THE WEDDING GARMENT (1983)
“And
Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the
gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every infirmity among the
people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and
they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains,
demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them. And great crowds
followed him from Galilee and the Ten Cities and Jerusalem and Judea and from
beyond the Jordan.
Seeing
the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down his disciples came
to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:
‘Blessed
are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’” Matthew 4: 23-5:3
Now these multitudes that came to Jesus with their sick bodies, and their twisted minds,
their troubled consciences, and their confusion,
their pain, and their anguish,
were not exactly, what you would call, the “cream of the crop”.
They
would be the first to admit that their lives were a mess, that they were, what
the Pharisees would call “sinners”.
But somehow they knew that Jesus would welcome them.
They
knew that they could bring to him their sin, their trouble, their anguish.
They
knew that Jesus would heal their sin-sick hearts, their wounded minds, their
broken bodies. Though they had no vision of the Messiah’s atoning blood, they
knew that it was safe to come to him.
And
Jesus healed them.
Cast out their demons.
Broke their chains.
Relieved their consciences with
forgiveness.
And then
Jesus would follow these signs of healing with teaching.
He
taught them about the kingdom of God.
He taught about righteousness.
“Blessed
are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be
satisfied.”
“For I
tell you unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Scribes and the
Pharisees, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
“You
therefore must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
“Not
everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord”, shall enter the kingdom of Heaven, but
he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”
“The
door of the Kingdom is open. Come as you are. Bring your sin. Bring your
troubles. Bring your pain. Whatever it is that is bogging you down…bring it.
But
understand that when you walk through the door of the Kingdom, you are entering
into the realm of righteousness. You are now going to begin to walk in
righteousness.”
Sometimes
people get nervous when we talk about righteousness.
We are not talking about “works” righteousness.
We are saved by grace. We are saved by the blood of the
Lamb.
But after having received salvation, we walk
in righteousness.
we grow in righteousness.
Otherwise our salvation turns out to be a sham.
Again Jesus spoke to them in parables saying, “The kingdom of
heaven may be compared to a king who gave a marriage feast for his son, and sent his servants to call those who were invited to
the marriage feast; but they would not come. Again he
sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, Behold, I have made
ready my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves are killed, and everything is ready;
come to the marriage feast.’ But they made light of it and went off, one to his
farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his servants, treated them
shamefully, and killed them.
The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the thoroughfares, and invite to the marriage feast as many as you find.’ And those servants went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.
But when the king came in to look at
the guests, he saw there was a man who had no wedding garment; and he said to
him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was
speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and
cast him into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.’
For many are called, but few are chosen.” Matthew 22: 1- 14
“Everybody’s
welcome to this wedding feast!
It
doesn’t matter how bad you’ve been, what kind of sins you’ve committed.
Just
come… Come as you are.”
Now
everybody who responds to that invitation, is given by
the king, a wedding garment to put on. And this wedding garment is not made of
cheesecloth, it’s rich and beautiful. As
a tribute to the king, as a sign of accepting his hospitality with gratitude,
every guest puts on this garment which the king has so generously provided.
At last the king comes in to survey his guests, and he notices
this wise guy who refuses to put on the wedding garment he was given. He
prefers his own clothes, which he considers more attractive. What does the king do? He has the man tossed out. A man with no respect for the king does not
belong in the king’s presence.
In like manner the door of the kingdom of heaven is wide open
to us all. What a wonderful thing that
even though our lives have been far from what they should be, (We know what
goes on inside in our hearts.) the Lord
says, “Come! Come as you are. Welcome!”
And the
Master gives to each of us a wedding garment to put on, a garment made by God
himself. It’s God’s work. All we have to do is put it
on. It’s a garment of righteousness, washed in the Lamb’s blood shining with
the Spirit’s glory.
Of
course we
Twenty-first Century Christians get nervous when we hear that word
“righteousness”.
We think “self-righteousness”
“This lady walks around with her
righteous nose in the air.”
“This man who
thinks he’s more righteous than anybody else.”
“I don’t want to be thought of as
righteous.”
But the
word righteous is found on the lips of Jesus many times. In fact, all scripture
is alive with the word “righteousness.”
And for good reason….
”Clearly, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you won’t enter the kingdom of heaven.”
“Abraham
believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.”
“The
Lord is my shepherd I shall not want, He maketh me to lie down in green
pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. He
leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.”
“The kingdom of God is not food and drink, but
righteousness, joy and peace and the Holy Spirit.”
“ For he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we
might become the righteousness of God.”
The robe
of righteousness that we are given is threefold:
It is a righteousness of the heart.
A righteousness of the tongue.
A righteousness of deeds.
Jesus
was speaking to a Pharisee and was asked by the Pharisee to dine with him…And
so he went in and sat at table. The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did
not first wash before dinner. The Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees cleanse
the outside of the cup or the dish, but inside you are full of extortion and
wickedness. You fools! Did not he who made the outside
make the inside also? But give for alms such things that are within; and
behold, everything is clean for you. Luke 11:37
The
Spirit of God never ceases to emphasize the inside, the heart.
“Create
in me a clean heart o, God and renew a right spirit within me.”
“Behold thou desires truth in the inward part and in the hidden part thou wilt make me to know wisdom.”
“Nothing
is covered that will not be revealed or hidden that will not be known.
Whatever
you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have
whispered in the private rooms will be proclaimed upon the house tops.”
To have
a clean, righteous heart, simply means that I prepare the way
of the Lord in my heart.
I begin
to dump out the things he puts his finger on.
