The title of this message is Hearts and Harmony in God's House. Hearts and Harmony in God's House. This is part 2. Let's begin just by going right to the text. Colossians chapter 3. Colossians chapter 3. Starting in verse 12. Colossians 3 verse 12. Put on, then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other. As the Lord has forgiven you, so also you must forgive. Above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body, and be thankful. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom and singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him." Last week we looked at who Paul was addressing here, who he was writing to, They are described by Paul as chosen, or elect, as holy, and as beloved. He's writing to the chosen, the holy, and the beloved. First comes election, as we saw. First comes election, God's choice before the foundations of the world. And then comes holiness. First election, and then holiness. We don't become holy in order to be chosen. We're chosen to be made holy. We are loved before we are beloved. We are loved before we are beloved. We love because He first loved us. 1 John chapter 4. So then Paul in our text tells the chosen, the holy, the beloved to put on Eight things. He tells them to put on eight things. Compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forbearance, forgiveness, and love. Compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forbearance, forgiveness, and love. So far, we've covered the first four pieces of hand-me-downs that we should wear. They are the clothes of Christ, our elder brothers. So they're hand-me-downs. They're His blessed hand-me-downs. Last week we talked about the first four. First, Paul says we must put on compassion. I just want to quickly cover them by way of review. Compassion was the first one. God has showed compassion and mercy on us. And we must, out of gratitude to God, show compassion to one another. Jesus looked at the crowds, it says in Matthew 9, He looked at the crowds that were harassed and helpless. Those with ink on their skin, immodesty on their clothes, ingratitude on their lips, and irreverence on their eyes. And He had compassion. He looked at the crowds and He had compassion. He had compassion when He looked at those even outside of His body. What will he think when we, as members of his body, do not have compassion on one another? He said, blessed are the merciful. Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy. The second thing Paul told us to put on was kindness. We talked about that as well. Kindness. We're supposed to be identified, we as followers of Christ, are supposed to be identified by our love for one another. Not as jerks for Jesus. That's not what we're supposed to be identified as. Kindness is a heart of compassion that's put into action. It's when you add action to your attitude. It's one thing to have a heart of compassion and sympathy, but if you never act out that compassion, you're unkind. You're unkind. You're not being kind. You're harsh. You're basically a jerk if you don't put that compassion into action. is a heart of compassion dressed in work clothes. And Jesus said, right after He looked at the crowds with compassion in Matthew 9, He said, The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the harvest. Kindness is the labor of compassion. God is even kind to His ungrateful enemies, and He expects us to do likewise. Jesus in Luke 6 verse 35 says, But love your enemies, do what is good, and lend. Expect nothing in return. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is gracious to the ungrateful and evil." He's gracious to the ungrateful and evil. The third thing mentioned by Paul is that we also must put on humility. The Greeks hated humility. It took Christ and Christianity to elevate it to its proper place. Without humility, compassion and kindness is nothing but hypocrisy. Without humility, kindness is just dangerous self-righteousness. Without humility, kindness is just dangerous self-righteousness. And the only type of sin that is more deceptively dangerous than unrighteous badness is self-righteous goodness. Self-righteous goodness. That's because unrighteous badness is obvious. It's clear. We know it when we see it. Being unkind is more obvious than fake and phony kindness. It's more obvious than phony kindness. All virtues are born out of humility and all vices are born out of pride. Paul tells us in Philippians 2 that we should, in humility, consider others more important than ourselves. That's a tough one. Consider others as more important than yourself. He says, make your own attitude that of Christ Jesus. And that's what He did. He considered others as more important than Himself. If anyone could think that He was more important than anyone else, it was Jesus. And yet He considered others more important than Himself. He laid His life down for others and were to make our attitude as His attitude was. The fourth thing that we covered last time that Paul said to put on is meekness, meekness. When most people hear the word meek, many times they think of weak, shy, reserved, or a timid person who lets everybody walk all over them. But that's not at all what it means to be meek. Meekness is not weakness, it's strength under control. Meekness is like a wild horse that has been tamed. He's just as strong, just as powerful, has just as much speed as before, but now that strength is under control and he's more effective, he's more useful. Jesus said, blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. So, today we're going to look at the next four things that Paul tells us to put on. Patience, forbearance, forgiveness, and love. Paul says in verse 12, "...put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience." I