One of the places we used to go, almost it seemed like every other year we would go to San Antonio. That is where my dad’s brother, where they settled in. He was in the Air Force, so they traveled all around Taiwan, Philippines, different place, ended up in San Antonio at Randolph Air Force Base.
But one of the things that my cousins loved, they were like 10 years older than my brother and I, but they loved to take us to the Alamo. You can’t go to San Antonio, I mean the river is cool too, the river walk, but at the Alamo you learn about some history, some pretty famous history. You probably learned about it some at school, but Fort Alamo was a place that was set up originally as a mission.
And that mission was called San Antonio de Valero, eventually became the name of this city. And it’s been known as the Alamo across history, and history says there were five different flags flying over this fort. You’d think somebody would get a little weary or a little nervous about being inside a fort that kept changing hands.
But I believe, from what I can tell, it was Spain, France, Mexico, Texas, and anyone else know what fort, what country? What, oh yeah, the Confederate flag probably flew over it too, the United States. In February 23, 1836, a Mexican force of 2,000 came to siege the fort and take Texas back for Mexico. And they were vastly outnumbered, there were 200 there.
The command was led by people you may have heard of, James Bowie and William Travis. Another guy was there, the famous frontiersman named Davy Crockett, and they all died. Now, 10, 12 years later, when there was the Mexican-American War, there became a battle cry that rose out coming out of Fort Alamo saying, remember, yeah, you guys didn’t say it as excited as they did, remember the Alamo! And that rallied them, and they got it back because it was a sign of them wanting independence, wanting to not be overtaken, saying you beat us once, but now we are holding the fort.
Now, as we’re going through this sermon series on holiness of heart and life during our Lenten season, we have been talking about, last week we talked about the holiness of heart and the importance we put during Lent especially of spending extra time with God, of abstaining from something else so we can grow closer to God. In the next few weeks, we’re gonna talk about how that holiness of heart can spill over into a holiness of life. And that holiness of life, I think, probably starts in the best place we can think of with relationships.
And with relationships that we have with other people, I mean, Jesus said the greatest command was to love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, with all your soul, with all your strength. And the second is like it to love your, and if you love your neighbor, then that means in your relationship there is a level of holiness, a level of God, and depending on the bond of that relationship, the depth of how much God is involved in that is pretty amazing. Our scripture for this week comes from Colossians 3. Will you stand as you’re able? Put on then as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another, and if a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive.
And 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 into one body, and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, 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 the Father through him. The word of God. For the people of God.
Amen, you may be seated. Now, when we are looking at fortifying our family, fortifying our relationship, making it like a fort that is impenetrable, impenetrable to the forces of evil. Now, there’s a difference between making a fort around yourself that keeps other people out, and a fort that keeps evil out.
But when we have family fortification, if you look at, we talked about the greatest commands of loving God and loving neighbor. The greatest command of fortification, I believe is found in 1 Timothy 5.8. But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. Now, those words seem pretty tough.
But the word in there, the Greek word, pranaeo. Pranaeo means to provide, advance consideration, to perceive before, to consider in advance. Basically, that means to plan ahead.
To provide for one, to take thought of, to care for. Pranaeo is telling us that we need to pranaeo starting with our own household. Now, the Jewish household was not just one or two people, and it didn’t disappear when the kids grew up and left the home.
It is generational. In all of that, how you treat those above you in authority, as in your parents, even when you’re an adult, how you treat your children, how you come together, how you build this all. And when you read the words of 1 Timothy 5.8, that if you don’t pranaeo, if you don’t care for, if you don’t love, if you don’t plan for and consider those in your own household and your family, then you’re actually worse than an unbeliever.
And that’s pretty tough. He’s saying anything that comes in and breaks, if someone is cheating in a relationship, if someone is doing something to destroy a relationship, then that’s worse than an unbeliever. It’s worse than someone who doesn’t even know God.
I mean, those are pretty strong words to think about. If you think of your relationships and how you’re involved in them, when you let the fort down and it is broken, then there is an act of evil involved in that because Satan can destroy. Now, when we look at 1 Timothy 5.8, the next one I wanna look at is Matthew 19.6. If the battle cry of the Alamo was remember the Alamo, the battle cry of family formation is Matthew 19.6. So they are no longer two but one flesh.
What therefore God has joined together, let man not separate. And then the first thing you wanna say is it takes two. And that’s very important.
How is God involved in every relationship we have? With a close friend, with a spouse, with a child, with a parent, with a grandparent, with a grandchild? How is God involved in that? And what if the other person has cut God off? What if the other person says, I don’t want this anymore? I think in 1 Corinthians 7, when Paul was going through and talking about relationships and then he talks about families, he says, he keeps saying the words, who knows? Who knows if they see your example that maybe they would receive Christ. Who knows that if you treated them as Jesus taught us how to treat someone else, maybe they would turn and relent and repent. Who knows? Holiness of life is about allowing God to lead and empower all our relationships, beginning with your household, extended families and friends, our church family, our neighbors, our community, and the world.
