Rules for Holy living – part 2
Reminders of part 1
Margaret spoke to us last week and covered the first part of Paul's instructions to the Colossians. In case you weren't here or like me your memory isn't that good lets look back and see what Paul was saying. Take a look back at verse 1 “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above” Paul's concern is to get the focus of the Colossians off the world and its day-to-day problems, and on to Christ and their time with him in eternity. Eternity, obviously goes on forever, but for us it has a start – that's the moment we accept Christ as our saviour. So we come to eternal life with a life partly lived, but lived without the right instructions. Paul calls these old habits your 'earthly nature' and in verse 5 goes on to give some examples of just what the earthly nature consists of “sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.” and in verse 8 and 9 “anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.” and “Do not lie to each other”.
All these thing he says must be “put to death”; you must “rid yourselves of them”.
New clothes as a response to God.
At the start of the passage we had read to us today, Paul says we are “God's chosen people”. Think about it for a minute. The creator of the universe and all that it contains looked into your spirit and saw something. He didn't look at your CV and check your skill set, or your exam results to see if you'd reach the grade, or your good works to see how you were helping those in need, or your evil ways and say they were just too bad. He looked right into you and said “Yes, I'll take you”. That simple decision that God made – made you holy – set you apart for God, dedicated to Him. Because you now belong to God you are dearly loved, so dearly loved that He had already sent His son to die in your place so that your evil ways - those ways we looked at in verses 8 and 9 do not lead to your own death.
Qualities of the new Clothes
Put off your old self, and put on your new self, we are told back in verse 10
Then in verse 12 & 13 we get a description of the new self that Paul's wants us to wear.
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.
A Change of Clothes?
I wonder if you bought a change of clothes with you this morning. Probably not. I did though. I have to change into the uniform of my office to do my job. Much like a policeman or a paramedic. Putting on my robes changes me. Its not just that I have to be careful how I walk or I might trip over, although walking more slowly and carefully does have an effect. Really it is more subtle. It tells me that I am 'in character' as an actor would say. It makes me think more carefully about what I say and how I say it. It makes me a different person – more focussed on the things above.
It changes the way people see me too. Occasionally people will say 'nice sermon vicar'. My reaction inside is to have a rant about not being ordained and not being a vicar, and explaining in great, and probably very boring detail just exactly what the ministry of a reader is. A more helpful reaction would be to ignore the misidentification and ask them what they liked about the sermon, but I usually just manage a smile and thank you.
How does changing your clothes affect you? Do you behave differently when you are dressed up to go out, than you do when you are at home relaxing. Do you behave differently when you are dressed for working in the garden, than when you are dressed to attend a wedding?
Paul's new Christian suit
Lets take a look at what the new clothes Paul has in mind look like.
Compassion
In Matthew 9:36 after Jesus has bee teaching and healing people it says “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”
Webster's dictionary says compassion means “sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it”.
Compassion:
One day a student asked anthropologist Margaret Mead for the earliest sign of civilization in a given culture. He expected the answer to be a clay pot or perhaps a fish hook or grinding stone. Her answer was "a healed femur." Mead explained that no healed femurs are found where the law of the jungle, survival of the fittest, reigns. A healed femur shows that someone cared. Someone had to do that injured person's hunting and gathering until the leg healed. The evidence of compassion is the first sign of civilization. -- R. Wayne Willis Louisville, Kentucky
In recent years we mainly hear the word 'compassion' in the phrase 'compassion fatigue'. It defines a condition where there is so much suffering that the desire to relieve it is overwhelmed. Thankfully I haven't heard the expression in relation to the earthquake in Haiti. There will be a retiring collection this morning to help the survivors of the earthquake. The Disasters Emergency committee collects money and coordinates emergency aid. If you contribute there you contribution can benefit from gift aided. Please consider your response how you are going to show compassion in this instance. I heard a woman on the radio – I think she was from the American embassy, which is still standing. She sounded really frightened saying she didn't know when they would be able to go out, or how they would get food or water. That really brought home to me the scale of the disaster. Of course it's really the people on the outside we have to worry about. They need clean water, food and shelter, or many many more of them will become ill and die.
http://elbourne.org/sermons/index.mv?illustration+4698
Kindness
Kindness is shown by smaller actions that are designed to make people feel comfortable and accepted rather than to meet a specific and urgent need.
Rhodes Scholarship
British statesman and financier Cecil Rhodes, whose fortune was used to endow the world-famous Rhodes Scholarships, was a stickler for correct dress—but apparently not at the expense of someone else’s feelings. A young man invited to dine with Rhodes arrived by train and had to go directly to Rhodes’s home in his travel-stained clothes. Once there he was appalled to find the other guests already assembled, wearing full evening dress. After what seemed a long time Rhodes appeared, in a shabby old blue suit. Later the young man learned that his host had been dressed in evening clothes, but put on the old suit when he heard of his young guest’s dilemma.
Today in the Word, February, 1991, p. 10
http://elbourne.org/sermons/index.mv?illustration+4698
Humility
Humility is “not being proud or haughty; not being arrogant or assertive” according to Webster's dictionary. Its a very negative definition.
Winston Churchill was once asked, “Doesn’t it thrill you to know that every time you make a speech, the hall is packed to overflowing?”
“It’s quite flattering,” replied Sir Winston. “But whenever I feel that way, I always remember that if instead of making a political speech I was being hanged, the crowd would be twice as big.”
