Grace Fellowship Church of Overland Park
July 26, 2020
Dress for the Occasion

      • Psalm 57:7–11LEB

    • blessed be
    • God Of Wonders
    • King Of My Heart
                          • Living Hope

                          • Opening

                            Rotators
                            Peeps
                            Devo: Melissa
                            Music: Pete
                            Announcements: Julie
                            EOD: Jon
                            Facilitators: Cliff C (onsite), Chet T (home), JaCory M (home), Rob H (home), Norm F (home)
                            Prepare slide
                            Welcome slide (10:14)
                            Devo (10:15)
                            Music

                            Welcome (10:30)

                            Greet
                            Breakout rooms, 3 min, just to greet another and learn names
                            [3 min breakout and return]
                            Orientation
                            Real name: & facilitators
                            Keep selves on mute when not sharing with the whole group
                            Have your Bibles (Rom 13)
                            URLs
                            D@H: https://fellowshipofgrace.org/disciples-at-home
                            Bulletin: blahblahblah
                            Pastoral Prayer
                            Kids’ Instructions (10:40a)
                            Announcements (10:40b)
                            !!! Jim !!!
                            !!! VBS!!! - (we say every yr “rain or shine”)
                            Attendance
                            Name + #
                            Visitors email

                            Kids’ Voices (10:42)

                            Pics of kids - [chat window] guess the occasion (baseball, ballerina, party, winter clothes, rain coat)
                            Would you wear a rain coat to play baseball? (etc.)
                            How would you dress if you knew Jesus was coming over to your house - best clothes or worst clothes? How would you “dress” with your attitude - best attitude or worst attitude? How would you “dress” with your behavior - best behavior or worst behavior?
                            Jesus is coming back sometime: we don’t know when, but we know He will; and He wants us to live like it could be this afternoon, even if it’s not. He wants us to live all the time like He could come through the door at any time. He wants us to be “dressed” with our attitude and with our behavior just like we would dress up in our best clothes if He was coming over to visit.
                            Prayer: We know you’re coming back. Help us to live every day like today could be the day, even if it takes 10,000 days before you come back. Bless us all, including the adults, as we’re about to study what your Bible has to say to us today.

                            Intro [title slide] (10:45)

                            “Who died?”
                            ST
                            Unaware of the circumstance, what kind of day it was.
                            Public figures (tone deaf)
                            … who say something and we say, “He must be completely tone deaf.” Means what? What they say doesn’t match the circumstances.
                            It’s like they’re asleep. It’s like it’s daytime but the shades are pulled.
                            Paul addresses Christians who can become tone deaf: unaware of what day it is, what the circumstances are

                            Romans 13:11-14

                            11 And do these things knowing the time,
                            that the hour is already here for you to wake up from your sleep,
                            because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.
                            12 The night is nearly over;
                            the day of salvation is almost here.
                            So let us
                            put aside the deeds of darkness and
                            put on the armor of light.
                            13 Let us behave decently as in the daytime,
                            not in
                            – carousing, – sensuality,
                            – drunkenness, – quarreling, and
                            – sexual immorality, – jealousy.
                            14 Rather,
                            clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and
                            do not think about how to gratify the desires of your sinful nature.
                            Markups
                            [tell one another, ask kids, chat window]
                            What time is it? What’s the occasion? (11, 12, 13)
                            What are we supposed to do? (12, 13, 14)

                            What time is it? What’s the occasion?

                            Rom 13:14 says, “Clothe yourself with Christ” - put Christ on yourself like clothing.
                            Why? Because of the times, the occasion
                            So, if we’re gonna dress for the occasion, what’s the occasion - I don’t want to be underdressed. Again.