thought it was kind of funny that patience was the last thing mentioned in verse 12, and we didn't get to it last week. Right? So we had to wait a whole week to talk about patience. We had to be patient for this one. The Greek word translated patience in our text is Macrothumia. Macrothumia. From two Greek words put together. The first is macros, meaning long, distant and far off. And thumos, which means temper, passion and emotion. Or thumomai, which means to be furious or burn with intense anger. So it literally means long temper. A long temper. As opposed to a short temper. A short temper. a long holding out of the mind before it gives room to action or passion. It describes a state of emotional calm, an emotional quietness in the face of provocation. When you're being provoked, you stay calm. It's in the face of provocation, in the face of hardship or plain old bad circumstances. John Calvin said macrothumia refers to that quality of mind that disposes us to take everything in good part and not to be easily offended. That's what patience means, not to be easily offended. Macrothumia is the capacity to be wronged and not retaliate. It's the ability to hold one's feeling in restraint or bear up under the oversights and wrongs afflicted by others without getting even. It's getting water thrown on you by one of your daughters and not getting revenge. Even when you can think of all kinds of creative ways. Is that an inside joke or something? It's manifest by the quality of forbearance under provocation. It basically means slow to get angry. Slow to get angry. The same word is used of God's patience towards sinful men. Exodus 34, verse 6 says, The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, The Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. The Lord, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. That verse is quoted over and over in Scripture. You see it many times. You see it in the Psalms and other places, that the Lord is slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. So this word that's translated patience is not like the kind of patience you have when you're waiting for a UPS package to come in. And you don't even go online and check the tracking number to see where it's at. That's not really the kind of patience we're talking about. We're just waiting for something. You're waiting for your new iPad to come in or whatever. That's not what we're talking about here. This is not so much when you have to wait up for somebody or wait up for something. It's when you have to put up with somebody. It's when you have to put up with something. This is not the kind of patience that caused Jacob to wait for Rachel for fourteen years. It's the kind of patience that caused Jacob to put up with her father for fourteen years. See the difference? It's not just him waiting for her. It's putting up with someone. It's being provoked to anger and having patience. Not giving in to your temper, your passion of anger. There's an old joke, you've probably heard this before, but a truck driver sat down to eat at a 24-hour restaurant. And the waitress had just served him his meal when three guys riding Harleys showed up and swaggered into the diner. One grabbed the man's hamburger, another took a fistful of his French fries, and the other one took his coffee and started drinking it. The trucker responded with great patience. He calmly got up from the table, picked up his check, walked to the front of the restaurant, put his money on the cash register, and headed out the door. The waitress watched. The big truck drove off into the night. When she returned, one of the bikers said to her, he wasn't much of a man, was he? To which she replied, he's not much of a truck driver either. He just ran over three motorcycles out in the parking lot. Well, we talked about kindness last week, and now we're looking at patience. The fact is, though, it's easy to be kind when nobody's annoying, right? It's easy to be kind when no one's annoying you. It's easy to be slow to anger when no one's making you angry. It's easy to be patient when no one's trying your patience. C.S. Lewis put it this way, everyone feels benevolent if nothing happens to be annoying him at the moment. Everything, everybody feels benevolent if nothing happens to be annoying him at the moment. The true test of kindness or love of a person is their reaction when the person who is the object of their kindness or love seriously annoys them. That's the true test. Are you only kind and loving to your children when they are not annoying? When they are not crying or whining or demanding more of your time? The true test of your love is how you respond to their loud yelling when they are complaining or when you're forced to stop what you're doing in order to help them or hold them. What about your spouse or a friend? Do you quickly lose it and get offended when you think Or you might think you know that you've been wronged. Do you respond with patience, kindness, and compassion when you feel like your so-called friend is treating you like a jerk? Do you respond with kindness and patience? Jesus put it this way real clearly. He said, for if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not. Even the tax collectors do the same. And if you greet only your brothers, What more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Matthew 5, 46 and 47. If you're only kind to the kind, and if you're only patient with those who are not annoying, big deal. That's kind of what Jesus is saying. Big deal. In Luke 6, 27 through 28, Jesus says something extremely radical. He said this, I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. That's right, Jesus said that. Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. Well, you don't know this guy. He's been really mean to me lately. Jesus said, pray for those who abuse you. Bless those who curse you. How in the natural world is this even remotely possible? The answer is that it's not. It's not in the natural world. It must be a supernatural thing of the Spirit. This is not a result of works, lest anyone should boast. It's a fruit of the Spirit of God. Galatians 5, 22-23 says, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, Faithfulness, gentleness, self-control against such things. There is no law. Notice he mentions a lot of the same things we're reading about in our text. He says, love, patience, kindness, and gentleness, which is another word for meekness. So, he mentions those things and he says that's all the fruit of the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit alone is the source and supplier of patience. Because He is the God of all patience. Patience does not come naturally. It goes against our sinful, fallen human nature. When you patiently wait for someone to show up, patience doesn't come naturally. From the moment we're born, we want things taken care of now. We want things taken care of right away. When a baby wakes up in the middle of the night and is hungry, it doesn't just lie there and think, Now, I know mom and dad are tired, so I'll just wait until morning, until breakfast time. That's not what babies do. The baby cries impatiently until it receives the attention that it wants. Many of us have not changed much from those days. Listen to this great definition of patience. Patience is a calm endurance based on the certainty that God is in control. A calm endurance based on the certainty that God is in control. Without a sure stance on the sovereignty of God, patience is impossible. It's impossible. But with God, He makes the impossible Him possible. When we realize that every single annoying circumstance and person that comes into our path is sent to us by a sovereign God to shape us more and more into His image, we put on patience. We put on patience because we know He's in control. He's putting these circumstances and people in our path for a reason. Impatience is actually a form of unbelief. Many of us are believers by profession, but when it comes to patience, we're practical atheists. In other words, with our mouths, we say we believe. We believe in God. But with our actions, we live like we're atheists, like we don't believe that God is sovereign, like we don't believe He's in control. We're impatient. We're impatient with the circumstances in our life, so we're acting like atheists who don't believe God is sovereign, who don't believe God's in control of these things that are happening. And so we become impatient. We're practical atheists. Impatience is a clear sign that we doubt the love and wisdom of God's timing and direction in our lives. Impatience is not a personality problem. Impatience is not a personality problem. It's an unbelief problem. Hebrews 6, 11 and 12 says, And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness, to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. Through faith and patience inherit the promises. Notice those phrases. Faith and patience. They go together. Because impatience is the lack of faith. It's the lack of faith. As Spurgeon said, continue to put up with others, remembering the Lord's long-suffering with you. Continue to put up with others, remembering the Lord's long-suffering with you. The key to patience is to remember how patient God has been with you and pay it forward to others. That's the key. Remember how patient God has been with you and pay that patience forward to one another, to others. Stephen Charnock, the Puritan, defines God's patience in part like this. It is a part of the divine goodness and mercy, yet differs from both. God being the greatest goodness hath the greatest mildness. Mildness is always the companion of true goodness, and the greater the goodness, the greater the mildness. Who so holy is Christ, and who so meek? God's slowness to anger is a branch of His mercy. Psalms 145.8, the Lord is full of compassion and slow to anger. It differs from mercy in the formal consideration of the subject. Mercy respects the creature as miserable. Patience respects the creature as criminal. Mercy pities him in his misery. Patience bears with the sin which engendered the misery and giving birth to more. Hopefully you followed some of that. Divine patience The patience of God is that power of control which God exercises over Himself, causing Him to bear with the wicked and put off their punishment. It's showing His sovereign power to control Himself to put up with the wicked. Nahum 1 verse 3 says, The Lord is slow to anger and great in power. Slow to anger and great in power. Charnock continues, he commented on that verse. He said, men that are great in the world are quick in passion and are not so ready to forgive an injury or bear with an offender as one of a meaner rank. It is a want of power over the man's self that makes him do unbecoming things upon a provocation. A prince that can bridle his passions is a king over himself as well as over his subjects. God is slow to anger because he is great in power. He has no less power over himself than over his creatures." And A.W. Pink put it this way, the patience of God is that excellency which causes him to sustain great injuries without immediately avenging himself. He has a power of patience as well as a power of justice. The patience of God shows the power of God, that He doesn't just blow off the handle and just destroy it all. The patience portrays His power. It was the patience of God that Moses appealed to when Israel sinned at Kadesh Barnea, and there they provoked Yahweh. Let's look at that, Numbers 14. Numbers chapter 14, starting in verse 1. Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt? And they said to one another, Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt. Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the people of Israel. And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes and said to all the congregation of the people of Israel, the land which we pass through to spy it out is an exceedingly good land. If the Lord delights in us, He will bring us into the land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the Lord, and do not fear the people of the land, for they are bred for us. Their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us. Do not fear them. Then all the congregation said, to stone them with stones. But the glory of the Lord appeared at the tent of meeting to all the people of Israel. And the Lord said to Moses, How long? How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them. And I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they." Now Moses is going to intercede for them. on their behalf. But Moses said to the Lord, verse 13, Moses said to the Lord, then the Egyptians will hear of it, for you brought up this people in your might from among them, and they will tell the inhabitants of this land, they have heard that you, O Lord, are in the midst of this people. For you, O Lord, are seen face to face, and your cloud stands over them, and you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night. Now, if you will kill this people, As one man, then the nations who have heard your fame will say, it is because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land. It is because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land that He swore to give to them, that He has killed them in the wilderness. And now, please let the power of the Lord be great, as you have promised, saying, The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression. But He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation. So notice in verse 17, Let the power of the Lord be great, as you have promised, saying, The Lord is slow to anger. It's the power of His being slow to anger. His patience is what declares to Israel His power. His patience, His being slow to anger, is a demonstration of His power of self-restraint. This is what Paul meant in Romans 9, verse 22. What if God, desiring to show His wrath and to make known His power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction." The same thing. His patience is how he makes his power known. He has the power of patience. And as Pink says, were God to immediately break these reprobate vessels into pieces, His power of self-control would not so eminently appear by bearing with their wickedness and forbearing punishment so long the power of His patience is gloriously demonstrated. I want to say one more thing about patience before we go on to the other ones. In our text, patience is the fifth thing mentioned by Paul in Colossians 3 there, of things to put on. If we do not put on the first four things that we covered last week, we'll not be able to truly put on patience. So without compassion, You will not be willing to extend the mercy of patience to others. Without kindness, you will be an impatient jerk. Sometimes doing a kind deed for someone who is annoying you will help you be patient. Without humility, you will think everything and everyone should adapt to and revolve around your schedule and your wishes, and you become very impatient. Without meekness, that strength under control, you are easily agitated and impatiently lose control, lose your temper. So you need those first four things in order to put on true patience. So Paul again in our text says, put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. The next verse, verse 13 of Colossians 3, begins with the phrase, bearing with one another. Bearing with one another. So, the fifth thing to put on is forbearance. The Greek word translated bearing with one another is anikomai. It's related to the noun enoki. In classic Greek, enoki is used of a holding back or stopping of hostilities, a truce. to make allowance for each other's faults, or basically just put up with each other. Anicomai means to endure, to hold out in spite of persecution, in spite of threats, injury, indifference, or complaints, and to not retaliate. It pictures restraint under provocation and includes liberal allowance for the faults and failures of others. The present tense calls for this to be a lifestyle, to be patient, to be forbearing one another as a lifestyle. It's very similar to the word patience. In fact, it is patience that causes you to bear with one another. Putting on that patience will help you to bear with one another. So Paul's just saying put up with each other, put up with one another, bear with one another. Some translations have tolerate or tolerance, but the problem with that word is that these days, that's become to mean just no moral absolutes, no standards, no judgment. So, we should tolerate each other's disagreements and personality differences, but we should not tolerate sin in the camp. Judgment must begin at the household of God. We should put up with each other, but not enable each other in our sin by saying, I'm okay, you're okay. You know, we'll just all get along. That's not what he's saying, that kind of attitude. In Ephesians 4, 1-3, Paul says, I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called, with all humility and gentleness, which is the same word for meekness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Notice all the same words used there. Humility, meekness, patience, love, and bearing with one another. It's humility and meekness and patience that allow you to bear