You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
Ephesians 4:22-24 NIVUK
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 one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.
Colossians 3:12-14, 16 NIVUK
Christianity and fashion have never had the easiest of relationships. Take me, for example. I dress like I believe that fashion might one day catch up with me, safe and comfortable in the knowledge that it probably never will.
Fashion caused me quite a conundrum when I was in Romania in two ways.
Firstly around standards of dress in churches. Romanian churches were very strict on dress standards at the time: shirts and trousers for boys; headscarves and long skirts for girls.
This might seem like a burden. However, it did present you with one particular advantage. You see, if you were ever out and about after a Sunday evening service, doing what the great preacher Tony Campolo called 'admiring the beauty of God's creation', you could very quickly identify which members of the opposite sex may be safe to admire further and which were more likely to be, for want of a better expression, off limits.
All was fine and dandy. Until the Romanian fashion industry decided to throw a sizeable spanner in the works. You see, some bright spark decided that the long skirt and headscarf look was 'in'. All of a sudden, those evening promenades to the local town square became a little more complicated. A nice, clean cut Christian boy could see a desirable companion, decide to move in closer for a better look, and then be confounded by the stench of cigarette smoke, cheap wine breath and cursing. He'd then think to himself, 'I don't know which church she goes to, but I'm definitely not paying it a visit.'
Not that it ever happened to me, of course.
And then there's one of my favourite places in the city of Brasov, although I believe it's been closed for a long time. An old friend of mine from my missionary days worked for a Christian literature organisation who ran a bookstore not far from Council Square. She was also a very talented baker and persuaded them to open a little bakery underneath the bookstore.
It became a very popular place to hang out - especially after a hard day preaching or ministering in two or three different churches on a Sunday. I would go there after the evening service, have a cake and a juice, hang out for a bit, wind down and go home.
Well, young people flocked there in huge numbers. Whole churches were emptied of their young folk, who piled into cars and trolley buses and headed for the bakery.
But then they discovered hormones.
I usually headed there as soon as I could to get a good table. In the beginning, it was hard to find a seat. But as time went on, the young people were arriving later and later.
The reason?
These young people would head home, change out of their church clothes, put on more attractive clothes and head down to the bakery for more than just the cakes and the juice. They were on the proverbial prowl. And the clothes they were dressed in? No different from those worn by the other young people hanging out in the nearby square.
And the flirting? A parade of nervous awkwardness. My boss and I were around ten years older than them. People watching there was tremendously entertaining. It was like a teenage, but still repressed, version of the Discovery Channel.
But what did I learn from these two incidents?
Don't listen to the vacuous fashion shows. Clothes do not make a person. People make clothes. You don't make a soul clean by covering it in a long skirt and a headscarf, or a mildly mafioso suit.
Dress codes are no sense codes.
If you try to change the clothes without changing the heart, then you'll lose the heart. But if you change the heart, the clothes will change on their own.
Christians who believe in or enforce dress standards or codes for people who come to church have forgotten an important encounter between God and the prophet Samuel:
But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.’
1 Samuel 16:7 NIVUK
We cannot be so obsessed with clothing that we forget to minister to people's hearts. If the Lord wants them to change how they dress, He will deal with it. In the meantime, we must learn to accept people as they are - the same way Christ accepted us.
The Bible does, however, speak of clothing we must take off, cleansing we must undergo and clothing we must put on.
Firstly, clothing we must take off:
You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;
Ephesians 4:22 NIVUK
The Greek word translated as 'put off' means not just 'to take off' or 'to set aside', but also 'to renounce'. In other words, we must be completely and utterly done with our old, sinful life.
The writer to the Hebrews puts it more graphically:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Hebrews 12:1-3 NIVUK
The image that's borrowed here is of the Greek olympics. You see, the athletes there wanted to run their fastest. And so they took a radical step. They ran their races butt naked. Not a stitch of clothing on them. Bare as they day they were born.
Please don't try to imagine it - I believe that would be one of the behaviours we should take off, set aside and renounce. But you have to admire their ruthless determination and courage. I'm sure the first male or female athlete that stood in the middle of the arena and completely disrobed would have heard some interesting noises from the stands. But they didn't care. They were to win. At all costs.
Paul's point in Ephesians is that we should exhibit the same level of ruthlessness when it comes to sin. If we find ourselves in a situation when wrong behaviours and attitudes, or even inappropriate behaviours and attitudes, are holding us back from following God with all our heart, then we should shed them like a snake or a reptile sheds their scaly skin.
This is something Jesus Himself agrees with:
If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.
Matthew 5:29-30 NIVUK
Now we might think of these verses as referring to sinful thoughts and deeds - and we would be correct. There are very helpful lists of these in Ephesians 4:25-31, Galatians 5:19-21, Colossians 3:5-10 and in other passages in the Bible.
But these lists are not exclusive. We could read every pastoral letter in the Bible and still not come up with a complete list of thoughts and attitudes that hold us back and drag us down. That's why the passage in Hebrews talks of 'everything that hinders', which is also translated as 'every weight' - the Greek word is similar to an arm flexed carry a heavy weight.
In other words, we are to let go of and set aside, not just the sins that entangle us (in the same way traditional Greek robes would have tripped up a runner), but anything that holds us back and causes us to struggle unnecessarily as we follow Christ.
This might mean loosening our grip on things that are not morally wrong, but are wrong for us.