                            We’re in the last hour before dawn

                            It’s nighttime (Dark), about to become daytime (Light) (12, 13)
                            Rom 13:12-13
                            The calendar for the KoM still says it’s “nighttime” - time for carousing, impurity, jealousy, quarreling - ohhhh does it say it’s time for quarreling!
                            When we lived in LA, there was so much light pollution that it never really looked like it was nighttime - it was an illusion.
                            Ancient Rome didn’t have a lot of light pollution - so without a full moon, it’s hard to walk at night. It’s hard for us to imagine the impact of this imagery.
                            e.g.. Kenya: not only can’t see to walk to the latrine, but you have no idea what dangers lurk in the darkness
                            However, in God’s Big Narrative of human history, the KoG is coming in full “soon.”
                            It’s still nighttime, buy it’s time to be awake, not asleep (11)
                            Rom 13:11
                            Live like you’re in KoG, not KoM; it’s already true about you (ch 6), live like it.
                            This is for believers, so the “sleep” does not describe being unsaved; it describes saved people who are tone deaf, living and talking completely unaware of what time it is.

                            There are only so many ticks left on the clock

                            It’s not just that we’re at a particular time, but the clock is running and there are only a limited number of moments left.
                            Few or many, there’s a limit, and that should affect how we live.
                            There is an end to all this
                            How it is now is not how it’s always going to be.
                            There will be a moment in time where this period is over, and there will be a point of no returning back to this.
                            Everything will be completely changed forever for everyone.
                            There’s an end b/c there’s a purpose, and end goal, something God will accomplish.
                            Therefore, there is an urgency to this
                            Rom 13:11b - “our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.”
                            It’s time to be awake and do what is appropriate for the dawn of the day.
                            Salvation is at stake - ours is coming, and for who else in our lives?
                            The world is telling us all the wrong things about what time it is - time to party, time to accumulate, time to satisfy the desires of your heart and flesh.
                            It’s time to dress for daytime even while it’s still the last hour of night.

                            Jesus will return “soon”

                            ST: Sign in GA - signs of age, had to be restored - not very convincing.
                            Jesus is coming back "Soon”
                            He inaugurated the K’dom 2000 yr ago, he will bring it in full some day future - “soon.”
                            This was written 2000 years ago, but the return of JC is still “soon.”
                            “Soon” = It’s the next hour. There aren’t any other hours between now and then. The next hour may take another 1000 years, or the clock may strike the new hour today. But there are no other hours, no other major events in God’s Big Narrative of the human story between now and the next hour.
                            But at the moment, it’s still dark.
                            Every generation is the generation Jesus could return
                            (1 Thess 5:2) He will return "Life a thief in the night”.
                            The right posture for all generations of the church to be expectant of Jesus (including the church at Rome 2K years ago).
                            Every generation of the church should live like it’s their generation.

                            Every day is one more day of grace for the lost and one more day of mission for the Church

                            This is how we should look at every single day, and never tire just b/c JC didn’t come back yesterday or just because the sign faded.
                            A day of grace - another day the lost don’t deserve, another day of reprieve, another chance to surrender to King Jesus.
                            A day of mission - another day to reach out to someone who’s lost, as if there might not be another day.
                            We’re in the ABNY (→ ABA2B)
                            RV ABNYC in Rom 6-8 - A, NY, C
                            Perhaps a better phrase = “Already But About to Be.” Make it a positive statement, but also one that shows anticipation and acknowledges that it’s almost dawn.

                            So, how should we dress for the “already but about to be”?

                            What time is it? It’s “already but about to be” - that’s what time it is for us.
                            What’s the occasion? How should we dress?
                            But before we answer that question, let’s ask a different question …

                            Why does it matter how we dress?

                            I usually dress for comfort and for whatever requires the least amount of thought. (I know that’s shocking to you.) And so I often end up underdressed for the occasion. I show up in blue jeans and Converse and I look around to see everyone else wearing business casual.
                            Do we sometimes dress for the times we’re in with whatever is comfortable and requires the least amount of thought? Do we end up spiritually underdressed for the times we’re in?
                            Does it actually matter how we dress?

