You're Loved. So Love.

When John looks down at his phone his heart stops. There he sees the number that he tried so hard to forget. And he knows who is on the other line. And he does not know if he can muster the strength to have that talk.

Jenny wonders to herself, “How did I get this way?” She feels anxious and nervous, bitter and unresolved. She doesn’t want to keep pushing people in her life away, but she can’t help it. “Can I ever change?” She asks herself.

Blake is working hard to stop his old behaviors. Ever since he became a Christian, he’s tried to stop swearing, sleeping around, and getting high. But, he’s starting to feel discouraged. Isn’t there more to this, he wonders?

All of these people are asking a question which I think it is important to ask. You see, last week we talked about how since we have died, we need to put sin to death. It’s dead, so kill it. But I told you last week, that sermon will not do you any good whatsoever without this sermon. ANd that is because that is only “negative” or cutting it out. Until you plant something, weeds are going to keep coming back. There needs to be a positive. Last week we talked about taking sin off like a jacket. THis week we are going to talk about what we should put on instead.

You are Loved

Chosen of God - God chooses his people.

Holy - Those who are “chosen” in Christ. The saints in Christ. God has chosen us and set us aside.

Beloved - And we are beloved. God has loved us. How has he done this? Well every one of these 7 virtues that Paul tells us to cultivate, the Bible uses to describe God’s heart towards us in the gospel.

Hearts of Compassion - How Jesus interacted with people was because he saw their needs and he felt mercy for them.

Matthew 9:36 ESV

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Kindness - God was kind in moving towards us before we ever moved towards him. He was just good to us.

Ephesians 2:4–7 ESV

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

Humility - Jesus humbled himself towards us.

Philippians 2:5–8 ESV

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Meekness - Jesus did not assert his own rights, but gave them up for others. He doesn’t assert his superiority over others needlessly.

Matthew 11:29 ESV

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

Patience - Patience endures hardship, it endures trials, it endures letdowns and shame.

1 Timothy 1:16 ESV

But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.

Forgiven - Now, we’re going to spend a whole week talking about Forgiveness. But for now, I think it’s enough to say that this word is talking about the indulgence of expense. That is, it emphasizes just how much God has forgiven us for. Paul has already told us about God’s forgiveness in 2:13-14...

Love - Perhaps most famously, God has shown his “love” for us.

John 3:16 ESV

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Romans 8:31–39 ESV

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Christ for me - Now, it’s one thing to say that Christ did that, but it’s another to say that he did that for me. I can say that Bill Gates is generous, but it’s another to say that he is generous to me. I could say that there is a God of the Universe, a great Father who adopts the worhtless and makes them sons. But there that is something almost alien to the reality to say that that is what God has done for me.

In the same way, Love.

Imitation of Christ - Continuity and discontinuity.

Compassion

Kindness

Humility

Meekness

Patience

Forgiveness

Love

The bond of maturity - Now this word for "perfection” is the same word that is used for “maturity”. So what we find here is that to be loving, to grow in love, to imitate Christ, is the only way to reach this maturity that Paul has been pleading with the Colossians that they would devleop.

You can never do this alone.

Spiritual Disciplines - Now nothing that I’ve said is easy. THis “putitng this on” wearing this, is not as simple as just doing this one day. So how do we do this? Well by setting our minds on Christ. By cultivatnig the habits of mind that will force us to think liek Christ.