Sermon Notes

November 17, 2024

Thanksgiving Preparations

Colossians 3:12-15

What is your favorite Thanksgiving Holiday tradition? What makes Thanksgiving special in your mind? Maybe it’s the Thanksgiving day parades on TV in the morning or maybe it’s the football games in the afternoon or maybe it’s the gathering of friends and family and the sharing of stories. Maybe it’s the lighting of the Christmas tree after your meal to proclaim what we are ultimately thankful for — the birth of Jesus (I just made this up, but if you would like to start this tradition, be my guest). Maybe it’s the plump and juicy turkey that makes Thanksgiving special or maybe it’s the stuffing. Maybe it’s a special side dish that a family member makes every year or maybe it’s those wonderful desserts. Whatever your favorite tradition is, the fact remains that those things don’t just happen by accident. There is preparation that goes into making all those things happen. If we were to wake up Thursday morning hoping all these special things would be all ready for the day without anyone putting in any work to make it all happen, we are going to be in for a very disappointing day. Thanksgiving takes effort and lots of it. It’s not only the Thanksgiving Holiday that requires a lot of work, but the lifestyle of thanksgiving that God has called all His followers to which requires a lot of work as well. So this morning, I want to prepare us for thanksgiving not so much for the holiday (although if you have a 30 lb. Turkey you need to put it into your fridge today), but how to prepare ourselves to live this lifestyle of thanksgiving that Jesus calls all His followers to.

Our Thanksgiving Attire - Colossians 3:12

Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.

While I was growing up, getting dressed up for our family's Thanksgiving meal was a big deal to my Mom. She would always have our clothes picked out and set out for us, but being a kid I always balked at this because I didn’t want to dress up. I wanted to be in comfortable clothes so I could play with all my cousins outside in the dirt and I knew that if I was wearing dress clothes I couldn’t go outside and play. However the worst part for me was that those clothes were so hot and suffocating, with the long sleeves and the sweaters, I knew I was going to be uncomfortable in them. I just wanted to wear short sleeves and shorts no matter the temperature, but that wasn’t what I needed for our Thanksgiving meal. So I obeyed my Mom and dressed how she wanted, and it was never as bad as it seemed. Over time that attire became second nature to the point that nowadays the only thing I must have in a Thanksgiving outfit is those dress pants that have the extra ecstatic in them, just in case I need to go back for seconds.

Colossians chapter 3 starts with this same clothing imagery as Paul starts to instruct the church on what they are NOT to “wear” to live a lifestyle that is crowned by thanksgiving. He says that Christians should not be clothed with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, greed (which is a form of idolatry), anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, dirty language, or lying. Paul tells them that those were things we used to wear, and we were very familiar with them before we were saved. However, now that we have been saved and are a holy people set apart by God, we must clothe ourselves with other things in our lives. These clothes are the first step in living a perpetual life of thanksgiving. This is not a suggestion for Christians to put off those old clothes and put on these new clothes. We don't get an opinion on this new outfit. This is a command for all Christians to follow because it’s impossible to live the life that God has called us to live when we are clothed in those old sinful clothes. Now will it be hard? Yes, it will because our sinful nature will try to sneak its way back in and we will want to slide into those old comfortable sinful clothes, but we can’t allow that. We must fight to clothe ourselves each day in the garments Jesus chose for us and after time, through the power and help of the Holy Spirit, it will become second nature to us. We also don’t get to just put these on when we feel like it or on special occasions or just on Sundays. We are to always have these on and when we do, we look more and more like Jesus. That's God’s goal for us as we follow Him. But what is this new attire that Jesus wants us to wear?

