09/06/09    Grace Fellowship       God's People Are Loved     Colossians 3:12

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 Two weeks ago we came upon the twelfth verse of Colossians 3.  In that verse are three words which we’ve given our attention to for two Lord’s Days.  Today we come to the third of those three words: Chosen, holy, and now “beloved”.  God’s people are chosen by Him for Himself, made to be holy like His Son, and loved by Him.

Let’s read the verse again:
12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. ¹

Sometimes it is helpful to actually state the obvious.  According to this verse, God’s chosen ones are loved by Him.  In spite of the occasional doubt that rises up in our foolish minds and hearts, every real Christian understands that he is a Christian because of the love of God.  Seldom do we find a believer who is unfamiliar with John 3:16.  The fact that God is a loving God is so obvious that even unbelievers and skeptics refer to it, even if only to cast doubt upon it.  On the other hand, the love of God is so obvious to Christians that it is often in danger of being taken for granted.  

Love taken for granted is a dangerous thing.  Within human relationships, love taken for granted is love that is at risk of being lost entirely.  No one likes to be taken for granted.  However, unchanging, eternally promised love from a holy God that is taken for granted by those who have been redeemed by it, . . . that is a great evil.  But it is because we understand we are the recipients of the eternal love of God, that the temptation to presume upon that love is great.

When we read our verse for today, if we read it too quickly, if we don’t take the time to ponder what is actually being said, we can skim over it without any real appreciation of it.  The fact that God loves His own is not news to anyone.  And I’m sure every Christian in this room, if asked to comment on this truth, would at the very least say, “Thank you, Lord, for loving me.”  

Paul asks a rhetorical question in Romans 8 (as if you didn’t know I was going there eventually), “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” (v.38).  The unnecessary answer is “no one”.  The reason the answer is unnecessary is because it is common knowledge.  But sometimes that is exactly the problem.  We are so confident of the unchanging, unthreatened, unassailable love of God for us that we may just find ourselves not really appreciating it.  We can be very calloused to the multitude of the blessings we enjoy if we are not reminded regularly that not everyone is the beneficiary of this kind of love from God.  We can take this remarkable and peculiar love of God for US, for His chosen ones, for granted.

I referred to John 3:16 earlier.  Much emphasis is typically placed there on the fact that God so loved the world.  Obviously, that is a true statement.  It is in the Bible right here in red and white: God does love the world.  God loves, in various ways and to various degrees, everyone in the world.  He causes His rain to fall on the just and the unjust (Matt. 5:43-45).  He sustains the lives of all His creatures, and provides for their needs, including men, both friend and foe, because of love.  

But isn’t it obvious that God does not deal with all people everywhere in the same manner?  Isn’t the nation of Israel that was chosen by God to be His own special people irrefutable evidence that God has not dealt with all the people of the world in exactly the same way?  In all the Old Testament, over a period of several thousand years, God had a relationship with Abraham and his descendants unlike any other nation.  Never in history has a people enjoyed the kind of relationship with God that Israel had.  

Egypt certainly didn’t.  In fact, God used Pharaoh and the nation of Egypt as a blatant example of His preferential treatment of the children of Israel over the Egyptians.  Egypt was decimated, while Israel was delivered from their bondage as slaves.  
When God sent Joshua and the children of Israel into the Promised Land and told them to go in and conquer the land by killing all of its inhabitants, that was not an “equal opportunity” war.  God promised to fight for Israel against their enemies, and the enemies were, by and large, slam dunked by God.  The walls of Jericho disappeared, armies were defeated by hail and fire from the sky, the sun was made to stand still in the sky, all by God, and all for the sake of granting the land of Canaan to Israel.  It’s not a fair fight when God is on your side!  But God loved Israel exclusively as the apple of His eye.

The verse we are looking at today in Colossians 3 tells us that God does not love everyone equally.  Look at the verse again.  Who is Paul speaking to?  What is He telling them?  Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.  Paul is speaking to a peculiar group whom he refers to as God’s chosen ones.  These people who have believed the Gospel have been chosen out of the rest of the population of the world by God, kinda like He did with Israel in the Old Testament.  It is these particular people whom God has set apart for Himself to be holy people, kinda like Israel.  It is safely assumed that Paul is not talking about everyone who lives in the city of Colossae.  Rather, there is a particular group of people who have believed the Gospel message, who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ, who according to this verse are loved by God in a way that other people do not experience, kinda like Israel.

“But that’s not fair.”  That is the common protest.  How many times have we heard that?  But seldom if ever do we hear a Christian complaining that God’s preferential treatment of Israel in the Old Testament was unfair.  I personally have never heard anyone say that, and that surprises me.  According to most people’s definition of fairness, God’s choosing of Israel to be His people wasn’t fair at all.    Turn with me to Deuteronomy 7.  I want you to see that God is a discriminating God. 