How are we loving our neighbor? How our holiness goes from the altar into the world as soon as we come across someone else. And what are we doing to develop and implement a plan to fortify our relationships? How do we strengthen them so we can hold them secure? Now, there are a couple of things that Paul talks about pretty specifically with relationships in Colossians. And if you look at Ephesians, he goes into the household structure.
Now, when Holly and I got married, it was right after I had gone into the ministry. So you would think that being a new pastor that I could choose the scripture for our wedding, but I could not. Holly chose the scripture for our wedding, but the interesting thing was, it was pretty powerful.
Some of the verses out of Ephesians, and one of them that really stuck out to me was here in Colossians on the relationships we’re talking about. Now, before Paul starts talking about what our text is today, he has gone through, if you wanna read the part that you don’t wanna read about in 1 Corinthians 3, he says, put to death, therefore, what is earthly on you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covenants, which is idolatry. On account of these, the wrath of God is coming.
In these too, you once walked when you were living with them, but now you must put them all away. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk from your mouth. Don’t lie to one another.
Seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and put on a new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here, there is not Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, Barbarian, Scythian, slave-free, but Christ is all and in all. The old self causes relational explosiveness.
Those things that you do and you say when you let your guard down, when the fortification isn’t up, when you let the old self come out, these things take over, and they are explosive in relationships. We’ve all probably been there. We’re in our relationships.
Now, Paul is talking about, in here, the relationships of the church, that we also need to have this fortification around the church, where we don’t slowly let things come in that are not of God. And over time, it becomes different, and then the relationships become volatile, and the relationships become even unholy within the church when Christ is not the center and the bond that brings us together. When it’s more about us and what can we gain than it is about Jesus and how can the kingdom grow.
That’s when it becomes different with this relational message that Paul is giving us on how we fortify our homes and our church and who we are as people and how we love our neighbor. We have this huge list of what not to do. Doesn’t that sound biblical where most people think of the Bible? Don’t.
Don’t. Don’t even think about it. Stop.
But Paul goes on to share about the new self. The new self. And when we let new self into our relationships, we get relational fortifiers that strengthen us.
Now, it’s sometimes funny how we can treat a stranger better than we treat someone we love, that we get so comfortable with them that we don’t treat them with the same attitude, with the same fruit of the Spirit. You can also look at Galatians 5, 22, 23 for fruit of the Spirit. And if you look a little before that, you see an even longer list of things that the old self can do in relationship.
What do we bring in? Compassionate hearts. Compassion. Do you have compassion? Even when someone doesn’t have compassion for you, do you have kindness? I mean, the easy thing to do with things like social media is just to let it out.
So many, it’s almost every day I start reading a post and they start with this. Now, I’m gonna vent here. Scroll through that.
I mean, sometimes it’s good to vent in the right way, but people will say things in an environment and cause it to be toxic, so it’s almost like it’s not worth saying anything unless you can rip someone else to pieces. And that has nothing to do with Jesus. That has to do with the old self.
Kindness is how we treat others, even if they are not kind. Humility. Who likes to sing the song, oh Lord, it’s hard to be humble.
Humility is something that in our lives, it seems like once we start going down these roads, look at these words, humility, meekness, patience, bearing with one another, forgiving one another, it’s like the world says, no, we don’t have this humble nature that says, I’m going to listen. I’m going to not tear you apart. I’m not going to say, hey, you can say whatever you want, but I’m smarter than you, or that you’re a horrible person, so why should I listen? And the number one way we’re supposed to be humble is to be humble before God.
I mean, that’s part of the problem with relationships is thinking we’re God and not realizing that we need to be humble, we need to repent, we need to come before God, and we need to let God be in the middle of everything. And that says it’s about God instead of about me, and that is humility. Paul puts it like this, he says, why think of yourselves greater than you ought to? And some of that’s just pride coming through, pride that says, I’m not going to be humble because if I’m humble, then I let my guard down and someone else then can make fun of me or put me down or tear me apart.
Meekness, that’s a tough one. Meekness is quietness, it’s making yourselves vulnerable before someone else. And some people are like wolves that will take advantage of that if you give them the opportunity.
But meekness says, even if someone, oh, meekness in a relationship says, I don’t have to have the last word. Or this is one I need a reminder of, especially when I’m talking to boys who aren’t listening to what I’m saying, I don’t have to be the loudest to win the argument, although I am. Meekness says, it’s not about pride.
It’s about humbling yourselves. It’s about listening to someone. It’s not about giving up who you are or your morals or your character or your strength.
