“Clothing Ourselves”
Colossians 3:1-17
Let me ask you this, if you would:
How do you get up in the morning?
Do you have a hard time of it, needing a cup of coffee and a couple hours to get going?
Or do you leap out of bed, bright eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to face the day right away?
Each morning when we get up, we make a decision about what clothing we are going to wear.
Likewise, when we get up we make a decision whether or not to be like Christ, to dress in God’s grace-filled clothing.
We do this deliberately and every day so that our lives reflect the life of Christ.
Several years ago, I was feeling a bit spiritually adrift.
And when a Christian is feeling spiritually adrift, it’s not a “happy place.”
In any event, on New Year’s Eve of that year, I was with a group of family members and people were going around the table making New Year’s Resolutions.
I don’t usually do this…
…not for any particular reason, but I don’t usually do it.
But, that year I did make a resolution.
I said that I was going to resolve to work on my relationship with God, to improve it and to move forward in my walk.
Lo and behold, by the grace of God, I kept that resolution.
And to this day, there is no comparison to where I was then—spiritually—and where I am now.
Intentionality makes a big difference in our Christian lives.
God doesn’t force our hand.
We need to be proactive in our relationship with Christ.
It’s not something that just “happens.”
It involves a lot of choices…
…kind of like, what clothes am I going to wear?
Paul says, in Chapter 2: “You were buried with [Christ] and raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead,” and “you died with Christ to the way the world thinks and acts…”
One theologian writes: “This is one of the classic New Testament passages that speak, in effect, of ‘sanctification,’ that is, of the new life that the Holy Spirit works in us” once we have been saved.
Sanctification is a work of grace…a work of God that also involves us.
We participate in it.
And Paul uses the metaphor of clothing to try and get across what our role is.
We lay aside, one coat, shall we say, and we put on another.
We take off one pair of socks and we put on another.
We take off our old self with its anger, wrath, malice, slander and abusive language, impurity and so forth and we put on our new nature with its “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.”
This is a way of talking about a change in our condition…
…A radical change that Christ works in us as we intentionally meet together as Christians, worship, serve others, humble ourselves, forgive, pray, read the Bible, share our faith…
…as we, imitate Christ…
…as we wear Christ as our clothing, taking Him as our model.
Could there be anything better?
Way back in Genesis Chapter 1 we are told that “God created humanity in God’s own image, in the divine image God created them, male and female God created them.”
But of course, that image has been blurred, perverted and distorted due to sin.
We have a broken relationship with our Creator, but through Christ we are being restored in the image of our Creator which makes it possible to live life as it was originally intended to be lived.
Imagine that, you and I, all of us were created in “God’s own…divine image”!!!
And that image is being restored through our daily walk with God as we “take off the old human nature,” like an old filthy rotten set of clothing and “put on the new nature” which is like being dressed in a new wardrobe where everything is custom made by our Creator, with God’s label on it.
As Eugene Peterson’s “The Message” puts it: “for this new life of love, dress in the clothes God has picked out for you.”
Paul says, we are to “be tolerant with each other and…” we are to “forgive each other.”
And in order to do this, we must be humble.
In his biography of “Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy,” author Eric Metaxas talks about a time when young Bonhoeffer visited a church in Belgium where the folks worshipping were, to quote Bonhoeffer, “almost exclusively…prostitutes and their men.”
Bonhoeffer is quoted to say: “It was an enormously impressive picture, and once again one could see quite clearly how close, precisely through their fate and guilt, these most heavily burdened people are to the heart of the gospel…
…it’s much easier for me to imagine a praying murderer, a praying prostitute, than a vain person praying.
Nothing is so at odds with prayer as vanity.”
I think we could say, “Nothing is so at odds with Christianity as vanity.”
There is no doubt, it is one of the devil’s favorite sins.
It creeps up on all of us, at times.
And so, Jesus, over and over again in the Gospels reminds us to humble ourselves.
And Paul tells us in Colossians that humility is one of the pieces “of clothing” Christ followers are to dress ourselves in.
“Kindness, humility, gentleness and patience,” all held together by “love.”
This is a picture of Christ…
…and this is a picture of who we, as His followers and disciples are to seek to be, imitate and reflect.
Can you imagine the impact the church would have on the world if we all took this to heart and took it seriously?
I know it is hard.
Resisting temptation and sin, moving toward sanctification is probably the hardest task any of us will ever attempt.
And Jesus knows how hard it is.
Look at the pain He endured in the wilderness after His baptism.
Or how about in the garden of Gethsemane, before His arrest and Crucifixion?
He prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not my will, but as you will.”
“Not my will, but as you will.”
Imagine praying this prayer, honestly and living into it every minute of every day.
That is what Jesus did.
And we are not Jesus.
But we are called to imitate Him.
For as Paul tells us in Colossians, this is how we “let the peace of Christ rule in [our] hearts.”
And isn’t peace what all of us need more than anything?
Isn’t this what we crave?
I’m not talking about an outward peace, but of course, wouldn’t that be nice?
But I am talking about an inward peace of heart and mind.
I don’t know if many of us experience a whole lot of that, but Jesus did say: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.
I do not give as the world gives.
Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”
The people in Colosse—who are the folks Paul was writing to in Colossians—were struggling with their identity.
They were a very young church and they had become confused by false teaching that caused them to question Who Jesus was and, as a result, who THEY were.
Definitely not a very peaceful situation to be in.
It appears that the false teachers were tempting them to follow a deceptive philosophy whereby the salvation of Christ wasn’t enough.
And Paul is reminding them of the power of God in Jesus Christ by essentially saying that because of their relationship with Christ they have the ability to leave behind their old lives of sin.
Thus, verse 9 where Paul says, “Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.”
In Greek, the word for “put on” literally means to sink into clothing.
It means to dress in the clothes of faith.
Like the Colossians, we have been chosen by God and called as holy and beloved, so Paul instructs us as well to put on as clothing the traits of a life lived in Jesus Christ.
And the clothing of Christ is the opposite of what we wore before we knew Christ.
It is the clothing of unconditional love.
It is a garment of compassion, exhibited in kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.”
This clothing of Jesus is the external manifestation of an inward reality.
Just as a uniform for a police officer or a doctor tells the world what they do, when we wear the clothing of Christ we tell the world who we are in Him.
But this is not about trying to “dress the part” of Christianity by pretending to be something we aren’t.
As one person so aptly puts it: “The clothing of Christianity is much more like a uniform where the experience of forgiveness and divine love, driven by the needle of God’s Word, stitches within us hearts of peace and gratitude.
It’s out of this experience that we can humbly be draped in the beautiful garments of faith so that everything we do is motivated by and empowered by Jesus Christ through God’s Spirit.”
I like that description and it is the ideal.
So, in case we get discouraged that we don’t live up to this reality—which no one does—we have to remember that the life of faith is a process of progression toward sanctification.
And if we could be perfect on our own, why would Jesus need to come and die and shed His blood on our behalf in order that we be saved by grace through faith alone?
But we are always to keep in mind the words of Paul in Ephesians Chapter 2, where he writes: “we are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
Are you confused?
Don’t worry about it.
It’s all about Jesus anyway.
Believe in Him, read the Word and live it.
Ask God daily, and minute by minute to dress you in the outfit He created for you to wear, and ask always “not my will, but as you will.”
May it be so.
Amen.