Clothed in Tenderhearted Mercy

The first thing that Paul mentions in this attire is the garment that he calls tenderhearted mercy. When we think of mercy, we usually think about the mercy of God. In that context, mercy means God withholding the punishment that we all deserve. We experience this type of mercy when we trust Jesus as our Lord and Savior and receive forgiveness for our sins. Scripture tells us that the wages of our sins is death (Romans 6:23). When we are forgiven through faith in Jesus Christ, we experience the mercy of God because the punishment that we deserve is removed from us. However that’s not the mercy that we are called to clothe ourselves in here. It is another type of mercy that Jesus showed as well. He did so specifically in John 11 when we see the account of Jesus with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. This mercy is compassion that is felt for those who are hurting or are in need. This is what Jesus showed when He wept with the sisters of Lazarus. He was hurting because they were hurting. He identified with their pain and that’s what He is calling us to do. We are to put off the old selfish and self-centered clothing that was a centerpiece of our old lives in sin and start to put others first. This is not just a feeling or emotion that we are supposed to have for those who are hurting or in need. When the word mercy is coupled with the word tenderhearted, it shows us that this is now a call to action that follows through with our attitude of mercy toward others. We see Jesus do this in a way we never could by bringing Lazarus back from the dead, but there are things we can do to put actions to our feelings of mercy. One way we can show mercy is by listening to people. Everyone has a story, and everyone wants to be heard. All of us can listen intently to those who are hurting because it shows others that we care. We can also show mercy by serving others. We all have been given a variety of gifts that can meet people's needs in a variety of ways. Even if I listed all the gifts, I think I probably wouldn’t be able to list yours specifically. We can all see needs around us and we all need to know our abilities and giftedness and figure out how those gifts can meet those needs as we step into the gap to make sure others are greeted with tenderhearted mercy. Most of all we all can pray for each other. It's the most powerful tool we have, we must use it as such.

Clothed in Kindness

Last week we looked and remembered the goodness of God in our past. We saw the care He has given us, the unfailing faithfulness He has shown, and the purpose He has for each of us and how those things in our past should be memorials that spur us into thanksgiving. This next garment deals with the goodness of God as well. It’s not a call to remember it this time, but rather this is a call to reflect it into a world that is desperate for kindness. This could look different for each of us because we have experienced the goodness of God in many ways in our lives. This uniquely qualifies each of us to minister in different ways and to separate groups of people. There are some practical ways that we can constantly cloak ourselves in kindness and reflect the goodness of God. One way is that we can smile. There have been many studies done on the simple power of a smile. One of my favorite quotes about smiling says something to the effect that “a smile is what is needed to minister to others, makes others know they are wanted and valued, we have medicines for every disease, but not for unwantedness. A smile lets them know that they are valued”. Not only can we smile as we minister to others, but we can also give words of encouragement to everyone we encounter. It’s a call to genuinely see what Jesus sees in people and see the times in which God, whose image they are made in, comes shining through and lets them know that we see and value that. Whether they are followers of Jesus or not, all of us are made in the image of God and that fact will shine through from time to time even in the lives of unforgiven sinners. Therefore we can complement them in those ways and use those opportunities to share Jesus with them because what is kinder than reflecting that goodness of God that we experience in Salvation. They can experience too but only through faith in Jesus Christ.

Humility

Humility is a mindset that is required of all followers of Jesus because it was the mindset of Jesus Christ Himself (Phil. 2:1). Humility is not something that is valued in today's world and it wasn’t valued in Paul's day either. The people of his day valued pride and domination over humility. To prepare for thanksgiving we must get rid of those attitudes and realize our true place in God’s world and that is when we start to be humbled. This attitude will permeate every part of our lives but to make sure we are clothed in humility a great test is to look at our attitude toward our possessions. This will show us if we are truly being humble. Everything we have is not truly ours and we didn’t earn any of it. The Bible tells us that all we have belongs to God — all of it (Psalms 24:1) and we have just been entrusted with it for a time to manage it for the Lord (1 Peter 4:10). When we get rid of the worldly entitled attitude that we are subject to, we will start to see ourselves being clothed with humility. When we start reading Scripture and the embarrassing truth about all parts of our lives, we focus on God and not ourselves and humility becomes a way of life that will lead us into thanksgiving.

Gentleness

Gentleness is meekness. The same kind of meekness that Jesus spoke about in the Beatitudes when He said, “The meek shall inherit the earth.” Meekness is not weakness; it is power under control. It’s like the roaring flood waters that can catastrophically destroy a town and can also be brought under control by damming, making the waters no longer a threat to the town. It can provide electricity for the entire town and be a blessing to it. That’s what meekness is. It's self-control because you are God-controlled. We don’t try to control others, but we use our strong hands to serve others and share with them the love of Jesus who was meek (Matt. 11:29), yet conquered the greatest enemy we will ever have — death. This garment is closely associated with humility as well.