with one another in love. Also, notice a vital key to bearing with one another is the Holy Spirit. Paul says, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. We also saw that it's the fruit of the Spirit. Paul, who was characterized by this, told the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 4.12, he told the Corinthians, and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless. When persecuted, we endure. That's the word for bearing with one another. We endure. Bearing with one another means to endure, to hold out in spite of persecution, threats, injury, indifference, or complaints, and to not retaliate. The Corinthians were not characterized by this. Paul was. The Corinthians were not. They were taking each other to court. They weren't bearing with one another. They were suing one another. Paul writes to them in chapter 6, verse 7 of 1 Corinthians, He writes to them and he says, to have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? That's what Paul said to them. Why not just suffer wrong from each other? Why not just be defrauded? Don't sue each other. Don't take each other to court. Bear with one another. When you suffer wrong or when you are defrauded by a brother, do you bear with that brother in love? Are you so eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace that you bear with the wrongs that are done to you? That's the question we need to ask ourselves. Paul says, put on forbearance. The sixth thing in our text is forgiveness. Forgiveness. Verse 13 of Colossians 3 says, bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive." Forbearance covers present offenses, but forgiveness covers past offenses. So, forbearance deals with present offenses. People that are offending you right here, right now. Forgiveness deals with past offenses. And I really believe that there's a lot more bitterness in the church today than there is forgiveness. It's a huge problem. And that includes our church as well. The Greek word for forgiving is charizomai, which comes from charis, which means grace. It means literally to give freely and unconditionally or to bestow as a gift of grace and then to remit a debt and hence to forgive. The verb charizomai means to show kindness or favor. It's used of God who in grace freely bestows on believing sinners the gift of salvation. In keeping with its derivation from charis, from grace, charizomai means to forgive freely, graciously, not grudgingly, granting to another as a favor. So, nowadays though, you hear more about forgiving yourself. Right? You hear a lot of that. You need to forgive yourself. Listen to what Jay Adams, the granddaddy of euthetic counseling, I don't know if anybody calls him that. Jay Adams says about forgiving oneself. This is what he says. Frequently these days, one hears words like, I know that God has forgiven me and Bill has forgiven me, but I just can't seem to forgive myself. How does a Christian counselor handle that problem? First, he points out that the words represent the psychologizing rather than a biblical construct of the situation. Yes, there is something more to be done, but it's not a matter of more forgiveness. Nowhere does the Bible command us to forgive ourselves. That simply isn't the real difficulty. The actual problem lies elsewhere. There is a dynamic. at work that must be understood and properly dealt with and not masked by such unscriptural notions. And then in another book, J. Adams also says this, Jesus told us to love our neighbor as ourselves, implying that we already do pretty well in that regard. And need instead to start working on loving our neighbor with some of the same devotion and concern that we already show ourselves. There's never in all the Word of God a statement to the effect that men have a low self-image. That they must learn to love themselves. Or that they must learn to forgive themselves. On the contrary, it's assumed that we do this without the slightest difficulty. So the Bible aims all its commands at turning our concern from self to God and others. It's not simply a matter of the Bible not using the jargon of the self-image teachers, but rather a matter of the entire Bible knowing nothing of self-love, self-forgiveness concepts and a doctrine of man that depicts him thinking so lowly of himself. It's not enough to assert that the scriptures teach that man has a low self-image problem and therefore command him to think more highly of himself and learn to forgive himself. If we're told not to do so as sin, biblical warrant for that fact must be clearly demonstrated. Otherwise, we have theologians, psychologists, and other writers placing new burdens on men's backs that they need not bear. But what's the problem then? Surely there are people who will tell you they are having a hard time forgiving themselves. Haven't you ever had counselees who have said as much? This is J. Adams writing to people, teaching them how to counsel people. He says, certainly, but their speech was filled with the lingo of the psychologist and others who propagate such things. I tell them, you will never solve your problem by misunderstanding it as a problem of self-forgiveness. That's not the problem, self-forgiveness. What do you tell them to do then? Lack of ability to forgive self is not the problem. The problem is that people who talk this way recognize something more needs to be done. So they know something has to be done and they're saying it's self-forgiveness, forgiving self. Forgiveness is just the beginning. It clears away the guilt. They also recognize they are still the same persons who did the wrong. That though they are forgiven, they have not changed. Without being able to articulate it and using instead the jargon they have heard all around them, They