I Like Your Style – An Attractive Lifestyle

I Like Your Style – An Attractive Lifestyle
Sycamore Creek Church
April 3, 2011
Matthew 5:13-16
Tom Arthur

Peace, Friends!

I have to confess a guilty pleasure.  I love watching What Not to Wear on TLC.  If you’re not familiar with this show, here’s how it works.  Take one person with no style, insert some style experts and $5000 for a new wardrobe, and voila, thirty minutes later you’ve got a new person.  From dumpy to fabulous.  One of those style experts is Kelly Clinton.  I love how that guy dresses.  If I could dress like anyone, it would be him.  I love his style.

I’ve also always liked the old movies where men are always wearing stylish hats.  I had an older friend Bill Zoerhoff who used to wear hats all the time.  I always complimented him on his hats.  When he died, his wife gave me one of his hats.  I still wear it today.  I loved Bill’s sense of style.  I was attracted to it.

But what if style went more than skin deep?  What if you were attracted to more than just what someone was wearing on the outside?  What if you were attracted to their character, their values, the way they live their life?  Their lifestyle.  Now that would be pretty cool.

One person whose lifestyle deeply attracted me was John Green.  John Green went to the same college I did: Wheaton College.  While at Wheaton he spent some time in the city of Chicago.  When he graduated he decided he had to minister to the needs of the city, and so he began a ministry called Emmaus that helped male prostitutes get off the street.  These guys were very often addicted to something and prostitution was their attempted means to pay for their addiction.  Emmaus grew over time and eventually included a drop-in center and a residential program to help guys get their lives back together.  I really liked John’s lifestyle.  It was and is attractive to me.

But there’s someone even closer to home whose lifestyle is also attractive.  I get to work with her every day.  Amazingly, she mixes together both the fashion sense of style and the lifestyle.  That’s SCC’s office manager, Susan Bigger.  If you’ve ever gotten to know Susan, or even if you’ve just seen her across the room, you know that Susan has a keen sense of style.  She always looks fabulous.  She dresses in an attractive way.  But there’s more to Susan than just style.  There’s an attractive lifestyle.  Susan lives very simply and she gives very generously.

Susan never buys something at full price.  She always buys on the clearance racks or at thrift-stores.  I asked her one time how many pairs of shoes she has and she said, “About forty.”  She went on to tell me that the average price of those shoes was $10.  Now the average price of one of my pairs of shoes is probably about $100.  So Susan’s forty shoes cost about the same as four of my pairs of shoes!  I asked Susan if there was ever something she really really wanted but it was too expensive.  She told me about a time when she saw a coat for $70 that she absolutely loved, but it was too much.  So she waited.  Next time she came in the store it was on the clearance rack for $12.  If only all of us had that kind of patience!  Susan’s sense of style is attractive, but she’s also got the attractive lifestyle to go with it.

Jesus tells us that our lifestyle should be attractive.  We should live our lives in a way that brings zest and spice to our world.  Listen to how he describes how our lives should be:

You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it useful again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless.  You are the light of the world — like a city on a mountain, glowing in the night for all to see.  Don’t hide your light under a basket! Instead, put it on a stand and let it shine for all.  In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.
Matthew 5:13-16 (NLT)

This is God’s story and teaching for us today.  Thank you, God!

I’d like to focus in on verse thirteen which says, “You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it useful again?”  How does salt lose its saltiness?  There’s only one way.  Dilute it.  I tried this at home.  You can put a teaspoon of salt in a cup of water and you’ve definitely got salt water.  Put that cup of saltwater in five gallons of water and you can barely taste the salt.

If our lives our supposed to have the flavor of salt, what are the things that dilute our lifestyle?  You probably know the things that dilute your lifestyle.  Some of us dilute our lifestyle with drugs or alcohol.  Some of us dilute our lifestyle with premarital sex or pornography.  Some of us dilute our lifestyle by the media we consume.  Others dilute our lifestyle by the people we hang out with.  In a lot of these cases, it’s not that all this stuff is bad (although some of it is definitely not worth doing at all), but it’s a matter of proportion or dilution.  One teaspoon of salt in a cup of water or five gallons of water?

I’ve recently read a book called unchristian by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons.  They  are doing a lot of research on young people, especially young people outside of the church.  They found in their research that 84% of 16-29 year-olds know a Christian and only 15% see lifestyle differences.  Only 15%!  YIKES!  Talk about dilution.  Is that true about my lifestyle?

It’s not that we do these things to be seen and praised for them.  We’re not about an attractive lifestyle to get our own glory and fame.  Jesus warns us about this saying, “Take care! Don’t do your good deeds publicly, to be admired, because then you will lose the reward from your Father in heaven” (Matthew 6:1, NLT).  He says elsewhere that when we do our good deeds to be seen publicly, then we’ve already got our reward: public acclamation.