Righteousness
of the heart means that I no longer walk up to somebody with a smile on my face
while I’m burning inside with bitterness and resentment for that person. I take off my mask. .
An
unrighteous heart is a heart that covers things up.
No
longer do I say behind somebody’s back that which I am unwilling to say to
their face.
Every
time I try, the Spirit of God begins to deal with me.
He puts his finger on it.
Calls me to repentance.
“Come on. Clean up your heart. Open up the windows. Open up the doors. Let the light come in.”
“This is the message we have heard from him and proclaimed to you, that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth; but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” 1 John 1: 5 -7
And to
walk in the light is simply to be open.
No longer covering.
No longer deceiving and dissembling with our hearts.
If Jesus sits on the throne of our heart, what do we need to
hide?
“If we
say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we
confess our sin, God who is faithful and just will forgive our sin and cleanse
us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1: 8-9
He will cleanse the unrighteousness of
our hearts.
Secondly,
the wedding garment is a righteousness of the tongue.
“Again you have heard that it was said to men of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn. But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from the evil one. Matthew 5: 33
“Either
make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit
bad; for the tree is known by its fruit.” Matthew 12:33
The fruit Jesus is talking about here is the fruit of our
mouth. For the very next words are:
“You
brood of vipers! how can you speak good, when you are
evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man out
of his good treasure brings good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure
brings evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment men will render account for
every careless word they utter; for by your words you
will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” Matthew 12: 34-37
It’s not an accident that the one public sign that the early believers were filled with the Holy Spirit was that they began to speak with new tongues.
This
unruly member of our bodies now begins to manifest the glory of God.
Of
course,
we can speak in tongues,
we
can prophesy, and
we can cast out devils with our
mouths…and still end up in hell.
To speak
in a new tongue means basically two things:
1. It
means that the tongue begins to clean up its act:
One
thing that happens as God’s Spirit moves on our lives is that our tongue begins
to give up its old ways….
Perhaps I’m in the habit of constantly
complaining.
Maybe I’ve been quick with
cynical remarks at “opportune times.”. .
Or I tend to exaggerate, or
lie, or gossip, or slander.
Now the
Lord begins to deal with these “tendencies of the tongue.” He won’t let me get
away with it. Every time my tongue steps
out of line, the Spirit convicts me, calls me to repentance.
How can
I be praising God in Sunday morning, and demeaning my brother with my tongue on
Sunday afternoon? To wear the wedding
garment of righteousness my tongue has no choice but to clean up it’s act.
2. The
tongue gives itself over to the glory of the Lord.
We seem
to have no hesitation in using our tongues to complain, lie, exaggerate. But we
are quite hesitant to use the tongue to speak the name of Jesus. Oh, we can say
it in church, sing it in a hymn, praise the Lord when we’re with believers. But
in the place where we work, or in our neighborhood, to speak the name of Jesus
seems almost impossible.
But as
the tongue gives itself over to the service of God things begin to change. The
tongue starts to recognize when the moment is right, and
loses its fear of speaking the Word which rises from the heart.
“Grant thy servants to speak thy word with all boldness, while thou stretchest out thy hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed in the name of thy holy servant Jesus.”
The
righteousness of the tongue is twofold.
It is a
tongue that starts cleaning up its act and it is a tongue that begins to speak
the things of God.
Finally the wedding garment is a righteousness of deeds.
When the
Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with
him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him
will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them
one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will
place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left. Then the King will say to those at his right
hand, ‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from
the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was
thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was
naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and
you came to me.’
Then the
righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see thee
hungry and feed thee, thirsty and give thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? And
when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee? And the King will answer
them, ‘Truly I
say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it
to me.’
Then he
will say to those at his left hand, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the
eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you
gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and
you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and
you did not visit me.’ Then they also
will answer, ‘Lord when did we see thee hungry or thirsty or a stranger or
naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to thee?’
Then he
will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least
of these you did it not to me.’ And they will go away into eternal punishment,
but the righteous into eternal life.” Matthew 25: 31-46
We put
on the garment of righteous deeds by showing his mercy to those whom this world
shoves aside and neglects. And you don’t
have to go to Calcutta, or Somalia or, El Salvador to find those people. They are indeed in those places, but they are
also right where we are. All we have to do is open our eyes with the Spirit’s help, and we
will begin to see them:
- Here’s an old woman sitting in a dingy nursing home
staring at the walls.
- There’s an lonely man rocking in
his rocking chair in the kitchen of a house that
nobody
ever visits.
- Children who have not one soul
take them by the hand to show them the way.
- Somebody at the place where you work who nobody talks
to…people can’t
stand him. He always eats his lunch
alone.
When she comes to the water fountain
everybody leaves. ..
The Lord
is calling us to do just what he tells us to do in Matthew 25:
A kind word…an invitation to dinner…
A listening ear…a few dollars…
A letter…a phone call…a visit.
Start with the small things, and the
big things will follow.
Even as
you read these words, the Lord opens wide the door of his Kingdom and says to
you, “Come on in. I know you have stumbled.
But I love you and I want you to come and break bread with me. And you come through the door into my
Kingdom, be sure to put on the Wedding Garment.
Righteousness of the
heart…
that cleans out the filth and the obstacles and prepares the way of the
Lord.
Righteousness of the
tongue…
that cleans
up its act and begins to serve the Glory of the Kingdom,
in the name
of Jesus.
Righteousness
of deeds…
“… for I
was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave
me drink, I was
a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you
clothed me, I
was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came
to me.”
May the Spirit of the Lord help us to put on the Wedding Garment, and wear it well.