What are you going to wear today? It’s a question we must answer every single day of our adult lives. Dress up? Go for comfort? Prepare for heat? Rain? Snow? Volcano? (Don’t laugh. 2020 isn’t over yet).
What we wear is extremely important for many reasons. Like it or not, we are judged by how we look and how we present ourselves. That’s just how our world operates these days, and I have a fifth-grade yearbook photo to prove just how badly things can go.
These days, a t-shirt and gym shorts are my go-to selection. Some occasions require a bit more formal selection. To impress the right people, I might even where my GOOD Walnut Valley Festival t-shirt.
Of course, there’s more to clothing than giving off the right impression; it also protects and covers. It guards what is most intimate and reveals what is most important. It can advertise your favorite team, your job, the places you’ve traveled or the amount of ironing you do.
Regardless, what you clothe yourself with is an advertisement to others, and Paul used this idea as an example in Romans 13.
“The night is almost over, and the day is near. So let’s get rid of the actions that belong to the darkness and put on the weapons of light. Let’s behave appropriately as people who live in the day, not partying and getting drunk, not sleeping around and obscene behavior, not in fighting and obsession. Instead, dress yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ, and don’t plan to indulge your selfish desires.” Romans 13:12-14 (CEB)
What does it mean to “dress yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ?” If you’ve clothed yourself with something, there is no separating that thing from yourself. If I put on a Denver Broncos shirt, it doesn’t matter how much in my heart I love the Kansas City Chiefs, people are going to see nothing but the Broncos (this is 100 percent a hypothetical situation). And, let’s be honest, I wouldn’t be much of a Chiefs fan if I go around wearing a rival shirt. What we hold most dear on the inside will probably be revealed by what is on the outside.
In the same way, I can have certain beliefs or convictions in my heart, but what I wear – what I keep closest to me and around me – is all that people are going to see. So, Paul says, watch what you keep closest to you: your actions, your words, your activities, your relationships. All of it speaks loudly to others and reveals something about what you value the most.
And if you dress yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ, you’ll find His values on display for all to see. Let’s wrap ourselves up in the love, kindness, forgiveness, grace and mercy of Christ. Because that’s what’s important to us, and that’s what others need to see the most.
Pastor Billy