Sermons
A Banded Bond Of Love
Series: The Way Of SalvationA BANDED BOND OF LOVE
Sermon By Terry Siverd
Cortland Church of Christ / October 13, 2019
We hope you will all join us this afternoon from 3-6pm for our annual FallFest At The Pavilion.
In Rom.6:1ff, the apostle Paul writes about baptism.
All of us who have been baptized into Christ have been baptized into His death (vs.3).
We have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised
from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life (vs.4).
Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that should obey its lusts, and do not go on
presenting your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as
those who are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness... (vss.12-13).
In Scripture, the church is spoken of as “the body of Christ” (Eph.1:22-23).
The Church is the body of Christ.
This is at at once - - both a profound compliment and a heavy responsibility.
Eph.5:25b-27 states - - (Christ) loved the church and gave Himself up for her;
that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washingr of water with the word,
that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot
or wrinkle or any such things; but that she should be holy and blameless.
One of greatest concerns ought to be that we would live up to our name.
We are not just a body, we are the body OF CHRIST.
As Jesus declared in Lk.12:48, to whom much is given, much is required.
People can sometimes be faulted for trying to be something they are not (and rightfully so).
But people can also be faulted for not trying to be something they really are.
THE CHURCH IS THE BODY OF CHRIST.
Such is not just wishful thinking on our part, it is the declaration of the holy Scriptures.
So, for the balance of this extended sermon series on The Way Of Salvation,
I want us to ask ourselves, “What do the Scriptures say we as the body of Christ should look like?”
More fully, “How should the body of Christ speak and act - - how should we think and how should we live?”
To begin answering this question I want us to focus on the text of Colossians chapter three.
Col.3:1-2 states - - If then you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is,
seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.
In Col.3:5-9 Paul enumerates “things” (unacceptable behavior and conduct) that need to be put off.
We will return to these later on - - not today, but in a few weeks.
To begin the second half of this sermon series, I want us to read from Col.3:12-14 - -
And so, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion,
kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience; bearing with one another and forgiving one another,
whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.
And beyond all these things put on LOVE, which is the perfect bond of unity.
Paul states emphatically that love is the perfect bond of unity.
Love is not just some warm fuzzy feeling.
One of my most embarrassing moments came when I was a student at Harding.
I had dated a lot of different girls … And then came Jeannie.
She swept me off my feet. She brought the warmest, fuzziest feeling I had ever encountered.
One night I walked her to dorm. As you entered the dorm (Kendall) it had a big “living room”
(a commons area with TVs and sofas) and it was was typically filled with a good number of students.
It also had lots of windows.
As I remember it, Jeannie and I stood outside saying goodbye.
I kissed her goodnight and then quickly headed off to my dorm on the other side of the campus campus.
But as I turned to leave, I walk right through some waist-high shrubs.
How many saw me I do not know. If they did, they surely got a good laugh.
I didn't do it on purpose - - I was love struck!
But real love is more than just a warm, fuzzy feeling.
Love is a verb!
Our love is defined by our actions - - by the way we treat one another.
Love demands compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience (bearing with one another) and forgiveness.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer often used the phrase “cheap grace”.
In his view it was an approach to Christianity that only emphasizes the good
and easy parts, without teaching the truth regarding the difficult aspects of it.
Broadly-speaking, “cheap grace” comes when we focus only on salvation without sanctification.
In other words, we cheapen God's marvelous grace when we talk the talk but fail to walk the walk.
There's an old spiritual song about the cross of Christ that we sometimes sing that has the line:
sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble.
There is a recurring transgression that we Christians commit that causes me to shudder or tremble.
I've been preaching for a while now and I've witnessed it more than I care to admit.
It is a transgression, a sin, that is both shameful and dreadful.
Have you ever heard someone say, “I can never forgive so and so!”?
Sometimes this transgression is not so much heard as seen.
We know enough Scripture to know these words ought never be spoken, so we don't dare say it, we just do it.
So here we are - - we are the body of Christ - - and yet we cannot find the strength to forgive one another.
This is not only a tragic case of malpractice on our part, but it also severely undermines our witness.
Have we truly failed to grasp the import of those plain words of Jesus (Mt.6:14-15)?
If you forgive men for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
But if you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.
I want to share a story that most of you have likely heard by now.
It is ripped from the daily headlines that come to us via newspapers and/or cyber media).
It features a young man named Brandt Jean.
Brandt is a younger brother to Botham Shem Jean who was shot to death by a Dallas police woman, Amber Guyger.
I don't know all the details, but what I saw and heard online dampened my eyes with tears.
They were tears of joy and simultaneously tears of sorrow.
Botham Jean was a resident of St. Lucia, a small volcanic island in the Caribbean Sea, a part of the West Indies.
It looks like an idyllic environment, with a total population of around 158,000.
I don't know much about Botham.
I know that he was a faithful Christian and dynamic leader. He was a 2016 graduate of Harding University
and had moved to Dallas to work with the Price Waterhouse Cooper tax consulting firm.
At Harding, he sometimes led singing at chapel - - a daily gathering of several thousand students and faculty.
On the night of September 6, 2018, Botham was eating ice-cream in his South Side Flats apartment in Dallas.
That evening, police officer Amber Guyger entered what she thought was her apartment with the door slightly ajar.
After a 14-hr shift, Miss Guyger had mistakenly exited the elevator one floor too late and entered
the wrong apartment - - her's was was in the same location one floor below Botham's.
When she opened the door and saw Botham in the darkened room of what she thought was her apartment,
she pulled out her revolver and shot him, thinking he was an intruder.
Policewoman Guyger was recently found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
At her sentencing something quite astounding happened.
First, Botham's younger brother Brandt told Guyger, “I love you, just like anyone else. And I'm not going
to say I hope you rot and die...I personally want the best for you.” He added that his late brother,
Botham, would also want the best for Guyger, which would include giving her life to Christ.
He then twice asked Judge Tammy Kemp if he could give Guyger a hug. With permission
from the judge, Brandt and Guyger embraced for a long time as she cried on his shoulder.
Shortly thereafter, Judge Kemp gave Guyger a Bible she kept with her at the courthouse and used every day.
Kemp opened the Bible and told Guyger: “This is your job for the next month. Right here. John 3:16.”
Kemp also embraced Guyger after she first spoke with and embraced Botham's family.
If you have not seen this court room video clip you need to see it to grasp the full impact.
Now, as you can imagine this “act of forgiveness” has been scrutinized every which way.
Many viewed it as a race issue - - the policeman was white and Botham was black.
In our courts of law forgiveness doesn't cancel out justice, but such an act of forgiveness is so very rare.
If you were Botham's brother or mother or friend or family, would you be able to say what Brandt said?
Far too often we fail miserably at forgiveness.
Some of us are nursing grudges and refusing to forgive another for things far less severe than murdering a loved one.
I know that many of have been on the receiving end of bad treatment from others.
I also know that forgiving others is not always easy, but it is necessary for those of us who call ourselves Christians.
We don't have to ask, “WWJD?”, we already know the answer to that question.
I have included a quote from C. S. Lewis on the footer of today's FamilyMatters.
To be Christian is to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.
I have titled this morning's sermon, A Banded Bond Of Love.
We are a Church of Christ and we must shine like a city set on a hill.
If our church is to flourish, it will require that all of us shine, not just a few of us.
We must all band together and become a distinctive bond of love. Our world needs this so badly.
Finally, one more point. There is a dual benefit to forgiveness that is truly marvelous:
it forever changes both the one forgiven and the one forgiving.
This is part of “the newness of life” in Christ Jesus- - and God is calling every one of us to arise and walk therein.
