Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The sermon text is from Galatians 3:23-4:7 previously read.
When my brother’s identical twin boys were young, they wore all the same clothes. You couldn’t tell them apart. Everything one would wear the other had to have also. When they were old enough to notice, any attempt to dress them differently from the other was met with tears and protest. In their minds and hearts they were bound so closely to each other that what they had to have the same clothes.
Our clothing speaks volumes about who we are. Many times as a pastor my clerical collar has earned the greeting, “Hello, Father.” If I’m dressed down a bit at Walmart, I might find people asking for directions to find a product. Like it or not people form opinions about others on the basis of how we dress. Growing up, we were taught you dress up to go to God’s house. You weren’t supposed to go to church so people could check out what you wore it was just a sign of reverence for God, a sign of bringing the best. In my first church full of farmers in Nebraska that might mean the farmers newest pair of overalls, but the idea was the same. When we played sports the coaches told us to wear our uniforms with class, it reflected on the rest of the team.
In our text, Paul says, “All of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” Dr. Luther’s Galatians commentary notes Paul’s not really talking about clothes. Under God’s Law, our appearance as Christians, our face to the world, is a reflection of who we are in Christ. How does the world see us? If people see us using profanity or gossiping about others or getting drunk or living sinful lifestyles, what conclusions will they draw about us? More importantly, what witness do we make to the world when they see us speaking or acting in a way that cheapens the Christian name? Will unbelievers be drawn to Christ when they see us or will they suspect there isn’t much to admire in Christ or Christians?
Not only are our clothes a reflection on us, but our behavior reflects on the faith we confess and the Savior we love. Jesus said, “Let your light so shine before men that they see your good deeds and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” It’s worth considering whether our words and actions glorify God or bring great joy to the devil.
In a worldly sense, we dress for success. Only a very foolish job applicant would fail to clean it up for a job interview. Like it or not, every moment of our lives is a confession before God and the world about our faith in Jesus. Each morning we choose the clothes we’ll wear into the day, when as Christians we might better ask God’s guidance to wear our faith and hope in Christ in such a way that it honors God; that our words and actions glorify Him, not bring dishonor on the God who calls us “sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.”
I’ve heard it said often, and now know it to be true, that parents have to watch what they say and do, because little eyes are watching and repeating and imitating. On Father’s Day, we rejoice in Christian dads and moms, and we’re reminded how important it is that in all our words and actions our children learn to know and love Jesus, not just through the words of a Sunday school teacher, but through the living presence of a godly dad and mom in their homes, praying and doing devotions, church and Sunday school, and in all our daily choices. This is a Christian parent’s first and highest calling to model God’s love in Christ in words and life. You know the old admonition to parents, “More things are caught than taught.” Put another way, “Actions speak louder than words.” The point being: the importance of Christ we teach with words must be supported by letting our young people see Christ in our lives.
In Romans 14, Paul says, “Let us behave decently as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” Ephesians 4 says, “Put on the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” Both places the Greek word is the same. As we have been clothed in Christ, so God calls us to holy lives with our family, within our church, in our work and community. Within each of our stations in life, our true vocation is to let God’s love shine through us to a very dark world.
The problem is our words and actions leave us torn and soiled. From the bad things we do to the good things we don’t do, at the end of the day we’re far from spotless. Like pigs wallowing in the mud, we carry the encrusted layers of failure. Hebrews says, “Without holiness no one will see God.” As kids when we came home filthy, mom wouldn’t let us into the house until we hosed off outside.
God had every right to turn us away, yet, “In the fullness of time God sent forth His Son born of a woman, born under the Law, to redeem those under the Law that we might receive the adoption of sons.” In Jesus, the God who embodies perfect holiness, chose to make our problem His. Jesus spotlessly lived under God’s Law for us, never sinning in word or action. The pure and unblemished Lamb of God, 2 Corinthians says, “Became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God.” At the cross the only sinless God-man carried our sins and received God’s judgment in our place and He has become our “righteousness and holiness and redemption.”
Your identity in Christ is a gift to you through Spirit-given faith. You and I haven’t lived as sons and daughters, but God chose to strip away our sin-encrusted failure, clothing us in Christ. By God’s standard we haven’t lived up to our callings as moms and dads and church members and employees and friends and citizens, but our Heavenly Father is the perfect Father who restores His prodigal children to the family.
Baptism isn’t just another empty commitment you and I make in a life of unfulfilled commitments. In Holy Baptism, you were clothed in your Lord and Savior. His perfect righteousness is the holy garment that covers our failure. In water and Word, God made a promise He intends to keep, a pledge sealed in the blood of His Son.
When God the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit clothes us in Jesus, God counts our sins as Jesus’ sins, washed away because He wore them to the cross. Baptized into Christ, through faith, our Heavenly Father sees Jesus’ righteousness as our own. Our eternal death and judgment already happened. Romans 6 says, “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ were baptized into His death? We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father we too may live a new life.”
The world tends to place great stock in fashions that change every year. Clothed in Christ as baptized children, God chose our outfits and tailored them perfectly for us. While styles may change, God’s garment of forgiveness in Jesus is timeless. Isaiah 61 says, “My soul rejoices in my God for He has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness.”
Unless Jesus comes before that time, each of us will one day die and lay down these earthly bodies. 2 Corinthians says, “In the tent [of these bodies] we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed we will not be found naked.” The cross-covered pall that clothes our casket will be the final reminder that these bodies clothed with Christ in Holy Baptism will one day stand up from the dust of death. These bodies washed and set apart in Christ, fed and forgiven at His altar… these bodies will rise just as Jesus rose, body and soul reunited to claim the heavenly home God made yours when He called you sons and daughters through faith in Christ Jesus. Amen.
And now may the peace of God which surpasses human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.