Patience

The last item we are commanded to put on to prepare for a life of thanksgiving is the garment of patience. This must be the hardest of all of them because it’s the one that tends to slide off our shoulders from time to time and if we are not careful it will disappear from our lives completely. Patience is a call to increase our capacity to bear injustice or injury without revenge or retaliation and to turn the other cheek like Jesus called us to in Matthew 5:38-40. This does not preclude justice though. It’s just leaving it in the hands of the legal system (for major offenses) or in the hands of God (for minor offenses). However there is a little more to patience than just our actions, like the other garments have, and it is because patience involves our attitudes too. Paul addresses that in the next verse.

Our Thanksgiving Attitude - Colossians 3:13

Make allowance for each other’s faults and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.

When I was a child and my family went anywhere special, I was briefed upon what was expected of me by being told what I could and could not do and what attitude I was to have while I did it. This is basically what Paul's calling Christians to as well. It is an attitude we must have as we approach the lifestyle of thanksgiving. That attitude is one of forgiveness. The word forgiveness here has a root in the word grace, with grace meaning giving that which is not deserved. It’s what we experienced when Jesus extended us the opportunity for forgiveness of our sins when what we deserved was to be separated from Him forever. Amazing Grace saved a wretch like me and you because we have experienced this grace from God. We are called to extend it to others as well. It’s a call to not only look like Jesus in our actions, but to be like Jesus in our attitudes as well. That's why it’s so closely paired with patience, because we must forgive and extend grace (in as far as we are concerned) to others and that requires more than just an action. It requires a Christ-like attitude to truly forgive. This is also the attitude that makes the rest of the commands that Paul gave in the previous verse work. If we don’t have the attitude of Christ, we are not going to be able to live like Christ and live a life of thanksgiving. Instead we just do things superficially and cannot live a life of thanksgiving. This is one of the reasons living a perpetual life of thanksgiving is so hard. Last week when we spoke of thanksgiving, it involved focusing on God’s goodness in our past and responding to God’s actions in our lives with thanksgiving and that is easy once we get a new perspective on how to look at those things and the fact that God is good all the time makes it even easy to see His goodness in our past. This command from verse 12 onward involves people and people are difficult to deal with because people are not perfect. While the commands that we have seen so far in the text are all based on the fact that it is Jesus who first showed these attributes, and we are to reflect them. It makes it hard because where we are supposed to reflect in the world full of sinful fallen people. Dealing with others with the attitude and actions of Jesus is always going to be difficult because of that fact. Nevertheless, if we are to live a life of thanksgiving, we must live and think like Jesus and that starts with forgiving others just as we have been forgiven. Make allowances for their faults. They have struggles just like you.

The Finishing Touches - Colossians 3:14-15

Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful.

With the right attitude and the right outfit, we are almost ready to pursue a life of thanksgiving. There is one more finishing touch we need to add to tie it all together — that is love. It’s what makes all this work. It's what motivates this attitude and these actions that we are commanded to live out in our lives. It was God’s motivation as He gave Jesus as a sacrifice for our sins (John 3:16) and it’s what Paul says gives everything in our Christian walks value (1 Corinthians 13). It’s a love that only comes from God (agape) and must be mimicked not as this world understands love, but only as the love we can know from experiencing it ourselves from God. This love drives out bitterness and ill will toward others which is a must if we are going to live a lifestyle of thanksgiving. As we start to embrace and live with these commands, it also drives out those things that will rob us of our thankfulness and peace in our lives. It’s when we start to look like Jesus and act like Jesus that we see Jesus more and more all around us. That is what makes us thankful for all that He has done not only Himself but through the sinful people who surround us. Love causes us to start seeing and being more and more like Jesus because He is love. Love will cover a multitude of other sins around us, and we can see how Jesus sees them. This love is called to rule in our lives or rather “umpire” our lives. It’s the guiding force in everything we do. It's what controls us, our actions, attitudes, emotions, and our motives. It’s the thing that makes us ask “What would Jesus do” no matter the situation that we find ourselves in. It's the final piece to live a life of thanksgiving each day. Get your proper attire, get the proper attitude, bind it all together with Godly love. Begin to live a life full of thankfulness.

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Sermon Notes

Thanksgiving Preparations

Colossians 3:12-15

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