There is a quiet strength in meekness that we could all learn from. Patience, bearing with one another. I don’t know if that one needs much more elaboration.
We all need that kind of patience. And then this is the cool part. Above all these, bind them together in, everybody know? Love.
Love binds them all together. As in, you can be kind to someone. You can act humble before someone.
You can be quiet and meek. You can be patiently wait. You can bear with others.
I don’t know if you can forgive others without this. But without love, then it’s nothing. Then it’s worthless.
Then it’s just show. It’s just exterior. It’s what Jesus called the Pharisees’ whitewashed tombs because they wanted to follow the law, but they didn’t want Jesus in the heart of everything they did.
They didn’t show that love. Love, seamlessly. If you think of how easily you can see seams on an outfit, Paul is saying love binds it together seamlessly.
Or if you think of a fort with no place to break it in, a fort for relationships, then love is what holds the walls together. It’s what holds the gate up. It’s what holds from the attacks of the enemy.
Now sometimes we think as Christians, we have to fight fire with the same kind of fire. If someone’s gonna get mad at me, I’m gonna get madder. If someone’s gonna tear me down, I’m gonna show them they deserve to be torn down too.
If someone is going to lie to me, then I’m gonna lie to them too just so they have to deal with it. I’m not gonna trust them. Now you have to learn who you can trust and who you can’t, who’s gonna take advantage of you and how you work through all that stuff.
The greatest weapon God gives us, I pray you all have this in your arsenal, is love. You’re gonna show me hate, I’m gonna show you love. You’re gonna show me your pride, I’m gonna show you love.
You’re gonna show me your wrath, your immorality. Instead of judgment, I’m gonna show you love. These are the weapons we need.
These are the weapons we fight with and make no mistake, it is a fight. We fight for our household relationships. We fight for our family relationships and we fight for one another in the church.
We fight for them and say, there is nothing that I’m going to do or I’m going to do everything to encourage you and strengthen you and love you. Look around at each other. Think about how you can fight for each other.
Think about how we can build up a fort that is so strong that evil does not have a chance, that evil doesn’t come in but other people come in and they get to know Jesus and they get to be a part of this fort that keeps evil out, that strengthens us. Now all these qualities probably sound cool and they might sound a little difficult. These are just like the fruit and how do we attain them? Paul tells us very clearly that holiness of heart gives us an internal strength to fortify our friends, family, neighbors, our church family, one another.
It fortifies us and then helps us to have holiness of life. Now what holiness of heart things do we need? He says, and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to be to which indeed you were called into one body. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.
If you have the peace of Christ ruling your heart, then somebody else who comes along and tries to set one of those explosives off in your heart cannot break that fortification. Let the peace of Christ rule. Now it’s interesting, see the verb there, let.
Let. You just open up and say, God, give me the peace that passes all understanding. Let your peace rule my heart.
Not my own desires, not my own passions, not my own pride, but you God. And let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. When the word of Christ dwells in you richly, then it’s like when Jesus told his disciples, I will bring to memory what you need to know in that moment.
That if you know the word of Christ, if you’ve been studying the Bible, if you’ve been talking to God, if you let that dwell in you richly, then you won’t be in poverty of spirit when someone tries to tear you down or even attack your relationships. And this one is so awesome. He says, all words and actions done in the name of Jesus.
Whatever you do in word or deed, do this in the name of Jesus. Whatever you do, however you respond to someone else, however you approach someone else. And then it’s not like you just approach and you don’t talk about things.
If you have a strong enough relationship, then he also says that when the word of Christ dwells in you richly, you teach, admonish, sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Now they used to sing songs. They had hymns and the spiritual songs.
Maybe they had contemporary music too, who knows? But the point is you have all these things. These are the holiness of heart ways that give you holiness of life. Let Christ dwell in you richly.
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. And then each one of these ends with the same thing. And be thankful, grow in thankfulness.
Be thankful, not expecting another person to fill your purpose or fulfill your needs or to change and fit who you want them to be, but be thankful for what you have and who others are. You know, you may be looking at the person in front of you going, man, I wish they would grow in their faith. Don’t turn around and see who’s looking at you.
But instead it starts with a gratitude, a heart of gratitude that allows all this to happen and allows you to take relationships and fortify them and strengthen them and make them holy ground that nothing can tear apart no matter what the attacks are today. I pray you have holiness of life in Jesus. Let’s pray.
Almighty God, thank you that we’re not on our own. Thank you that all we do is have to let you be God. And when we let you be God, we can be holy.
And by being holy, we can have compassion for others, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forgiving. And let love flow through in every relationship we have. Let self-sacrifice be who we are.
Strengthen our bonds in our households. Strengthen our bonds amongst our friends and family. Strengthen.