Norman McGowan, My Years With Winston Churchill, Souvenir Press, London.
http://bible.org/node/10552
If we are to define humility in a more positive way we would say that it is having a right view before God of your true worth and significance in relation to those around you. Remember what Paul said in verse 11: “Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.”
Barbarians covered people that did not speak greek, but were still considered uncivilised by the Jews.
Scythians were a race from southern Russia. They were known for their brutality.
Meekness
Gentleness is more traditionally translated as meekness and that is closer to the sense of the passage.
According to Bill Farmer, J. Upton Dickson was a fun-loving fellow who said he was writing a book entitled Cower Power. He also founded a group of submissive people. It was called "Dependent Organization Of Really Meek And Timid Souls -- if there are no objections." or DOORMATS. Their motto was: "The meek shall inherit the earth -- if that's okay with everybody."
A.W. Tozer in his book “The pursuit of God” wrote “The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and as strong as Samson; but he has stopped being fooled about himself. He has accepted God's estimate of his own life. He knows he is as weak and helpless as God has declared him to be, but paradoxically, he knows at the same time that he is in the sight of God of more importance than angels. In himself, nothing; in God, everything. That is his motto. He knows well that the world will never see him as God sees him and he has stopped caring. He rests perfectly content to allow God to place His own values. He will be patient to wait for the day when everything will get its own price tag and real worth will come into its own. Then the righteous shall shine forth in the Kingdom of their Father. He is willing to wait for that day.
In the meantime he will have attained a place of soul rest. As he walks on in meekness he will be happy to let God defend him. The old struggle to defend himself is over. He has found the peace which meekness brings.”
http://www.theboc.com/freestuff/awtozer/books/the_pursuit_of_god/meekness_and_rest.html
Patience
Patience in this passage is not about being patient with God, or waiting patiently through the dark days of winter for your summer holiday in the sun. This is about being patient with people. This is about not reacting and writing people off when they are big a bit of an idiot.
Barnabus was patient with his cousin John Mark, when Paul had given upon him after he left them part way through a mission. Barnabus wanted to give him a second chance. There was a serious disagreement. As a result Barnabus went one way and Paul the other. You can read the story in Acts chapters 13 to 15. Years later Paul asks for John Mark to be sent to him, so Barnabus' patience clearly worked. We all need a second chance from time to time. Some of us need third and fourth chances as well. If people are not patient with us that will not be possible. This quality is linked to the next two.
Forgiveness
If patience deals with the inconsiderate, careless and thoughtless things that we do that cause misunderstandings. Forgiveness deals with the offensive that we give. Forgiveness applies when people tell lies about you, steal from you or give serious offence in other ways.
Act justly, love mercy and to walk humbly with your God it says in Micah 6:8. You may recognise that, it is included in our Holy communion liturgy. It means that we should apply justice to our own actions, and mercy to the actions of others.
We forgive because God first forgave us. If we do not forgive we will always be looking for some way to get back at the person who has offended us, so forgiveness has real benefits too us as these monkeys demonstrate.
Letting Go of Offences
Natives in Africa capture monkeys by setting up cages and placing bait inside. The bait can be anything a monkey would want, such as food or an unusual object. The monkeys are lured to the cages but are too smart to actually go inside. Instead, they reach through the bars, grab the bait, and try to pull it out. Because the object is too large to go through the bars, the only way the monkey can get away is to drop the bait. But monkeys refuse to let go. They kick and squeal but keep holding on. They stay trapped in bondage because they refuse to let go of the bait.
(Kent Crockett, I Once Was Blind But Now I Squint, Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2004, 104-105)
http://www.kentcrockett.com/cgi-bin/illustrations/index.cgi?topic=Forgiving%20Others
Love
Finally, Love which brings all our actions relating to other people together. Paul describes Love to the Corinthian Church like this:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
Love the unselfish interest in someone else's well being is the overall look of the new clothes that Paul is asking us to wear on our Characters. It encompasses all I have talked about and much more. It is demonstrated by God in all his dealings with us, whether that's in our conversion, our life in this world, or eternity spent in heaven.
All we have to do is put it on.
Conclusion
Once you have changed into your new clothes they will last for all eternity. When you first put them they looked lovely and you were very pleased with them I'm sure. After a while they may feel a bit strange, you may wonder how you ever got into them. Perhaps in the same way that some of us wonder how we ever got into our wedding clothes. That is because we have grown larger since we were married. For our new Christian clothes its not so much an issue of growing out of them as growing into them.
As we put off our bad habits (monks wear habits by the way, and the word comes from 13th century French and meant “condition, demeanour, appearance, dress”)
They must be replaced by new ones, otherwise like evicted demons they will return
Luke 11:24"When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first."
If we haven't succeeded in replacing our old bad ways with new good ways then staying as a Christian will get harder and harder.
Just as paramedics, policemen and readers learn more about how to do their jobs once they have the uniform on, than they ever did in training, so it is with Christians. If the skills and habits are not practised they will not grow.
Compassion – relieving someone else's suffering
Kindness – consideration for someone's feeling and needs
Humility – a reasonable view of ourselves, so we have a reasonable view of others
Meekness – the strength of character to know that mostly its not profitable to fight back
Patience – giving everyone a second, third, or seventieth chance
Forgiveness – not holding on to the hurt that offences cause and allowing the relationship to be restored.
and
Love – which bids all of these new qualities together
OK, so stand up, take a walk over to the mirror, how do you look? More like Christ than last time you looked?
