Colossians 3:1-17 (The Message)
A Whole New Wardrobe
The Message,
“So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective. . .
Your done with that old life. It’s like a filthy set of ill-fitting clothes you’ve stripped off and put in the fire. Now you’re dressed in a new wardrobe. Every item of your new way of life is custom-made by the Creator with his label on it.
Have you ever had an intense desire to change your clothes?
I remember a few years ago, when my daughter Emily and I flew to Minneapolis, MN to attend a conference. During a down time we visited the Mall of America. They have an indoor amusement park and rode the log ride. Have you ever sat in the front seat of a log ride? Have you ever been to an indoor amusement park with hundreds of people? Have you ever walked around the amusement park with pants on that have been splashed with water in the front from the zipper to the bottom of the legs? I wanted to change clothes. I really wanted to change clothes. The only problem with the whole deal was that you had to walk through the whole mall to get to the other side where the parking garage was. . . I walked fast and kept my head down. Never made eye contact with anyone.
I wanted a change of clothes.
1. To live a new life we must (take off) the (old) clothes of our former life.
The Bible clearly teaches that a person who becomes a follower and disciple of Jesus Christ will walk a new walk.
Following Christ means we walk in His ways.
Following Christ means we live in such a way that everything we do glorifies and brings praise to his name.
There should be a difference between Christians and the rest of the people in the culture in which we live.
You should expect Christians to be honest, kind, loving, full of compassion.
Are there some frauds around? Absolutely.
Do people disappoint you sometimes? Unfortunately yes.
The passage that I read to you is followed with words that describe the whole expectations that God has.
Col.
“Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life, even though it is invisible to spectators, is with Christ in God. . . And that means killing off everything connected with that way of death:
sexual promiscuity
impurity
lust
doing whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it
grabbing whatever attracts your fancy.
That’s all a life shaped by things and feelings instead of by God.”
You don’t think this is serious?
Maybe you don’t think that God really cares? The verses continue. . .
“It’s because of this kind of thing that God is about to explode in anger. It wasn’t long ago that you were doing all that stuff and not knowing any better. But you know better now, so make sure it’s all gone for good; bad temper, irritability, meanness, profanity, dirty talk. Don’t lie to one another. You’re done with that old life. It’s like a filthy set of ill-fitting clothes you’ve stripped off and put in the fire.”
I remember growing up in Waverly Ohio. At least that’s where I spent from third grade to ninth grade. My father pastored a church in which seventeen men became Christians during those years. They were husbands and fathers. Heads of households. What I remember most is the changed lives. When they would first come to church, they would look like the world, smell like the world, talk like the world. It would seemed like within days of accepting Christ and His way of walking through life that these men would begin to change. Literally they gained a new countenance. The habits and things of this world would begin to drop off. Do you know why so many men came to Christ? A lot of these men worked at the Mead paper plant. They worked with each other. They new each others habits and downfalls. Once they began to change, it was like a revival in the paper plant.
There is nothing that makes others hungry to know God than a changed man and woman who will walk in the newness of life that only God can give you.
It’s not about what you do in here. It’s not about how hard you worship, although that’s important. It is about how you live your life out there.
I don’t know how much clearer the word can be.
We are clearly called to put on a new wardrobe.
Gal. 6:
Don’t be mislead: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.
2. To live a new life we must (put on) the (new) clothes that God gives us.
“Now your dressed in a new wardrobe. Every item of your new way of life is custom made by the Creator, with His label on it.
So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you:
compassion,
kindness,
humility,
quiet strength,
discipline.
Be even tempered,
content with second place,
quick to forgive an offense.
Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of whatever else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.”
Do you get the picture this morning?
The apostle Paul, under the inspiration and anointing of God, has created a beautiful metaphor in this scripture.
It’s as simple as take off the old life and put on the new.
The old English versions of the Bible remind us to take off the old man and put on the new man.
We are new creatures in Christ Jesus.
We are recreated in the image of Him
He is our new role model.
Old things have passed away. All things have become new.
Annie Dillard, in her book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, writes:
At the end of the island I noticed a small green frog. He was exactly half in and half out of the water. He was a very small frog with wide, dull eyes. And just as I looked at him, he slowly crumpled and began to sag. The spirit vanished from his eyes as if snuffed. His skin emptied and drooped; his very skull seemed to collapse and settle like a kicked tent. .
An oval shadow hung in the water behind the drained frog: then the shadow glided away. The frog skin bag started to sink.
I had read about the water bug, but never seen one. “Giant water bug” is really the name of the creature, which is an enormous, heavy-bodied brown beetle. It eats insects, tadpoles, fish and frogs. Its grasping forelegs are mighty and hooked inward. It seizes a victim with these legs, hugs it tight, and paralyzes it with enzymes injected during a vicious bite. Through the puncture shoots the poison that dissolves the victim’s muscles and bones and organs –all but the skin—and through it the giant water bug sucks out all the victim’s body, reduced to liquid.
Sin can suck the life out of you.
You cannot walk with Christ and at the same time indulge yourself in the things you know to be contrary to what the Bible teaches.
Your spiritual effectiveness will be sucked out of you.
Your walk will be a walk filled with disappointment, guilt and discouragement.
The way to overcome this is to put on the new wardrobe that God provides through His son Jesus Christ.
The scripture says in Colossians:
“Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this is going off and doing your own thing. Let the Word of Christ –the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives –words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.”
A professor was invited to speak at a military base and was met at the airport by a soldier named Ralph. As they headed toward the baggage claim area, Ralph kept disappearing-once to help an older woman with her suitcase, once to lift two toddlers so they could see Santa Claus, and again to give someone directions. The professor asked him, "Where did you learn to live like that?" Ralph said, "During the war." He had served in Vietnam. His job was to clear minefields, and he saw friends die suddenly, one after another, before his eyes. He said, "I never knew whether the next one would be my last, so I learned to live between steps."
You and I are called to live for Christ between the steps. Walk in His way.
Use the metaphor here. . .
The decision to follow Christ is a choice for discipleship.
It is a decision that will effect every area of your life.
Don Calhoun worked for five dollars an hour at an office supply store in Bloomington, Illinois. He had attended two Chicago Bulls basketball games in his life, and now he was going to his third. When he strolled into the Chicago Stadium, a woman who worked for the Bulls organization walked up to him and told him they were selecting him to take part in a promotional event during the game called the Million Dollar Shot.
The Shot came after a time-out in the third quarter. If Calhoun could shoot a basket standing seventy-nine feet away—that means he had to stand behind the free throw line on the opposite end of the court and throw the ball three quarters of the length of the court—he would win a million dollars.
Calhoun played basketball at the Bloomington YMCA but he had never tried a shot like this before. He took the basketball in his hands and looked over at Michael Jordan and the rest of the Bulls. He could see they were pulling for him.
Calhoun stepped to the line and let fly. As soon as the basketball left his hand, coach Phil Jackson said, “It’s good.” Indeed, the ball went through the basket with a swish. The stadium crowd went wild. Calhoun rushed into the arms of Michael Jordan and the rest of the Bulls players crowded around slapping him on the back.
When Don Calhoun went home that night, he had only two dollars in his wallet, but he would receive fifty thousand dollars a year for the next twenty years of his life. Sometimes one action, one decision, one moment can change everything for you. So it is when you choose to receive Christ into your life.
Action steps
Take off the habits and things that are so defeating to you and your witness.
Put on the “clothes” that God has designed for those who bear his name.
