“Take It All Off”

A sermon based upon Colossians 3: 5-11 (THE MESSAGE)

By Rev. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

The Third Sunday of Easter, April 14, 2013

In our younger years, my wife and I loved to camp.    Once, we tried camping in Germany, so I asked my chair of deacons to suggest a camping site not far away from us.   He suggested a beautiful place in the mountains, outside of Dresden and not far from the border with the Czech Republic.  They even had an antique German train you could ride and a lake for swimming.

The morning after we had camped our first night, our daughter wanted to go swimming.  Since it was still very chilly, around 60 or so degrees, we were not going swimming, but we took our daughter anyway.  We were the first ones at the lake shore, so we made ourselves comfortable in our own little spot as our daughter started to play in the edge of the cool water. 

Not long after we settled down, still in our jeans and long sleeves, a grandfather and his young grandson came and made their spot near us.  The next thing that happened shocked us.   The grandfather helped his grandson undress down to his ‘birthday suit’.   Then the grandfather did the same.   We could not believe it.  But it got worse.   In the next hour the entire campground was full of people in the very same attire.  I could not believe that my German deacons had recommended a nudist colony for our family vacation.  But really they didn’t.  I later found out that this was the norm for bathing and swimming in eastern Germany.   I had a missionary friend in Germany who later told me that his own chairman of deacons tried to get him to go on vacation with him many times.  Jim always refused, saying, “I’m not going on vacation with all my clothes off.” 

I’ve only been to one ‘nudist colony’, but I wouldn’t recommend it.   I don’t think the apostle Paul would recommend it either but he does want us to ‘take it all off’.   Paul knows that you can’t put on your Easter clothes until you take off your old wardrobe.   Before you put Easter on, you have to take off your normal, everyday clothes.  It is even sillier than going to a nudist colony to try to wear Easter without taking your old clothes off.    You can’t wear different sets of clothing at the same time.   But some people do try it.

YOU MUST STRIP IT ALL OFF
Max Lucado tells the story of Bob, who was born into the land of coats!  His mother loved the color blue and made Bob's first cost a lovely shade of blue. Every time she noticed her son in his lovely blue coat, she cheered, "Yes, Bob!" He felt good in his blue coat, but Bob had to grow up and go to work. So he put on his best blue coat and slipped out of the house, going to his new job. The people on the street saw him and began to yell, "Yuk, Yuk!" Their coats were yellow and they hated blue.

Into a store ducked Bob and bought a yellow coat, put it over his blue coat and continued on his way to work. The people cheered, "Yea! Bob!" Bob felt good in his yellow coat over his blue coat. He stepped into his bosses office to get his assignment for that first day. He sat waiting for this boss, who came in, looked at him and yelled, "Yuk!" Bob jumped up, took off the yellow coat and stood waiting for approval in his blue coat. The boss yelled, "Double Yuk! Bob. Here at work we wear green coats!" With that, Bob slipped back on the yellow coat, over the blue coat and put the green coat on top. "Yea! Bob!" said the boss. As he left for work, Bob felt good.

After work, Bob slipped off the green coat, put it under the yellow coat and walked proudly home. He opened the door, went inside, as his mother looked at him with a "Yuk" on her lips. Bob quickly changed coats, putting the lovely blue one on top. Mom whispered, "Yea! Bob!"

Bob got so good at changing coats until he became a popular man around town. He changed coats so swiftly until he had folks fooled into believing that whatever coat they had on, he had it on too. Bob loved hearing the crowd say, "Yea! Bob!" He couldn't stand hearing "Yuk" Bob was elected mayor of the Town of Coats and had a faithful constituency. One day he heard a noise outside of his window and then heard a pounding on his door. The Yellow Coats brought in a man wearing no coat. "Kill him!" they cried, "he doesn't fit in!" In his yellow coat, Bob said, "Leave him to me."

"Man, where is your coat?" he asked. The man said, "I wear no coat." Bob replied, "everybody wears a coat. What color do you choose?" The man responded the second time, "I wear no coat." By then the Green Coats had gathered under Bob's window. Running to the window, his green coat on top, Bob yelled down to them, "I have it under control." The Green Coats shouted, "Kill him!" At this time his mother entered into the room, and Bob slipped his blue coat on top. "Bob, where is his blue coat?" Mother asked, The Man replied, "I don't wear a coat." "Kill him," said Mother as she left Bob and the man alone.