                            Current events make the times and occasion more obvious

                            I’m not being an alarmist.
                            Current events are not necessarily the signs we see in Rev, but that at least they show how Rev is not so far-fetched after all.
                            RE Rev (Romans, us)
                            Read Rev from perspective of the Romans and it would seem quite impossible. It took days just to walk a few dozen miles, so how could one of those events or a disasters affect 1/3 of the people in the world, for example?
                            But read it in our day, and it doesn’t seem so impossible - it’s a lot more conceivable now; we can see better than they could how these things could actually take place.
                            COVID-19
                            We read about plagues in Rev that affect 1/3 of the world’s population.
                            We can now see how quickly every aspect of life changed all around the world w/C-19. Who is unaffected by it? And it took how long? A few months?
                            Again, not saying C-19 is an event in Rev, but we can now clearly see how easily the events in Rev could happen.
                            Racial tensions
                            Nothing new, but even foreign news sources like the BBC have written how this time with George Floyd, it’s different, more intense.
                            Rev 5:9; 7:9-10 make it clear that the church includes people from every tongue, tribe, and nation; racial tension is a direct onslaught against the beauty of the diversity in God’s family.
                            Cancel culture, boycotts
                            In Rev, commerce is affected, even halted, especially for those who refuse the mark of the Beast.
                            Not saying the mark is found in something happening today, or even speculating what the mark is, but it’s so clear now how easily people who follow Christ can be prevented from conducting trade.
                            Just try to open a Chick-Fil-A on certain college campuses.
                            That’s something the believers in Rome in the 1st C also would have seen pretty easily, perhaps more easily than we do for now.
                            Defund the police
                            I’m not confusing with improving police work with some strategies of intervention.
                            Some people are advocating something that will lead to unchecked lawlessness (CHOP in Seattle deteriorated into lawlessness within days).
                            Rev (Dan, Matt, 1 Thess) all describe a pandemic of lawlessness, which used to seem unlikely, but we see it on our screens daily, now.
                            My SIL is a photojournalist traveling to all these protest hotspots and the images she’s getting are amazing. She’s been teargassed 4 or 5 times already.
                            We just read in Rom 13:1-7 that governing authorities have been given the power to police for a reason (“sword”).

                            Based on how we dress, what time would unbelievers think it is?

                            The passage talks about being clothed with Christ, rather than worldliness and immorality.
                            We just said that we’re in the last hour before dawn.
                            But RS? Does how we dress give the world any clues as to what time it is and what the occasion really is?
                            Let’s do a little self-examination

                            Pajamas ++Never gonna happen

                            Too casual. Pajamas are for nighttime. And apparently shopping at discount stores. No awareness at all of the hour or that dawn is coming. Tone deaf. No evangelism, no sense that we should. Polls show that the younger generations of Christians are less likely to say that evangelism is important, let alone an imperative.
                            → It’s never gonna happen. Why would I believe it’s ever gonna happen? Look how those Christians are “dressed!” Are we going through life dressed in our PJ’s?

                            Latest worldly fashions (13) ++Might happen, but who cares?

                            Latest set of standards of the world, adoptng their sexual ethics, buying into what the world says gives us value and meaning, accumulating possessions or experiences b/c of FOMO, the recent movement that says “I love Jesus but not the Church.” Clothing yourself with whatever is currently acceptable in society. Eg. Rom 13:13.
                            → It might happen, but who cares? Just look at the Christians and what they’re wearing - they’re still dressed for partying all night. Clearly, they have no expectation that it’s almost dawn. They seem to be saying, “what happens in the KoM stays in the KoM.”

                            Tailored clothing (self-righteousness) ++It might happen, but not in my lifetime

                            Self-righteousness. I’m righteous and good, and you’re a sinner. You have the wrong religion. You’re wrong! My suit is perfectly tailored to me, and I look goood. I spend my money on looking good, not on you sinners. In fact, let’s dress up and accumulate political power and force people to live our righteous lifestyle by force.
                            → It might happen, maybe, but certainly not in my lifetime. Those Christians already have their robes of righteousness; they’ve got their own kingdom here on earth; and they don’t really seem concerned about me. If Jesus is coming back, it’s not urgent. Basically, they’re telling me to go to Hell.

                            Armor of light (13) ++It’s gonna happen, and it could be soon

                            Armor of light (Rom 13:13)! Wow! What is that? We’ll sort that out later, but whatever it is, wow! It’s pretty impressive.
                            → It’s gonna happen, and it could be soon. Why else would someone be wearing armor of light? What are they expecting to happen? There must be some important battle going on.

