Galatians 3:23-29 June 23, 2013 (New Members Sunday) PUT ON CHRIST

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1 Galatians 3:23-29 June 23, 2013 (New Members Sunday) PUT ON CHRIST In order to be here this morning, I first had to put on my clothes. My Sunday morning routine of getting dressed is a little different than the rest of the days of the week. I take a little more time and make more of an effort to brush my hair and pick out just the right clothes because I want to look my best for the people who come to Sunday worship. When I dress my best on Sunday mornings, I feel better I feel more prepared and more confident to lead worship. So I guess you could say, not only do I put on my clothes, but MY CLOTHES CHANGE ME. I just wouldn t be the same me standing here before you if I was dressed in the pajamas I slept in last night! I would be very different, and so would your perception of me, based on nothing more than a change of clothes. So yes, it s true that we put on our clothes, and also, our clothes can change us. The externals do matter. This is the case, I think, even though Jesus criticized the religious leaders of his day for being MORE concerned about the visible rituals and outward practices of their religion then they were about the inner condition of their hearts. The internal and external practices of faith aren t always mutually exclusive things, because sometimes the externals of our faith, just like a change of clothing, can lead to a transformation on the inside, and a change of heart. When the apostle Paul wrote to the Galatian church about the change that was created in them through their baptism, he told them that Christ had made them all God s very own children. That leads me to wonder if the members of the Galatian church FELT like they were God s children in their hearts. Probably not, because if they did feel transformed by their baptisms, Paul probably wouldn t have had to write this letter. But maybe the inner feelings of the Galatians wasn t the point. Paul told them that, in baptism, they had to put on Christ. He used the image of outer clothing to talk about their new relationship to God in Christ. The labels by which the world categorized and pigeonholed people such as Jew and Greek, and male and female those labels now meant nothing because they had put on Christ. And the clothing of Christ covered over all those other external labels. In baptism we stand up in public and have water splashed on us in a very public, external and visible way, and that makes us a Christian. At the moment of our baptism we aren t all that we could be, should be and God wants us to be as followers of Jesus; but we re on our way. And that public,

2 2 external, visible act of baptism is a significant step in our progress as Christians. This morning, six people stood up here in front of us and publically declared their willingness and hopefully their enthusiasm and joy to become members of our faith community and join us in loving God and serving Christ together. They didn t join our church in a back room somewhere, or make their promises to this church and to the Lord behind some closed door. Rather, they stood up here where all of us could see them and said, Yes, I want to be a part of this faith community. I want to worship the Lord and minister to others with all of you. I haven t had a chance to ask them yet, but I m willing to bet that their public act had an internal, heart-felt effect on them. The fact that they came up front and publically pledged their fidelity to Christ and our church made that pledge all the more real, all the more important, and hopefully will help strengthen their desire and determination to carry out those pledges. Their external act of commitment to membership can be and is very important to their internal desire and resolve to be a faithful member of this church. I think sometimes we put a little too much emphasis on our inner attitudes, feelings and psychological condition, and it prevents us from taking action. For example, I don t always FEEL like a pastor. I get overtired, feel inept, say the wrong thing when I should have said something else, lose my temper, express frustration, and run out of patience. And there are days when I just don t feel like going out and being a pastor. So, what do I do? I get out of bed even if I do so reluctantly put on my shirt, and maybe a tie if it s Sunday, and I go out and act like a pastor anyway. I ll bet that sometimes it s like that for you, as well. You don t always FEEL like a Christian. Maybe you re not sure about what you believe, or don t know whether you believe at all. Maybe you felt strongly when you first became a follower of Jesus; you felt close to the Lord and sensed God s presence everywhere in your life; but then, as the years passed and life did its best to knock the stuffing out of you, your enthusiasm diminished and your faith wavered, a little, or maybe a lot. What then? How do you carry on as a follower of Christ when you don t necessarily FEEL like a follower of Christ? Well, you get out of bed even if you do it very reluctantly and you put on your Sunday best and go to church. Then you say the prayers, you sing the hymns, you listen for God s Word spoken to you through the Scriptures, and you pay attention to the sermon. And when things work and the Spirit moves, by the grace of God, at the end of the worship service YOU ARE a follower of Christ even if it s only for the rest of the day.

