I Will Clothe You

I Will Clothe You

John 19:23 - 24, 1 Pet 5:5, Psa 109:18, John 5:19, 30, 1 Pet 2:24, Gal 3:13, 26-27,

March 3, 2003

I. I am going to steal a story from Max Lucado and it is one that I have never experienced. But it is important to understanding what I am going to be talking about today.

A. The Maitre d’ wouldn’t change his mind Max says. He didn’t care that this was our honey moon.

B. It didn’t matter that the evening at the classy country club restaurant was a wedding gift.

C. He could care less that my wife had went without lunch to save room for Dinner.

D. All of this didn’t matter in comparison to the looming problem that he saw, and that was that I wasn’t wearing a jacket!

E. I didn’t know that I needed one. I thought a sports shirt was sufficient, I mean it was clean, AND TUCKED IN!

F. OH, but Mr. Black tie with the French accent wasn’t impressed.

G. He seated everyone else, Mr. And Mrs. Debonair were given a table, and Mr. And Mrs. Classier than thou were seated too, but not Mr. And Mrs. Didn’t wear and Jacket.

H. If there had been another option I wouldn’t have begged, but I didn’t and it was late, and we were hungry, and the other restaurants were closed or booked.

I. There has to be something that you can do. He looked at me and then at my wife and then let out a long sigh that puffed out his cheeks.

J. All right he said, let me see. He disappeared into the cloak room and emerged with a jacket. The sleeves were too short, and the shoulders were too tight and it was an ugly Lime Green color, but Max says that he put it on anyway, But he does say that he took it off when the food came...my kinda guy!

K. Now, this story makes a point, and it is one that concerns our relationship to God.

L. He needed a jacket but all he had was a prayer. The Maitre d’ was too kind to turn him away, and too loyal to lower the standard.

M. So the very person who required a jacket gave him a jacket, and a seat at a table.

II. The same thing happened at the Cross, Seats at God’s table are not available to the spiritually sloppy, but aren’t we all that way?

A. Don’t we all have some unkept morality, and aren’t we all a little untidy with the truth sometimes?

B. Aren’t we all careless with people at times, isn’t some of our spiritual clothing jumbled?

C. The standard for sitting at God’s table is high, but the love of God for his children, as we have been taking about for the last few weeks, is higher so he offers us a gift.

D. The gift that he offers us is not a Lime colored jacket, it is a robe. Not just any robe, but a seamless robe. A robe worn by his Son Jesus.

E. The bible doesn’t say a lot about the clothes that Jesus wore. They must have been pretty plain. They were not humble enough to inspire sympathy, and they were not glamorous enough to turn heads, or even be written about much.

F. Really there was only once that anything was said about Jesus’ clothing, that had much meaning at all.

(John 19:23 - 24 NIV) When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. "Let’s not tear it," they said to one another. "Let’s decide by lot who will get it." This happened that the scripture might be fulfilled which said, "They divided my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing." So this is what the soldiers did.

G. Jesus’ robe must have been his finest possession. It was a Israelite tradition that a man’s mother would make a robe like that for him, as a gift when he left home.

H. We don’t know if Mary had done this for Jesus, but we do know the robe or tunic was one piece, without seams, and woven from top to bottom.

I. This is the one thing that God thought was important enough to tell us. So why is that important?

J. The bible many times describes our behavior as the clothes we wear.

1. Peter tells us in 1 Peter 5:5 to be "clothed with humility."

(1 Pet 5:5 NIV) Young men, in the same way be submissive to those who are older. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."