God Continues to Clothe Us (2)
(God's Magnificent Work through Christ)
Eph 4:29-32, 5:1-2
We are in God’s department store. God carefully tailors clothes for each one
of us. He knows our names, individually. His designs are custom-made for each one
of us. What a joy that God clothes us!
5. Clothes of Compassion (31-32)
“Get
rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. (31)
The word bitterness is a critical word. We become bitter when we refuse to
reconcile with God, with people, or even with ourselves. Bitterness starts from a hardened HEART that
does not allow grief to be healed. When we are bitter, our mind does not see
any other “alternatives” and Paul’s list becomes a reality:
Rage (wrath), anger (we spoke
about this in previous sermon), brawling (clamor, outcry, shouting explosively),
slander the Greek word blasphmeia,
(like gossip, speaking evil behind a person), malice (wickedness, wishing ill
toward someone.)
Let these things put away, bad old
clothes that can ruin us. We cannot do it alone. We need Christ.
How was David examining his life?
“Search me, O God, and examine my
heart;
And see if
wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm
139:23-24a).
In other translations:
“And see if there be any
grievous way in me” (ESV)
“And see if there be hurtful
way in me” (NASB)
If you have had painful experiences, you may pray this in
your heart. “Lord, my heart is in pain,
and I am not reconciled. I know that pain will make me bitter if left without
healing, and eventually it will destroy me. I need a new heart and new clothes
O Lord”.
-Paul quickly gives an alternative lifestyle, new clothes
by God:
“Be kind and compassionate to one
another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” (32)
The word “kindness” in Greek is chrestos.
From that same root we get the word Christian.
Chrestos means “imparting good to others in a gentle
and generous way.”
It means also “to be useful to
others.” This was the mark of Christians in the First Century.
The word “forgiving each other” is another important
new clothing. The Greek word is charizomai, The word includes chariz,
which means grace. So the
word forgiving means, “to be gracious, kind, benevolent; graciously to restore one another.”
(Thayer’s Lexicon)
All these virtues mentioned above
have something to do with treating others, our relationships. Without compassion and forgiveness, I am
not sure how the body can function. The best example is how God treats us.
Without God’s compassion and love, where would I be? Where would you be?
We grow as a body of believers
when we forgive each other and have compassion towards each other. Forgiveness
is the heart of the gospel. We need to learn to be clothed with the clothes of
compassion.
Do you find yourself bitter?
Maybe you did not allow God’s love
to shape you. Maybe you did not experience God’s forgiveness in your life. If
God is compassionate and affectionate towards us, then we do not have a choice!
Finally, we need to be imitators of God (5:1-2)
“Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly
loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave
himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
I remember when I became a teenager,
I started to care more about what I wore, how I combed my hair, what color I
chose for clothes and so on. Of course I learned to imitate someone. John
Travolta was one of them in 1970s. Do you remember the movie called Saturday
Night Fever? We boys learned to walk like John Travolta.
How about the children of the family? Children when they are young always want to
look and act like their parents. Children imitate their parents. They imitate
both the positive and negative behaviors. Therefore, we all learn from someone,
somewhere. How about our God being our parent? Paul is urging us to be
imitators of our Heavenly Father.
“Walk in Love, live a life of love” is what is
required to be imitators of God, and an example is Christ himself.
Here is one of my favorite verses in the Bible
which meant a lot to me when I first became a Christian:
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no
longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by
faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Gal 2:20)
This clothing business is accomplished with one basic clothing:
-Get
Christ in your life, and learn how to die to the old life by accepting the new
life.
-Then
the world needs your new clothes to be shared.
Some examples:
-Rev. Haig Hovsepian,
an Iranian Armenian pastor believed in “wearing Christ, and being imitator of
God” in his ministry. Besides being a pastor and evangelist, he helped a Iranian pastor who was convert from Islam to Christianity
to be out of prison. But this act was costly. Rev. Haig lost his life. He was
assassinated. He became the sacrifice, “just as Christ loved us and gave
himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God”.
-A testimony by a Romanian pastor Richard Wurmbrand, who spent many years imprisoned for his faith:
“Would you accept? More than once in Communist
prisons I have seen a pastor receive a beating to the blood in place of another
prisoner. A name would be called and the pastor would simply say, “It is I.” In
Jesus did this exactly on the cross so we can
be delivered. I cannot save people from their sins but can show His kindness.
Remember, we are called Christians. And chrestos means
“imparting good to others in gentle and generous way.”
We need to share what Christ gave us, His
GRACE, compassion and love.
We live in the
I see needs, and not because I am pastor, but because
I tune my ears to hear the needs and act.
I saw a movie called the Soloist. It is a tragic and hopeful movie. It was a secular movie,
but if you ask me it has a strong message to all of us. A talented man who was
very good in music became homeless. He even was admitted to Julliard School of
Music and attended a couple of years. He lost everything because of an illness
called Schizophrenia. But this journalist, who was searching
for story to write, accidentally found him and became his friend. He did not
cure him, in fact there was no cure, but the message of the film was how friendship
and kindness helped this homeless man find a new hope in life.
What about us? We are Christians. Do we reflect God’s
kindness? Are we living with the clothes given by God?
Are we living like CHRISTIANs, Chrestos?
Allow the Holy Spirit to shape
you. Do not grieve the Spirit of God.
Amen