Let me give you an example. When I was a teenager and heading into my twenties, there were types of music and various bands around whose music I enjoyed, but whose lyrics were quite depressing. They stretched from naval-gazing, introspective indie rock to grunge to punk, to even Scottish twists on Americana. Many of these songs were on constant rotation on my Walkman (yes, I am that old) and my stereo at home. I even saw some of those bands in concert.
But they weren't helpful to me. They weren't positive and affirming. Those with a stronger sense of self-worth and self-esteem might have found those lyrics almost laughable, but not me. I understood them. I believed them.
They weren't wrong. But they were for me. And it took me years to break out of their morose grip.
But the next stage is where as Christians we are most tempted to put the cart before the horse:
to be made new in the attitude of your minds;
Ephesians 4:23 NIVUK
You see, we move now from clothing we must take off to cleansing we must undergo, and this is where we get confused. As Christians, we believe that the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin (Hebrews 9:14). And that is absolutely right.
But have you tried cleansing anyone, or any animal, that doesn't want to be clean?
We had a Jack Russell as a pet when I was a boy. He hated baths. If you tried put him in it, he'd either run away, whine like you were being heartlessly cruel to him or shake every drop off before you could dry him with a towel.
Having a little dog was great training for being the father of a toddler. Although dogs never need changing...
Here is exactly the problem. The pattern is set in Scripture. It's repent then believe (Mark 1:15; Acts 19:4, 20:21; Hebrews 6:1).
To believe in Jesus we have to first disbelieve the world.
To take a hold of Jesus, we must first let go of our sin.
To have a renewed mind that discerns the will of God, we must first be a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God (Romans 12:1).
To be made new in the attitude of our minds, we must first take off our old self.
Our ability to have a mind that is sensitive to God's leading and guiding is absolutely, one hundred percent dependent on our ability to repent when we are confronted with our sin. As the psalmist explains:
Come and hear, all you who fear God; let me tell you what he has done for me. I cried out to him with my mouth; his praise was on my tongue. If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened; but God has surely listened and has heard my prayer. Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me!
Psalms 66:16-20 NIVUK
Or as John puts it:
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.
1 John 1:5-10 NIVUK
If we've been working hard and smell quite, well, ripe, we won't make the smell go away by simply changing our clothes. We need to wash. But to wash, we need to take our dirty clothes off first. That is essentially what the Bible writers are explaining to us. We need to recognise our sins as sins, lay them aside, renounce them and repent of them if we want to be made clean.
It simply isn't possible for us to cling onto our old, sinful, obstructive ways and, at the same time, live a life that truly pleases God.
So we see the clothing we must put off and the cleansing we must undergo - and how one is absolutely conditional on the other.
Lastly, let's look at the clothing we must put on:
and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
Ephesians 4:24 NIVUK
Elsewhere Paul tells the Corinthians these words:
So from now on we regard no-one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here!
2 Corinthians 5:16-17 NIVUK
And the Philippians these words:
being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
Philippians 1:6 NIVUK
You see, many, many sermons have been preached and books written about the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). But if we think these fruit will just 'magically' appear if we attend some prayer meetings or read certain books or attend certain retreats, we are badly mistaken. The Bible is clear that effort is required on our part, and that we partner with God in this work (Philippians 2:12-13).
As Christians, there ought to be a massive difference in our behaviour and attitudes compared to those around us. It ought to be completely and utterly obvious that we are fundamentally different. And not in a weird or fundamentalist way. We're not called to be wackos or extremists. Not by God anyway.
No, people should look at us and see Jesus reflected as in a perfectly polished mirror. They ought to see the fruit of the Spirit in us, regardless of our history or past.
But how does that happen?
It happens when we see our sins as they are and decide to clean house. It happens when we renounce them and take them off. It comes when we come to God for cleansing. It comes when our desires and affections are no longer divided and we are seeking God and all that is His, at all costs.
That is when the transformation really happens.
Christians always have the greatest and most attractive sense of fashion. And I'm not talking about headscarves, suits, ankle-length dresses and hats, accessorised by Bibles big enough to conceal a lethal weapon. I'm not talking about the 'Holy Mafia'.
I'm talking about us being clothed with a righteousness that comes from God, a righteousness that we put on over a body and mind that have been cleansed. I mean a life that speaks of the transformational power of the grace of God before we even open our mouths.
I'm talking about a life that proves conclusively that we are the real deal.
And that only happens if we are committed to these three steps of taking off, cleansing and putting on. Not just once in our life. Not even a few times. But every day. Every single day.
This shouldn't be a surprise to us. Jesus gave us instructions about dealing with issuss between us and other people in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:23-26). The same concept of dealing with breakages in relationships and self-examination is hard-baked into the Lord's Supper (1 Corinthians 11:27-32).
And a real Christian understands this. A real Christian is focused on growing and being a better follower of Jesus Christ. So a real Christian will willingly take off and renounce behaviours that don't help them follow Jesus. They will come to God to have their conscience cleansed. And they will put on the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
A real Christian isn't perfect, and isn't afraid or unwilling to admit it. But they are getting better. And by getting better, their life attracts others to follow Jesus.
Questions
Are there thoughts, attitudes and behaviours that you need to take off and renounce because they're hindering you from following Jesus?
Are you struggling with a guilty conscience that needs to be cleansed? Are you willing to take the steps necessary for cleansing to take place?
Which of the fruit of the Spirit do you lack the most? Which thoughts, attitudes or behaviours are you willing to trade to gain it?
Comments