                            Overdressed ++It’s not gonna happen, because these folks are nuts

                            Wearing a tux to a picnic. I have figured out the day and the hour because I spent wayyyy too much time figuring these things out with charts and googling, and it’s going to happen Thursday at 2:37! And then we all wake up on Friday, “I mean Jan of 2029!” Misinterpreting what “soon” really means and forgetting to be the church that brings hope and peace because Jesus is coming back.
                            → It’s not gonna happen b/c these folks are nuts. They are making no sense, so all of Christianity must be pure imagination.

                            Not just unbelievers, but also believers

                            We can also confuse our fellow believers, saying with our mouths that Jesus is coming soon, but what we’re wearing communications something completely different.
                            People will tend to dress in order to fit in. If most everyone else is dressed like Jesus isn’t coming back, then I sure don’t want to stand out by what I’m wearing.
                            Again, we’re not talking about actual clothes we wear to church, but the lives we put on like clothing.
                            A church can end up with an environment that doesn’t really convey the times or occasion.

                            Xit: It matters how we “dress”

                            Since we know the times and the occasion, how should we dress?

                            What does it mean to “clothe ourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 13:14)?

                            Knowing the times …

                            “Do all these things” (11a)
                            “Do all these things knowing the hour” (11a) - what things?
                            Rom 13:8-10, love one another
                            Rom 12:1-13:10, how we live: interior, family, world
                            How we dress shows how well we understand the times
                            Like the Sons of Issachar (1 Chron 12:32)
                            "Men who were skilled in understanding the times to know what Israel should do.”

                            ++WWJW?

                            Remember WWJD?
                            For today we could use a different phrase: WWJW? What would Jesus wear? Not to sound too creepy.
                            What does it mean to be clothed with Christ in 2020? To wear whatever JC would wear, so to speak.
                            C-19 (WWJW; [inapprop]; [approp]; will what I’m wearing —> dawn?)
                            WWJW during this pandemic?
                            Would He wear wild, mismatched clothes like He got dressed in a panic? What would that say about what time He thinks it is? Would he wear the tattered clothes of disregard for the fate of others, especially the unsaved?
                            Or would He wear the belt of trust in His Father no matter the circumstances? Would He wear the business casual of humble confidence that even if His followers die, yet they will live? Biz casual: serious b/c we know some people who don’t know Jesus; but also appropriately casual because our faith is secure.
                            Will what I’m wearing in a pandemic reflect that it’s almost daytime?
                            Racial tension (“” “”)
                            WWJW while this racial tension is going on?
                            Would He wear tribal clothing that excludes another group? When He sees a group being mistreated, would He wear robes of silence?
                            Or would He wear clothes designed by the prophet Micah: Micah 6:8 “Mankind, he has told each of you what is good and what it is the Lord requires of you: to act justly, to love faithfulness, and to walk humbly with your God.” Would He wear the styles first seen in the city of Colossae, Col 3:11 “In Christ there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all”?
                            Will what I’m wearing while tensions are high reflect that it’s almost daytime?
                            Biz (“” “”)
                            WWJW while His followers are finding it harder to conduct business just because they follow Him?
                            Would He wear the loud colors of anger? Would He wear a uniform of competition and revenge?
                            What would He wear as He’s actively seeking out the sinner’s place of business in order to do business there, where He could begin a friendship with them? What would He wear to do that, because we know that’s the kind of thing He did on earth?
                            Will what I’m wearing while we’re losing business reflect that it’s almost daytime?
                            Defund Police (“” “”)
                            WWJW when lawlessness increases?
                            Would He wear a blindfold in blind support of all police officers no matter what? Would He wear a political pin on His lapel ready to start a quarrel, like in Rom 13:13?
                            We know what He wore when He faced the governor Pilate on fake charges: torn robes, ropes around His wrists that couldn’t really hold Him. But He was wearing the same thing when He also called out Pilate for abusing his government role. He did both. And Jesus wore a crown of thorns while He was executed.
                            Will what I’m wearing while lawlessness increases reflect that it’s almost daytime?