1 “When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than yourselves, 2 and when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction.  You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. 3 You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, 4 for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. 5 But thus shall you deal with them: you shall break down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and chop down their Asherim and burn their carved images with fire.

6 “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. 7 It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

Now if this isn’t favoritism, what is?!  There is no equal offer of salvation to the Canaanites.  Israel is declared to be God’s own people, and they are not to negotiate with the people of Canaan.  The command is to “devote them to complete destruction” (v2).  And I have NEVER heard a person who I thought was a Christian complain about God’s preferential treatment of Israel over the other nations of the Promised Land.  The only explanation I can think of is that Christians seem to believe that God was right to treat Israel that way because all the other nations were evil, but Israel wasn’t.  Somehow Israel deserved to be treated better, they were somehow inherently morally superior to the Gentiles of that day.  

But it is ridiculous for us to think so.  Our text here in Deuteronomy says that God made Israel holy to Himself, He chose them for Himself, and He loved them more than any other nation in the world.  Why?  Because He promised Abraham He would.  That’s it.  He swore an oath to their fathers that He would love them and give them the Promised Land.  And He did so.  The text even goes on to say that He chose them and loved them NOT because they were some great nation, “but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that He swore to your fathers.“  And you never hear a Christian say, “Wait a minute!  That’s not right!  God should treat everybody equally.  God should love everybody the same!“  Clearly, He doesn’t.

Let’s compare God’s love to every other kind of love we know.  Do we, you and me, love all people equally?  Do we treat everyone in exactly the same manner?  Are we absolutely fair in our dealings with the entire human race?  Do we ever show preferential treatment to anyone?

A couple of days ago, we drove over to Lewistown to pick up Philip at the armory after having not seen him (in person) since January.  Sharon and I prayed for him every day, and many of you prayed for him as well, that the Lord would protect him and bring him back home to us safely.  Well, God answered those prayers and He brought our beloved nephew back to us safe and sound.  When he sneaked up behind us at the armory, Jess screamed, and we all gave him heartfelt hugs mixed with tears of joy.  We are grateful to God and delighted to have him home again.  Even those of you who may have never met him before rejoice with us that he is finally here.

Do any of you love Philip like we, his aunt and uncle do?  Do Sharon and I love him like his mother does?  He’s a human being, just like the rest of us (more or less).  He’s a brother in the Lord.  Why do you not love him just like we do?  Because you aren’t related to him.  You don’t have the relationship with him that we have.  And, to be completely honest, Sharon and I don’t love him like we love Brian.  Brian is our son.  Will I be as happy to see Brian as I was to see Philip?  Yes, and then some!  Brian is my son!  My relationship with him is like no other human relationship I have.  But as much as I am looking forward to seeing him because I love him, I don’t love him the same way Jess loves him.  She has a unique kind of love for him, the love of a wife for her husband, that is different from any of her other relationships.

We don’t love everyone in exactly the same way, and to exactly the same degree because our relationships with one another are different.  Why would we expect God to do so?  Does God have the exact same relationship with everyone in the world that somehow requires Him to love them all in exactly the same way?  Let me ask the question another way: “What IS God’s relationship to everyone?”  Are all people everywhere seen by God in precisely the same light?  Is His relationship to all men everywhere equal?  

In one sense, yes, He is the Creator of all men.  For that reason alone, because of that relationship He deserves the love and worship of all men everywhere, without exception.  It is sinful of us not to give God His due as our Creator.  Therefore, He SHOULD have the same relationship with all people everywhere.  He should be the recipient of whole-hearted love from every human being.  But we all know He does not.  God’s love as the Creator of all men everywhere is routinely taken for granted, ignored, and denied by His creatures.

In a very real and solemn sense, all men everywhere DO have the same personal relationship with God: He is our Judge.  All men are the enemies of God because of sin.  God’s relationship with all people everywhere is one of animosity.  Think Noah.  In that situation, God treated everyone in the world with absolute fairness, the only exception being Noah and his family.  On that occasion, God was fair.  When we look at it in that light, I’d like to invite all those who believe God isn’t fair in His dealings with men, to please be quiet.

I don’t know if you noticed it, but the three words we’ve been looking at in Colossians 3:12, - chosen, holy, and loved - are the same three words used in Deuteronomy 7 when it refers to God’s relationship to Israel:  

•    You are a people holy to the Lord your God;  
•    The Lord your God has chosen you;
•    The Lord set his love on you and chose you.  

