It's not Paul, Peter, or Apollos. It's the message.

The message is always preeminent. If I have to agree with the messenger, I would probably cut out most of the songs in my hymnal. If Martin Luther wrote it, I got a problem with him because he baptized babies.

If I got a problem with him because he's Armenian and you can lose your salvation. If John Calvin wrote it, I got a problem with him because I'm not sure I agree with all the points of Calvinism. And if it's Isaac Newton who, not John Newton who wrote, excuse me, I don't know what Isaac Newton did. It was John Newton, John Newton who wrote Amazing Grace.

I'm not sure I agree with him because he was an Episcopal. If it had to be only a Baptist, which I are one by the way, I might not sing anybody's songs. I only sing the songs that I wrote and I've only written two.

And I get tired of singing those after a while. Amen. So the most important thing is what does the song say and who does it exalt? Is it centered on Jesus Christ?

Let God be true in every man a liar. Nobody possesses any more righteousness than anybody else. Only the righteousness of Christ is sufficient. So what should we sing? We should sing scriptural songs. Now I got like one minute left and I got like four or five more points to say about music. So I think I'll come back because you need to hear this message anyway.

But let me, let me say, let me say make one more point and I'll be done. And that is what helps us to sing. In 1 Corinthians 14 verse 15 it says we're to sing with the Spirit and with understanding. The two things that help us to sing, the Spirit and understanding.

The idea of the word Spirit has the idea of engaged emotions because music is emotional. And secondly, understanding means I actually understand what I'm singing. How many of you have sung a whole song and you didn't even think about the words? How many have ever done that? Raise your hand. Yeah, sure, of course. That's called singing without understanding.

That means you're not thinking about it. Now what's the most important thing that you can do to enhance your singing? Well, let me illustrate this way. How many of you have ever been to a preacher's meeting and they sang in that meeting? How many have ever been to a preacher's meeting and they sang?

Raise your hand. Okay, that's terrible. Okay, I've been to like hundreds of preacher's meetings. And there's nobody on the planet that sings louder than a group of preachers.

Now they make a joyful noise mostly. But they always sing loud. Number of years ago I was in a service where there were 6,000 Baptist preachers in the room.

6,000. A man got up and he began to sing. And he was an old singer.

He was like 86 years old at the time. And when he was a young man he had sung in Billy Sunday Crusades when he was in his 20s. And I got to hear the man sing. And he sang the song Christ returneth Hallelujah. And there was so much shouting going on in that room that the preachers pulled out their handkerchiefs because preachers are always blowing their nose. And they pulled out hankies and they started waving the hankies while he was singing. And literally the room looked like snow was falling.

It was the most electrifying atmosphere I'd ever been in and it was a bunch of preachers. What makes the difference in singing? It is when the word of Christ is dwelling in you richly.

Or let me just put it this way. When you're spending time in the Bible and there is a richness to being in God's word and it's working in your heart. Then when you come to sing it's sort of like Bible study fills up the lake with water and singing is when the dam breaks. And all of a sudden it comes gushing out. That's what helps singing in the church. It's not instrumentation. It's a heart filled with Christ.

And what does that do? It brings unity and edification to the church. Lord help us to unify our churches by living out as Paul tells us to live here in Colossians in Jesus name. Amen. For more information on Dr. Pettit's series, visit the Bob Jones University store website shop.bju.edu where you can get a copy of Steve's study booklet entitled, Seeking Things Above. Thanks for listening and join us again tomorrow as we continue the study in Colossians on The Daily Platform. .