Sermon Notes — September 29, 2024
September 29, 2024
Colossians 3:12-17
“Dressing Up for Christian Conferencing”
Dr. Craig Goff
Did you ever play dress up as a child? It’s just part of growing up.
Sometimes little girls like to dress up as ballerinas or as a princess, little boys will pin a towel around their neck and jump off a chair in the spirit of the superhero.
Sometimes we adults like to dress-up. Maybe you’ve seen the flyers or slides about Trunk ‘R Treat which is coming up next month. You can dress up and decorate the back of your car. It is a lot of fun.
Regardless of your age, dressing up gives you permission to be someone different, at least for a short time.
One of my most meaningful experiences of worship here at Bethlehem is when a bunch of us guys dressed up as Biblical characters and recreated the scene in the Upper Room at the Last Supper. It was powerful.
In our text today, the Apostle Paul kind of asks us to “dress up,” not in terms of attire, but to think about living the holy life God has for us to live in terms of what we take on and what we put on.
That holiness enables us to live together and to serve God as a community.
Here are verses 12-17 again.
Taking off the old and putting on the new is at the heart of Christian holiness.
If you grew up on a context like the one I experienced early in my spiritual journey, the subject of holiness may not be all that appealing. I get that.
I have had discussion with people here at Bethlehem who were taught that holiness has to do more with the actual clothes you wear than with the fruit of the spirit.
For some reason those standards of holiness tended to make more demands on women than men. Women could not wear make-up. They had to wear dresses — long dresses – below the knee, no shorts, no pants, jewelry was suspect and frowned upon.
I understand the importance of modesty, but when you begin to define holiness by how people look outwardly, you are going to miss what it is really all about -- which is putting off sin and putting on the fruit of the Spirit. Putting on Christlikeness.
I wish I could tell you that is an easy process. But actually taking off the old stuff Paul is talking about is not easy at all. To take off all our bitterness, negativity, pride , anger and all that stuff and put on Christ and the fruit of the Spirit is not as easy as taking off a sweater and putting on a sports coat, at least it’s not easy for the vast majority of people.
One reason it is not that easy is because, we try to put on joy and peace and kindness and other manifestations of the fruit of the Spirit, before we remove some of those yucky things, before we take off anger, jealousy and self-centeredness.
It just doesn’t work. We can’t feel real peace and harmony if we are fantasizing about getting even with someone who has done us wrong. Trust me, I know, I’ve tried it, it just doesn’t work. You’ve got to let go of that stuff.
Easier said than done, I know, which is why it is not an easy process. It is not easy, but most things worth doing aren’t easy.
Our baptism and membership vows in the United Methodist Church speak to our need to take off what is evil and put on what is good.
However, I in the interest of full transparency, I will say, I used to be puzzled by the structure of our membership liturgy.
If you have a hymnal in front of you, turn to page 34. If you don’t have one in front of you, here is what it says:
On behalf of the whole church, I ask you:
Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness,
Reject the evil powers of this world,
And repent of your sin?
That sounds a lot like our text from Colossians, doesn’t it?
Take off all that old stuff….(the wickedness, the evil). I get that. I am glad it is in our membership vows. What used to puzzle me is where it comes in the order of the membership vows. It comes before confessing Jesus as our Savior and putting our whole trust in his grace.
Technically, we can’t take off the clothing of our sinful nature until we allow Christ into our lives.
But we Methodists do believe salvation is not just a one and done, it is a process.
It is a process in which we consciously and intentionally put off the old ways of our sinful self behind us and put on the new. As Paul says we are to:
“Clothe ourselves with Christ’s attributes of humility and gentleness, forgiveness and love.”
They may not fit perfectly at first, because we are trying to hold on to some other stuff, but the more we take off pride and anger and lying and fear and lust, the better they fit and the more joy and peace we experience.
As Terry mentioned in his sermon last week, John Wesley once said, “there is no holiness, but social holiness,” which means that all these Christ-like characters we are to put on have to do with our relationship with God and one another.
Today’s theme in our Roots worship series is “Christian Conferencing,” which is all about the conversations we have with one another as we seek to follow Jesus.
We don’t just put on kindness and gentleness for ourselves, but for one another, we are in this thing together. We are family, and as the old saying goes, “you can pick your friends, but you are stuck with your family.”
Christian Conferencing is all about how we live together in a way that honors God and attracts others to become followers of Jesus.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think that has ever been more of a challenge than it is right now.
There are always going to be those in the church who don’t see things the way we do, which is another way of saying conflict is unavoidable in the church.
Personally, I wish we could avoid conflict in the church, but you can’t and learning to address conflict in a healthy way is a good thing. I have been in a conversation with a former church member who I know loves God and is a good person, who doesn’t see things the way I do when it comes to interpreting the 2nd amendment and how to keep children and others safe in our world and in how the church should enter that conversation. We don’t see it the same, but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from one another.
We are always going to have points of disagreement in the church which is perhaps why Paul says in verse 14:
Above all else, clothe yourself with love, which binds everything in perfect harmony.
We can disagree with one another and still be in harmony if we love another. And if we don’t love one another, what is all this church stuff about?
Paul goes on to say, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.”
The texts of the Bible that point us to Christ are not just concepts to be understood and maybe debated, they are words that can transform the very fiber of our being.
They are words that can help us in this taking off the old and putting on the new process of holiness
When we put on Christ, and take on the fruit of the Spirit, we begin to look different.
Let me ask us a question:
If those who are not Christians do not notice any difference between our lives and theirs, how much are we really being formed in Jesus?
I love Trevecca. I am a graduate of Trevecca. My wife teaches at Trevecca. I was on staff with the president of Trevecca when he was the senior pastor of the college church at Trevecca.
But at one time they ran a promotional piece that troubled me a little bit. It said something like, “our graduates fit perfectly into the world’s work place.”
I wanted to say, “Really? Perfectly? I thought our role as Christians is to challenge things in this world that are ungodly and unjust.”
We have to be different from the world or we are no different from the world.
Believe it or not we can get way too tame and comfortable with the status quo even in the church. As John Maxwell used to say: “if we always do what we’ve always done, we will always get what we’ve always gotten.”
I had an opportunity recently with some other pastors to spend some time in Christian conferencing with our new bishop. One of the things we told him is that we are ready to be led. He said, “Do you really mean that? Are you sure?”
He said, “When I was a District Superintendent and I met with churches planning to receive a new pastor, they would often say, ‘we want a leader.’ But he said, “more often than not, they really didn’t. They didn’t want a leader. They actually wanted someone to do what they wanted them to do.”
So, if nothing else, I think our new bishop is pretty straightforward and honest.
I heard about another District Superintendent who was meeting with a church planning to receive a new pastor and she asked “what are you looking for in a pastor?”
The leaders of the church said, “Someone who can attract young families.” This made sense since they were in decline and needed young families. But she said, “What is about your church now, young families would find attractive.”
They couldn’t think of anything. So she said, “Well what attracted you to the church when you first started attending?” One person said, “This is where I can see my friends.” Another person said, “This is where I get a sense of belonging and where my friendships are formed.” The D.S. said, “These days, people under 35 are doing all that out in the ball field where their kids are playing ball or at other events the children are involved in. They don’t need the church to find friends or for fellowship. What else can the church offer?
“We stock a food pantry and take a meal to the homeless shelter.” She said, “Well, there are lots of other groups who do those kinds of things too.”
She said, “Have you thought about telling the people of your community the difference Jesus can make in their life? They said, “That is far too personal.”
That is pretty personal, but that is what following Jesus and a life of holiness is all about and what Christian conferencing can help us accomplish.