"Man, said Bob, you have to wear a coat or they are going to kill you." "Bob," said the man, "you need to decide to stop wearing your different coats.  Take them off, take them all off and let the world see who you truly are." "Take them off? Take them all off?" asked an incredulous Bob. The man said again, "Bob, you have to make a choice."  As the crowd kept crying, "Kill him!" Bob washed his hands, opened the door and marched the man toward sure death. The man looked at Bob, with one final word, "Choose." Bob was left alone with his three coats and the questions ringing in his mind, "Take them off? Take them all off?"

When Paul wrote tor to the Colossians, the people of God were wrestling with all kinds of questions about Jesus.   They were confused about which kind of “Christian” , “Religious” or “Philosophical” coat to put on.  They had the same question that many still have: Who was Jesus?  Was he a wonderful human teacher, Divine Son of God or some combination of the two?   Even today, people still try to figure Jesus out, making him out to be a combination of great human intellect, strains of Judaism with Christian truth and Greek wisdom.   Then and now, there are so many ways to look at Jesus and still miss what Jesus was about.  Paul deals with all the question about the divinity, death and resurrection of Jesus and explains how this world's teachings are empty compared with God's plan for us in Jesus Christ.   In his way, Paul seems to say that the Christian life is not about figuring Jesus out, nor it is merely about believing in him.   The Christian life, that is the resurrected life, he speaks about is much more than figuring Jesus out, but it is living in a constant, continual, and daily relationship with a living Lord whom we can’t figure out, but we still follow. 

Listen to the Peterson translation, called The Message, as I read Chapter 3, verses 1-11:  Sisters and brothers, if you are 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 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 old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life--even though invisible to spectators--is with Christ in God. Christ is your real life. When Christ shows up again on this earth, you'll show up too--the real you, the glorious you.   Meanwhile, be content with obscurity, like Christ. That means killing off everything connected with the way of death, sexual promiscuity, impurity, lust, doing whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it and grabbing whatever attracts your fancy. That's a life shaped by things and feelings instead of by God. 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 and dirty talk. Don't lie to one another. You are 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. It has a Designer label on it. All the old fashions are now obsolete. Words like Jewish and non-Jewish, religious and irreligious, inside and outsider, civilized and uncouth, slave and free mean nothing. From now on everyone is defined by Christ. Everyone is included in Christ. So, dressed by God for this new life of love, put on the wardrobe God picked out for you."

So what does it mean: "Take it off? Take it all off?”  Paul responds, "Take off all the old, put on the new."  When you take it all off, like those people in the nudist camp, you stand naked before the Lord.   You take off the politically correct, the socially good, and the morally expedient coats and you stand naked before Christ in order to be fitted with the appropriate new Christian garb.   You put away all the world's popular options and opinions and you stand up for Jesus.  This passage says that deceiving ourselves and trying to fool others with all the ‘coats’ we put on is not sufficient for eternal life.   This text rightly declares that there are some things we can no longer ‘put on’ and call ourselves Christ-like.  We have to take off all kinds of things before we can put the new clothes on.  Have you ‘taken them off’—HAVE YOU TAKEN IT ALL OFF?

When I was in the first grade at Mulberry Street School, I loved my teacher Mrs. Stevenson and my class.  But in those first few weeks I was having a little trouble getting used to getting up early, dressing myself, and going to school.  We didn’t have Kindergarten in those days, so you had to learn everything fast.  Sometimes—too fast.   One morning, after I arrived at school I felt that my arms were not moving like they should.  I looked at my sleeve and under my long-sleeved shirt I was still wearing my pajamas.   I immediately started to panic.  What will people say?  They will laugh at me?  I’d better hide these things.  I didn’t even think about going to the bathroom and taking them off, but I wore them all day, worrying that people would see them and make fun of me.  Right then and there, I realized that before you put on your clothes, you’d better take you other clothes off.

There are still people who think that they can wear two kinds of clothes at once and not get caught.  But you will never be what God wants you to be until you take those old clothes off.   You need to take off that  quick anger and that filthy temper.  We have to take off that meanness which allows us to do three snaps and a flip of the third finger, when someone cuts us off on the highway.  We have to take off that dirty language and spirit that just slips out. We have to take off telling those nasty jokes which make fun of God's people who don't look like us. We have to take off lying, which we claim "everybody does." All of those things belong to the outdated, outmoded BC wardrobe of Before Christ!