It is not a coincidence that Paul uses the same three words when speaking to the Gentile Christians at Colossae about their relationship to God.  God, according to His own sovereign purposes, acted towards some people in Colossae in the same way He acted towards some people in the Middle East 4,000 years before Christ.  He decided to have mercy.  He chose to love them.  That is exactly what the Old and  New Testaments teach us.  Again, in Romans 9 we read a quote from an Old Testament passage.  Paul is speaking and he says:

14 What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means! 15 For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” 16 So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18 So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.

All men in every nation everywhere in the world are commanded to repent of their sin and love God with all their hearts, and that is not an unreasonable command.  He is their Creator.  But they do neither.  Since that is the case, why is it not fair when God determines to have mercy on some, but not all?  What is unjust about God having mercy on some rebels rather than destroying them all?  What is unjust about God exercising His prerogative as the Creator and doing what He pleases with the things He has made?  And I use the word “things” intentionally.  We are among the things He has made.  And of all the things God has made, only demons and men hate their Creator.

That includes us.  That included the Colossians.  That included the people of Israel.  God does not love certain people because those certain people first love Him.  Absolutely consistently throughout the entire Bible, we find God loving people in spite of what they are: The Jews, some Assyrians on one peculiar occasion, Samaritans, a prostitute in Jericho, Scythians (even Scythians!), the idolatrous Colossians, and now the self-absorbed Pennsylvanians.  

It is absolutely true that the ONLY reason any of us love God at all is because He first loved us (1 John 4:19).  It is God who has taken the initiative.  It is God who formulated this plan to redeem sinners.  It is God who sent His Son because He loved the world.  “It was the will of the Lord to crush him” for our sakes (Isaiah 53:10).  It is God who has chosen to love some to such an extent as to place their sins upon His own Son and sacrifice Him in their place.  

God does not treat all people equally.  If He did, then one of two things would happen.  There are only two possibilities if God were to treat all mankind without exception in exactly the same manner.  Either all would go to Heaven, or all would go to Hell.  You may ask, “Then why don’t all people go to Heaven?  Why doesn’t God save everyone?”  I don’t have an answer for you.  Could God save all people?  Absolutely.  God can do anything He chooses to do.  Was Christ's sacrifice for sin sufficient to save all?  Yes.  And yet, not all are saved.

But what about the other side of the equation?  “Why don’t all people go to Hell?  If all people are sinners, if all people are inherently the enemies of God, and if God is just and loves righteousness, then wouldn’t He be right to send all sinners to Hell?“  Yes He would.  That is what all men everywhere deserve.  But God doesn’t deal with all according as their deeds deserve.  Why? 

Only because of love.  Because He has chosen to have mercy upon some.  Christians are the recipients of that saving, redeeming, forgiving, longsuffering, kind, good, and discriminating love of God.  That’s how we became Christians.  The Colossians, just like all Christians, were saved because God loved them in spite of what they were. 

3 For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. 4 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:3-7).

God’s people are chosen, God’s people are holy, God’s people are loved.  We have done nothing to earn this, and there is nothing that can stop it.  We, like Israel of old, were singled out to be the recipients of a discriminating love, a peculiar love, a peculiar relationship which God reserves for His people, which the Lord Jesus reserves for His Bride.  Look with me quickly at Ephesians 5:

25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband” (Ephesians 5:25-33).

 The Lord Jesus loves us, His Church, like a man who loves his wife.  That is a love not like other loves.  That is a personal, intimate, exclusive, sacrificial love.  This love of Christ lead Him to give Himself up, even to the death of the cross, for us.  This peculiar love which He has for His Bride, the Church, causes Him to minister to her by cleansing her from all her sin, leaving her without a single blemish of any kind.  The love of Christ, compared to the love of a husband for his bride, compels Him to make us perfect in every way, holy and without spot or wrinkle, for Himself.
   
Thankfully Paul says, and I agree with him wholeheartedly, “This mystery is profound.”  How do we comprehend such love for such sinners?  But suffice it to say, when we read that God has chosen us, God has made us holy, and He loves us, that is a profound understatement.  However, it is because we are the recipients of such undeserved and profoundly deep love, that Paul goes on to tell us to put on:

12b “. . . compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 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. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

It is because of the love of God for us, that we have a duty and a responsibility to love those others whom He loves.  We are commanded to love the brethren.  That is the relationship we have when God is our Father.  When we do that, when we love the brethren, then we are bound together as the people of God in perfect harmony.  Perfect harmony!   Amazing.  Is it your prayer that there would be perfect harmony among us?  That’s what happens when we really love each other, as our Savior has loved us.
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1. All Scripture quotations are from the English Standard Version.