3 3 You ve become a Christian on the inside, in your heart, because you acted like a Christian on the outside. I was scanning a magazine one day and came across an article on Child Development. In that article the author wrote about the reason for and importance of play time for children. It stemmed from the author s own parenting experience. This is a brief portion of what the author said. When our children were young, we had a section of their playroom that we called the housekeeping corner. In that corner there was a little stove which I had made out of a wooden box, and a little refrigerator, likewise created from a few pieces of wood. Old pots and pans were available for them to use, as well. Also we had a rather large collection of dress up clothes. There was a firefighter s helmet, a police officer s cap, and other hats that adults would wear to work or to church. Our children would go to the housekeeping corner, put on those clothes, and ACT as if they were adults. They made pretend meals on the play stove, went off to work and returned home again, fought fires and arrested bad people, and solved a lot of problems in their imaginary world. To adults like us, this kind of pretending is nothing more than insignificant child s play or make believe. But most child psychologists believe that such play is the serious business of childhood. Children make believe they are adults and dress up like adults because one day they will NEED to grow up, to dress up like Mommy and Daddy FOR REAL, and go out and BE adults. Playtime for them is good practice for adult life That s actually a wonderful way to understand the purpose, meaning and significance of Sunday worship. We get all dressed up and act our way into a new sense of being. The idea is that if we get good enough at acting like Christians on Sunday, then we just might become Christians for real on Monday through Saturday. In other words, here in church on Sunday mornings we playfully, yet quite seriously, experiment with what it feels like to put on Christ. Just like putting on our clothes has an impact on how we perceive ourselves and how others perceive us, here in this holy place, in the House of God, we put on Christ and exchange one set of externals for another, casting aside the ways of the real world and taking up the ways of God s world. Then, at least for a time, we act like Jesus followers in public, before one another here in God s world; and as a result we take a significant step toward becoming genuine, heart-felt followers of Christ when we re out in the real world. Notice that I said we do it in public. A lot of us tend to think of religion as a private affair. But it really isn t. I would argue that there s

4 4 tremendous value in external, public religious practices because they can and do lead to a deeper internal and private commitment. A minister was talking to a young man one day about faithfulness within a marriage relationship. The young man, who had been married for several years, said to the minister, You know, I have to confess that when I put on a wedding ring back then, I had no idea what being married to another person and being faithful to them meant. But when you wear that wedding ring out in the world for a long enough time, it comes to you. One day you wake up and you ARE faithful. Maybe fidelity in marriage begins simply with a willingness to go out in public with a wedding ring! Another public sign of the Christian faith that comes to my mind is the Sacrament of baptism. It just so happens that I ve baptized four people in the past month in private ceremonies. And, as I do at all my baptisms, I made the sign of the cross on the foreheads of those four individuals three children and one adult. There s historical significance for doing that. The Christian Church borrowed the practice of making the sign of the cross on a baptized person s forehead from the Roman army almost two thousand years ago. Back then, when a man became a Roman soldier, he was branded, or marked on the forehead, with the sign of the emperor. This showed that he now owed his allegiance and his life solely to the Roman emperor. In the same way, the sign of the cross on the forehead of a baptized person is an external mark that shows to whom the baptized now belongs and owes his or her allegiance to: Jesus Christ. The mark of the cross is a sign that the baptized person has put on Christ. The whole point of my message this morning is that the externals of our faith have an important impact on our internal faith. They can transform our hearts and deepen our trust, our courage and our love. So, one of the best ways to be a Christian is, quite simply, to go out and start acting like a Christian. The outward, visible act of living as a follower of Jesus will ultimately lead us to become followers of Jesus internally, down in our hearts, and we will feel like Christians within. Let me share one more story with you to bring that point home one last time. There once was a young woman who promised to do one simple thing for God every day of her life: she vowed to end every day reading one chapter of her Bible. That s a rather small thing to do for God, when it comes down to it; but for whatever reason that s what she promised to do. Two years into that daily discipline of reading one chapter of her Bible daily, she talked with her minister and confessed to him that her life had changed. By ordering her life around that one little commitment, her

5 5 whole life became reordered. When others wanted her to stay out and party some more, she was forced to tell them that she had to go home and read her Bible before bedtime. They wanted to know why. She had to explain. And by explaining it to them, she became stronger in her faith. Her simple little external action had led to a significant internal transformation. That s how it often works. My friends, all of us who have been baptized have put on Christ. Do you FEEL like you re wearing Christ? Can you sense it? Do you believe it? If not, maybe there s some promise you need to make to God. Not necessarily something spectacular or impressive, but just the promise to do some little act that outwardly and tangibly signals your commitment to live for Jesus Christ. It would be sort of like putting on a police officer s badge or a firefighter s helmet or a minister s robe to help us remember who we are, whose we are, and the kind of people we re supposed to be. Because if we dress the part by putting on Christ, and we at least act the part of being a Christian on the outside, it will help us become a Christian on the inside. Our hearts will be influenced by our actions. So, starting today, may we begin to act our way into a new state of being, outwardly putting on Christ and looking like Christians on the outside, so that we might become genuine Christians in our hearts tomorrow. Amen.