                            Put on suitable armor for the Church

                            So that people can know the times based on how we’re dressed.
                            And so that we can encourage each other about the times we are in based on how we’re dressed.
                            Be the church intensely because Jesus is returning.

                            Dress like you’ve been transferred from out of the Kingdom of Man and into the Kingdom of God and are becoming a full-on citizen

                            Dressing like the world is stunningly unsuitable given the fact that Jesus is about to walk through the door.
                            Put on the Armor of Light (12) & LJC (14)!
                            It’s not all just a list of immoral things to make sure you don’t do.
                            For clothing, we have armor of light! (12)! Daytime, no darkness, living according to the ways of KoG not the KoM.
                            For clothing, we have the LJC Himself (14)! WWJW? Wear that! (Col 3:1-17)
                            We’re already robed with His righteousness, but His way of living daily life is something we put on every day, like clothing.
                            Not “put on” like it’s a fake front, clean clothes hiding a dirty body: rather, “This is what I choose to wrap myself in every day, just like I put on proper clothing every day.
                            Jesus as the armor we wear; there is a real spiritual battle going on right before our eyes, and therefore I choose the ways of Jesus, which I put on like clothing.

                            [SEND KIDS]

                            Or move this above “being the church.”

                            1 Pet 2:11-12

                            I urge you, beloved, as foreigners and exiles on earth, to
                            abstain from sinful desires,
                            which wage war against the soul;
                            maintain good conduct among the nonbelievers,
                            that, though they accuse you of doing evil, they may
                            see your good deeds and
                            glorify God on the day he visits us.
                            1 Pe 2:9-12; 2 Pe 3.3-13
                            Blessing: Eph 4.25-32?; Col 3:1-4?

                            Summary

                            PV Discipleship Groups

                            Discipleship Groups

                            Discovery Questions
                            Read Romans 13:11-14 in two versions.
                            Summarize in your own words what this section is about.
                            What do you gravitate to in this passage? Why?
                            What does this tell you about God?
                            What does this tell you about people?
                            On the premise that this is God’s Word, what changes would you have to make in your thinking or actions?
                            Who in your life needs to hear this?
                            Directed Questions
                            Remember to leave time for prayer, or perhaps do prayer first.
                            Cross references that may come in handy:
                            2 Pe 3:3-13
                            Eph 4:17-32
                            Col 3:1-17
                            Heb 10:19-25
                            1 Pe 2:9-12
                            Introduce: Ask if there is anyone who hasn’t yet been introduced to someone else in the group.
                            Launch:
                            Do you think much about the End Times, the return of the Lord, or the fullness of His Kingdom? What in particular?
                            Has 2020 caused you to think about those things any differently?
                            How have thoughts about these things affected how you live, if at all?
                            Read: Rom 13:11-14 (preferably in more than one translation)
                            Observe:
                            What do you observe in this passage?
                            What are the actions we take in this passage?
                            What are the reasons given?
                            Interpret:
                            What do nighttime, sleep, and darkness refer to?
                            What do daytime, awake, and light refer to?
                            Reflect:
                            When the world sees how you’re “dressed,” in what ways might the understand that we are in the last hour before the dawn?
                            In what ways might they think we’re not in that hour?
                            Apply:
                            If you knew Jesus was coming back in less than 4 years, what would you change today?
                            What thoughts does this passage bring up concerning evangelism?
                            Youth Questions
                            Launch:
                            Those who when through Rev, any connections to the events of 2020?
                            Is the return of Jesus something you expect in your lifetime?
                            Is it something that creates anxiety or peace or both? Why?
                            How should the reality of His return affect your choices about school and career, if at all?
                            Interpret:
                            d

                            Wrap-up

                            One key idea from each group facilitator
                            Gospel
                            ddd

                            Music

                            ​
                            Grace Fellowship Church of Overland Park
                            communications@fellowshipofgrace.org
                            9136813003
                            http://fellowshipofgrace.org
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