Jesus and Toxic People July 19, 2009
Wardrobe for living with people
Colossians 3:12-17 (NLT)
12 Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. 13 Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. 14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful.
16 Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. 17 And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.
Fashion is huge these days – probably sells as much magazines as it does clothes – do we go through a day without thinking about what we are wearing, ort what others are wearing? It is appropriate to the situation? Does it make be look fat? Do I look good?
We in the west pay so much attention to what we wear on our bodies. It is a good thing that St. Paul gave some thought to how we clothe our souls.
Read passage
This is the last in the series that we’ve called “Jesus and Toxic People.”
I want to remind you that we can seldom change the toxic people around us. Some times God uses us to change people, but it is usually easier to change ourselves!
Paul writes about the fashion of our soul, not just for dealing with toxic people, but for everyone we are around – especially those in the church.
You may have heard about the armor of God found in Ephesians 6
The belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
– I’ve known people who have imagined themselves putting on the armor of God every morning as they started their day. I think that that is pushing the metaphor a bit too far. But I do think, that just as we give thought to the clothes we wear each morning, we should give more thought to how we clothe our soul throughout the day.
Ancient Celtic prayer: Clothe our souls with grace while clothing our bodies with raiment
Put on Tenderhearted mercy
Compassion – a deep sensitivity to the needs and sorrows of others – N.T. Wright
– make it you purpose to know what the other needs and how the other hurts – not as ammunition, but in order to protect them – guard their heart
Put on Kindness – “the art of being a dear” – Lord Hailsham
“God is the kindest person I know” – Graham Cooke
What did the pastor teach today? “That we should be kind.” I don’t want this to be so trite – it is much deeper than that – we are to be kind to the people who will never be kind back, we are to be kind to people who could never be kind back.
Luke 6
32 "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. 35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
Put on Humility – not thinking to highly of yourself, nor thinking to lowly
THE DISEASE OF PRIDE “Pride is the only disease known to man that makes everyone sick except the one who has it” SOURCE: “Our Daily Bread,” December, 1986.
Ed Silvoso – Pride is like bad breath – everyone knows you have it except you.
Often it is easy to lose our humility when we feel we have been wronged. We might say “I might not be great, but I’m not that bad!” and we set ourselves up as judge over the one who has offended us. We must keep our humilty from sliping off during the rough days.
Put on Gentleness – we are more fragile than we might seem
When we get offended, or hurt by another, we can make the mistake of thinking the other is invincible and our words will not hurt – but we need to be gentle with each other’s fragile hearts
Galatians 6:1
Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted.
Put on Patience – you are going to live together, there will be stuff that gets on your nerves, be patience with the other’s idiosyncrasies, how they squeeze the toothpaste, whether they are always late, or always need to be way too early… be patient.
Make allowance for each other’s faults, – cut each other some slack “make allowances for each other’s faults: We all got ‘em…
Put on FORGIVENESS – In the 70’s there was a line from a movie that said “love means never having to say you’re sorry” there are many things that we need to leave behind from the 70’s: that is one of them. Love means saying you’re sorry, it means saying, “I forgive you.”
Reminder - Forgiveness does not excuse sin, it does not say "O that’s alright, your sin really wasn’t a bother, my stay in the hospital wasn’t that long, and I was able to catch up on my reading!" No forgiveness calls sin, sin, and in many ways it holds the sinner accountable for their actions. Forgiveness says, "you hurt me, and what you did was wrong, but I will not hold it against you, I will not try to get back at you and I will not hate you for it."
Put on LOVE – the over coat – what everyone should see
Love is active, it is action more than feeling
“Often we speak about love as if it is a feeling. But if we wait for a feeling of love before loving, we may never learn to love well. The feeling of love is beautiful and life-giving, but our loving cannot be based in that feeling. To love is to think, speak, and act according to the spiritual knowledge that we are infinitely loved by God and called to make that love visible in this world.
Mostly we know what the loving thing to do is. When we "do" love, even if others are not able to respond with love, we will discover that our feelings catch up with our acts.” – Henri Nouwen
Put on Spirituality – “Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts.”
This passage is written to the community of faith – inviting us to be faith together. RCC is great, but I’ve been in churches where you talk about everything but Spirituality after the service – we are to walk together with God – not using spirituality as a big stick to change those we are walking with, but walking with them.
“be at home in the Gospel story, and let it be at home in you.” – A. L. Williams
Both inside and outside the church, we are to bless the toxic people in our lives.
Romans 12:14 “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.”
You should always clothe yourself on the outside with a mind to what is on the inside (especially as we get older)
God chose you to be the holy people he loves
This is why we are able to put these clothes on – we are chosen by God 1. to be holy like him, - we are saved, chosen, to be holy! – “chosen” adoption story – “My Parents CHOSE me, yours were lumped with you!”
2. to be loved by him. If we know the depth of the love that God has for us, we in turn have the power to love in the good times and the bad.
Peace ruling in your hearts – what gives be great peace, besides being chosen to be holy and loved, is knowing that God has got things in hand – it really removes anxiety – it is hard to be kind and anxious both! We need Christ’s peace ruling in our hearts, so that we can be clothed properly on the outside.
Wardrobe for church – mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, and over all Love.
