"Bear With One Another" Colossians 3:12-13

Colossians 3:12-13  “Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”

This is Paul’s instruction for Believer’s –The Church –Followers of Jesus.  Although we are being transformed and changed into the likeness of Jesus, none of us are the finished product.  Some days we seem more like Jesus than others.  In those moments when it is obvious to all that we have a ways to go, we are to bear with one another.

Maybe you’re wondering what it means to bear with one another –how do we do that?  Fortunately, it doesn’t say “bear with one another; you figure out how.”  It gives us the plan.  It tells us the steps, the ingredients that go into bearing with one another.  Bearing with one another involves compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

Interestingly, these are mostly the same ingredients that we find in Galatians 5:22-23.  There these ingredients are called “fruit of the Spirit.”  That means these are by-products of walking with Jesus –the Spirit filled life.  These by-products of living in the Spirit are a result of intimacy with God.  I’m sincerely hoping for a day when my natural responses to the circumstances of life consistently involve compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  But for now, I’m a little inconsistent.  So are you.  I’ve noticed.  For most of us, these things are not fully internalized, so Paul has a recommendation.  He tells us to clothe ourselves with them.

By definition, clothing ourselves with these fruit of the Spirit means that they are not yet fully internalized, but that we are able to recognize them, take hold of them, and apply them to the situations of our lives.  Clothing ourselves means applying externally something that is not fully internalized.

Think about that for a moment.  If w are told to clothe ourselves with these things –if we are told to take these things and put them on –apply them to our lives so that we can respond appropriately and redemptively to others –then I would say it’s possible for us to do that –wouldn’t you agree?  God is not asking us to do the impossible. 

What He tells us to do, He gives us the ability to do.  So, if He tell us to do this and He gives us the ability to do this, then we have a very real responsibility to do this.  When things aren’t going smoothly –when there is friction in the church –when somebody says something or does something hurtful.  This is what the Bible says to do: clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience so that we can bear with each other.

Sooner or later I’m bound to say something or do something that will really tick you off.  I’d apologize in advance if I could –but I don’t know exactly when or where this is going to happen –but I know that it is bound to happen.  And if I don’t say something or do something that irritates you, some other brother or sister will.  It will happen because we live in real life.   I’m not sure there is even anything we can do about that part of it.  We can’t stop real life from taking place.

When something annoying or hurtful is said or done, however, we have a choice about how we are going to respond.  We can choose to clothe ourselves with compassion.  We can choose to put on kindness.  We can choose to wrap ourselves up in humility.  And we can choose to cover ourselves with gentleness.  We can choose to robe ourselves in patience. We have the ability to bear with each other through stressful times. 

And why do we want to bear with each other?  Because we love each other –because we are a community of grace -because this is the church God wants us to be.