10/07/2022 DAB Transcript

Jeremiah 8:8-9:26, Colossians 3:1-17, Psalms 78:32-55, Proverbs 24:27

Today is the 7th day of October, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian and it is great to be here with you today as we round the corner on our first full week of this month of October. And we are working our way through the book of Jeremiah in the Old Testament. So, we will pick up where we left off yesterday and continue forward. We’re reading from the New International Version this week. Jeremiah chapter 8 verse 8 through 9 verse 26 today.

Commentary:

Okay. So, let’s talk about our wardrobe today. So, let’s say we have our bedroom closet and it’s got our clothes in it and…but we also have some things stored away in the basement hung up, kind of a makeshift closet down there of our vintage wear, things would don’t want to get rid of, but we don’t wear that much and…but we don’t want to get rid of it. And let’s begin to think of this in spiritual terms because that’s something we don’t normally think of in terms of our wardrobe. And yet at the same time, the Bible describes a type of spiritual wardrobe. For example, the armor of God are things that we are to wear spiritually. And, so, let’s just say like our vintage wear, the things that we’re holding onto, but we don’t really want to throw away, the stuff that’s down in the basement. Let’s say we go down there and look at what we have hanging up. And we find sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, greed, idolatry, anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language from your lips, lying. And we don’t wear that stuff all that often, but we keep it around because we could run down and grab the T-shirt of lust and throw it. Anybody…anybody can do that. But we don’t wear that stuff that much. Our main clothes are in our main closet in our bedroom and in that closet we have compassion and kindness, humility, gentleness and patience, forgiveness, love, unity. Although we’re storing these items in two different locations it would be hard for anybody to kinda come in and look around at those two different closets of clothes and sense that they belong to the same person. And that is kind of Paul’s point from what we are reading in the letter to the Colossians today. The clothes that we don’t want to get rid of that were holding onto that we don’t wear all that much that we keep in the basement are not actually really our clothes anymore. They’re the wardrobe of a person who has died. But just for the sake of our description today let’s say we’re holding onto those things down in the basement and we got these things we try to routinely wear in our main wardrobe in our upstairs closet. But on a regular basis we try to create combinations out of both wardrobes and then go out into the world and wear those things. Like, can we put on the pants from closet upstairs and everything else from closet downstairs? And because we have something new from closet A that we’re wearing it makes everything else look good? Like, can we wear sexual immorality and say gentleness at the same time? Will they complement each other? Can we wear pants of greed and a shirt of compassion? Can we wear anger alongside of patience? Obviously, we are talking about things that won’t go together. They will clash with each other. And, so, we’re blowing this out into a wardrobe metaphor, but we probably see the point. We’re trying to combine things that do not go together expecting that it will all look fine when it doesn’t all look fine. Paul is telling us we’ve been given all new wardrobe and it’s time to get rid of the old clothes because they don’t belong to us anymore. We aren’t who we were. Those old clothes belong to an old version of us that is no longer living, because we have died and been resurrected in Christ and in Christ, we’ve been given a whole new set of clothes to wear. And, so, I quote from Paul. “As God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved cloth yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another. If any of you as a grievance against someone forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” So, if we wear love with any of the other choices in the wardrobe everything is gonna look great. But we can’t put on love and then run downstairs and grab malice and expect it to do anything but look hideous. And as with most people who are getting dressed, we at least take a glimpse of ourselves in the mirror to make sure nothing is out of place and look presentable. And some of us can get downright obsessive about how we look at what we’re wearing, right? Does this make me look fat? Does this make me look skinny? Does this make my butt look too big? Basically, we’re asking the question, do I look well-kept and put together? Do I look relevant and attractive? We ask ourselves those questions. We ask our spouses those kinds of questions. And in terms of the spiritual wardrobe if we’re wondering how we look we’re given an opportunity to examine that from Paul. Paul says, “look whatever you do, whether it’s in word or in deed, whether you speak it, or whether you act it do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” So, if we wonder if we’re looking presentable from a spiritual perspective we simply need to ask ourselves, can I do what I am doing in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” The answer is, in my words, and in my deeds I could never do this in the name of Jesus then we’re wearing the wrong clothes. But that’s not because we don’t have something better to wear. We’ve been given divine clothing, divine characteristics and attributes to put on. We’re told to clothe ourselves with compassion and kindness and humility and gentleness and patience and forgiveness and unity and love, which binds it all together. And, so, let’s give some thought to our spiritual wardrobe today. What are we trying to mix-and-match that can not possibly look good ever and will never lead us anywhere good? It may be that it’s time to clean out our closet.

Prayer:

Holy Spirit we invite You into that. This is the type of an analogy that we can understand and get our minds around. And yet, we have to confess that we change our clothes spiritually a lot more than we may realize. We try to mix-and-match things all kinds of ways at all different kinds of times when You have given us what we should be carrying around, what we should be wearing. And, so, Holy Spirit come and allow us to mix-and-match appropriately. We can mix compassion with kindness, gentleness with patience, humility with the love, unity with forgiveness, but we will never be able to mix any of those things with things like sexual immorality or impurity or lust or evil desires or greed or idolatry or anger or rage or malice or slander or filthy language from our lips. Help us Lord because the truth is, we’ve been mixing and matching in ways that make us look ridiculous when You have given us the clothing of a royalty to wear. Help us see things as they are and help us to change we ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.

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And that’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Coming soon…