YOU MUST CHOOSE TO BE DIFFERENT
When Christ comes there is a difference.  When Christ comes there is newness. When Christ comes, we change clothes. And before we put anything on, we take everything off.   We can stand naked before the one who knows us intimately and loves us just the same.   Tell me, what color coat are you wearing right now? Are you still wearing stripped pajamas under your new clothes or are those prison stripes?   Some of us don’t only keep old clothes on, we keep changing coats, which are dependent upon where we happen to be. Many of us went to worship this morning and had on our socially correct coat. All the neighbors in the pews, smiled and said, "Yea!" But if you wear that church coat to dinner, or to the show, or keep it on at home, what would the people around you say? We can't stand to hear the people say, "Yuk!"

Jesus stands with one word for all of us today--choose! Choose by making the decision for him today to put off the old clothes once and for all.  No more coat changing for me, nor is it good for you.  We should learn to  choose to stand naked before Christ and to allow him to dress me with his wardrobe of love. All that I have comes from God.  While I was yet lost in my sins, wearing all the nasty coats, trying to cover myself, God loved the world so much, until Jesus came to die for my sin and to rise that I might have eternal life.  How can I dare to continue slipping off one coat into another coat, while every coat I have belongs to God!

I love something I saw come through from Bennie and Kim’s Myers Facebook page.   I don’t use Facebook much, so don’t try to communicate that way, if it’s urgent.  But I liked this message.  Kim said that this was her motto.  It’s a good one.  It was a quote from Dave Ramsey.   It’s sounded a lot like a message about “Coats”.  She started out introducing it by saying when you stop trying to keep up with the Jones, you can be more contented in life and you’ll have a new perspective.   Then she gave this quote from Ramsey:  “Don’t buy things you can’t afford, with money you don’t have, for people you don’t even like.”   Another way to say that is that some folks would rather have houses and lands.  Other folks choose silver and gold. These things they treasure but they forget about their souls.   The only way to dress you soul is to make Jesus your choice.  You start to make Jesus your choice by getting naked before him.   You have to take it off.  Take it all off.  You can’t be dressed by the one who has a divine design for you until you take it all off. Today, dear ones, I invite you to choose Jesus, and to start by taking it off! 

This is how it goes.  We know it and we sing it, but we also need to do it:  "All to Jesus, I surrender. All to him, I freely give. I will ever love and trust him, in his presence daily live. I surrender all. I surrender all. All to thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all."     Linda Hollis, a Methodist decided to get naked for Jesus.   She prayed this prayer:  “Glorious God, when they wrote this song in 1896, maybe life was not so complicated. Today I find it difficult to come straight with anybody, even you.  Help me to take off all my political, social, moral and even church coats and surrender my total self to your loving care.  I surrender all!  In the name of the One who knows me best and loves me just the same, I pray.  And God’s people said: Amen.

YOU MUST HAVE A SAFE PLACE TO CHANGE
Before we really say “Amen”, I’ve got one more point to make.   Before we can take off our clothes, we need to find a safe place, don’t we?   When I need new clothes, I hate to go try them on, but I must.  And if I’m going to do that I need a safe place.  I want the dressing room way over there in the corner.  It’s got to be real safe.  When all those Germans were getting naked in front of me, I just sat there with my blue jeans and long sleeve shirt and sunglasses.  It was even embarrassed about being there fully clothed.  Most of us are not willing to bare all---including our souls, unless we know that we are in a safe place.   Maybe that’s part of what Paul is talking about when he says our life is “hidden” with Christ.    We all need a ‘safe’ place to try on new clothes where people will not laugh at us, make fun of us, or ridicule us when we get naked or the clothes don’t just fit us right.   We will not ‘take it off’ until we know we are in a safe place.  Is this church a ‘safe’ place? 

In his book, Finding Virtue in the Vice, pastor Robin Meyers begs churches to become safe havens for all kinds of people who need to come to church, not be laughed at or ridiculed for who they are not, but who need safe places where they can come as they are and feel free to expose what is not yet made perfect.  But for them to come to church, the church needs to make a safe place for them.  Can we do that?  Only, if we take it all off first ourselves.  When everybody stands around naked, no body laughs.  I guarantee that.  I’ve seen it with my own eyes.  Amen.