are crying out for the change that will assure them that they will never do anything like it again. When, as a counselor, I help them to deal with the problems in their lives that led to the wrong in such a way that they have adopted a more biblical lifestyle, I then ask, are you still having trouble forgiving yourself? Invariably, they say no. Were you able to follow most of that? People wrongly feel Like they haven't forgiven themselves because they don't realize that being forgiven is just the beginning. It's just the beginning. They also must truly repent, which means turn and start walking in the other direction. Paul says, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other, forgiving each other. Do you ask yourself, do I have a complaint? against someone in this church? Do I have a complaint against somebody in my family? Do I have a complaint against a friend? Paul says, forgive. God says, forgive. What do you do with your complaint against someone? What do you do with your complaint against someone? Do you think about it all the time until you start getting bitter and more and more angry? Do you gossip to others about your complaint? Do you hold a grudge? Do you get revenge and get the person back? Do you get payback? Do you retaliate? Or do you forgive? Paul says, if you have a complaint against another, forgive. You might say, well, I've forgiven that person over and over and over. When Peter asked, as you know, When he asked Jesus how often he should forgive his brother, and if he should even do it seven times, what did Jesus say? He said, I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven in Matthew 18. The rabbis at the time were teaching that you should forgive up to three times. So Peter's like, I'm going to look good. I'm going to say, what, should I do it seven times? You know, we're taught only to do it three times. And then Jesus says, no, 70 times 7. Now that phrase does not mean 490 times. It's hyperbole to make the point that forgiveness is to be as often as it is needed. There's no limit on the forgiveness we're to show others because there has been no limit on the forgiveness that God has shown us. This is the first one on the list where Paul gives the main reason for putting this item of clothing on. He says, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must forgive. Paul said something very similar to that in Ephesians 4, verses 30-32. He said, And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you." Do you have a problem forgiving others and being patient and forbearing with others? Your real problem if you do, is that you're not living in gospel gratitude for what Christ did for you while you were still His enemy. Your real problem is that you're not seeking out every opportunity you can to display your thankfulness for the blood of Christ by paying His forgiveness forward to others. It's easy to find those opportunities. It's easy to find them. Just look at the complaints you have. Those complaints our opportunities to display your gospel gratitude. We should be reminded about this every time we pray the Lord's Prayer. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. We often forget how scary that line is to pray. Forgive us our debt as we forgive our debtors. We're actually praying and asking God to only forgive us in the same way or just like we forgive that annoying jerk in my life. That's what we're saying. God, please forgive me just like I forgive others. Think about what we're praying there. We're praying for God to forgive us like we forgive those we complain about. In other words, many times we're asking God to not forgive us when we pray the Lord's Prayer. But Paul says, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And the seventh thing on the list is love. Verse 14 says, And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Love is the outer garment that covers all the other six things he told us to put on. It holds it all together. Without love, the other things are pointless. 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter. He says, If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. You can say it this way, if I'm compassionate, kind, humble, meek, patient, forbearing, and forgiving, but do not have love, it all means nothing. It all means nothing. 1 Corinthians 13 continues in verse 4. Love is patient. There's patience. And is kind. There's kindness. Love does not envy or boast. It's not arrogant. There's humility. or rude. It does not insist on its own way. Again, humility. It's not irritable. There's meekness. Or resentful. There's forgiveness. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things. There's forbearance. Believes all things. Hopes all things. Endures all things. Again, patience and forbearance. Love never ends. Paul says in our text, it is love which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Love binds everything together in perfect harmony. And we'll finish that text next week. Okay, let's close in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, for your love. We thank you for demonstrating that love to us. by sending us Your only Son, Your only begotten Son, to go to the cross for us, to shed His blood for us, to cleanse us from our wickedness and sin and rebellion against You. We thank You for loving us while we were still enemies to You, Father. For having patience with us as we continually sin against You. We thank You for Your compassion on us. We thank You for bearing with us. We thank You for demonstrating Your power by your patience on us. And God, we just ask that you help us with your Holy Spirit to put these things on with one another so that we can show our gratitude to you by how we treat one another. In Jesus Christ's name we pray. Amen.