A Morning Sermon

I wonder how many of us realize the significant symbolism in our daily ritual of getting dressed.
Did you ever consider the fact that wearing clothes is not ‘natural’? Human beings are the only species on earth to wear clothes and God did not create Adam and Eve with a wardrobe. They were naked , and quite happy to be that way.
Until…… they sinned.
I have wondered what made Adam and Eve , after they disobeyed God, think that covering themselves would somehow hide their shame before God. I can only believe that it is an instinct that God placed into the consciousness of man. Never having been taught to do so, we see our young children trying to cover or hide when they know they have done something forbidden. Evil and crime are most often committed under cover of darkness.
Sin cannot enter God’s presence and without a covering , man - having sinned- would never again have been able to stand before God. His wrath would have consumed him. In God’s mercy He gave us the instinctive desire to be covered to make us aware of our need of forgiveness.

Adam and Eve tried to make their own covering with leaves but their human efforts were futile. Only with the shedding of blood is there an effective covering.
When God made a covering for Adam and Eve he killed an animal and made them coats from the skin. Can you imagine the horror Adam and Eve must have felt to see God kill an animal, when they had never experienced any death or violence? It was the foreshadowing of the ultimate, only effective, necessary violent sacrifice of the perfect Lamb. ( Heb. 9 :22 – ‘Without the shedding of blood there is no remission’)
Every morning , after 6 thousand years , we still ‘cover’ ourselves because of sin. A daily symbolic reminder that if Jesus had not shed His blood for us we would be forever separated from God.

There are other symbolic spiritual applications related to our clothes.

1> Clothes make us ‘beautiful’. - We ,as Christians, spiritually ‘put on Christ’,( Gal. 3:27) which is the beauty that God sees when He looks at us.
2> Clothes need to be cleaned, - they get dirty and we all have loads of weekly laundry to prove it !. - I John 1:9 speaks of God’s ‘laundry room’ – ‘if we confess our sins , He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to CLEANSE us from all unrighteousness.’
3> Our clothing is often the first thing people notice about us. - When people first meet us do they see Jesus in us? Are they impressed that there is something ‘different’ about us?
4> Just as our clothing covers the embarrassing parts of our body so also the covering of Christ’s sacrifice hides the embarrassing sin that we all commit and wish God didn’t have to see. He doesn’t if we allow Him to put it – forever out of sight - with the forgiveness Jesus’ death paid for. (Rom. 4:7)
5> Our clothing needs to fit ! . - Even so the covering of Christ’s sacrifice is personally fitted to each person’s need.
6> Our clothing is personal and reflects our unique individuality. - Putting on Christ does not take away our own personality but enhances it.
7> Our clothing is protection from the elements. - our spiritual covering protects us , not only from Satan – our enemy- but also from the wrath of God (John 3:36).
8> Our clothing identifies us as belonging to a specific culture.. different peoples of the world have a unique style of dress. - Jesus’ covering identifies us as belonging to the Kingdom of heaven.
9> How we love to find an expensive outfit marked down to a price we can afford !! - Our spiritual covering is marked down from a price we could never afford to being FREE!

So you see … even on very busy days … we can preach a sermon to ourselves by the simple act of getting dressed.