While I was at seminary, our bishop, Jonathan Keaton, came to visit.  The professor who had organized the event took the bishop and all the Michigan students out to dinner.  We went to a famous barbecue place in Durham.  This professor then suggested that we sing the doxology (“Praise God from whom all blessings flow…”) out loud so the whole restaurant could hear it.  Umm…I don’t mind singing the doxology, but I don’t think the purpose of prayer is supposed to be so the rest of the restaurant can hear it.  I was a little uncomfortable.

Rather, he says, “In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father” (Matthew 5:16, NLT).  The purpose of having an attractive lifestyle isn’t to bring praise to us but to bring praise to God.

Sarah and I were on a date one night and eating at Panchero’s.  We always take time to pray before we eat.  We hold hands, bow our heads, and say a quite prayer to ourselves.  This night as we finished praying and began eating, a woman came up to us and said, “I saw you praying.  Are you Christians?”  We told her that we were, and she went on to say how much it encouraged her to see young Christians praying together.  We weren’t trying to be seen by people.  We were just doing our thing, and this woman praised God for it.

Let’s go back to that book unchristian and see if we can learn something about what an attractive lifestyle looks like.  In their research, Kinnaman and Lyons have found that if you tell an “outsider” that you are a Christian they will immediately have an impression of what that means, and it’s not a good impression.  It includes at least six things: hypocritical, uncaring, antihomosexual, sheltered, political, and judgmental.  Yikes!  Certainly this is not the attractive lifestyle that Jesus intended.  It’s not that we’re polling “outsiders” and then trying to fit their expectations, but rather we’re learning from them and seeing ourselves through their eyes.  God often uses “outsiders” in the Bible to teach something to God’s people about themselves.  Kinnaman and Lyons describe a current perspective that outsiders have and a new perspective that Kinnaman and Lyons suggest Christians seek to live into.  So let’s look at these outsider perspectives.

Hypocritical

Christians say one thing but live something entirely different.

85% of outsiders say that Christians are hypocritical.  We wear a mask.  We’re not authentic.  We act a part but aren’t really like that on the inside.  We say one thing and do another.  Kinnaman and Lyons suggest a new perspective: Christians are transparent about their flaws and act first, talk second. Sounds like authentic life in Christ to me.

Uncaring

Christians are insincere and concerned only with converting others.

70% of outsiders say that Christians are uncaring.  We’re only interested in counting butts in seats and not really interested in the people who are in those seats.  We want numbers more than anything else.  Kinnaman and Lyons suggest a new perspective: Christians cultivate relationships and environments where others can be deeply transformed by God. Yes!  I love it.

Antihomosexual

Christians show contempt for gays and lesbians.

Of all the attitudes outsiders have of Christians, this is the strongest.  90% of outsiders say that Christians are antihomosexual.  The key word here is “contempt.”  It’s not just that Christians disagree with acting out on same sex attraction, but that we show active contempt for those who do.  We hate them.  We shun them.  We picket funerals because of them.  We wear “God hates fags” shirts.  This goes a whole lot deeper than “love the sinner hate the sin” kind of language (although that language, Kinnaman and Lyons says, is not very helpful either).

This is a touchy subject, but wherever you stand on this issue (and there is a significant amount of disagreement in the Christian community itself on this issue), surely we can all agree with Kinnaman and Lyons’ suggested new perspective: Christians show compassion and love to all people, regardless of their lifestyle.  Yes!  Yes!  Yes!  I like your style.

Sheltered

Christians are boring, unintelligent, old-fashioned, and out of touch with reality.

78% of outsiders say Christians are sheltered.  We live in a bubble.  We are all salt and no water.  (You know, it only takes a little bit of salt to add a lot of zest to a meal.)  We blindly follow our leaders without asking hard questions (um…I wouldn’t mind some blind followers).  We check our brains at the door.  Kinnaman and Lyons suggest a new perspective: Christians are engaged, informed, and offer sophisticated responses to the issues people face. I like your style!

Political

Christians are primarily motivated by a political agenda and promote right-wing politics.

75% of outsiders say Christians are too political.  We’re interested in only a right-wing political agenda which ignores things like caring for the environment and the poor.  We want to shove our beliefs down the throats of others by force of the law.  Kinnaman and Lyons suggest a new perspective: Christians are characterized by respecting people, thinking biblically, and finding solutions to complex issues. Sounds attractive to me.

Judgmental

Christians are prideful and quick to find faults in others.

87% of outsiders say that Christians are judgmental.  Wow.  Judgmental?  Didn’t Jesus have some strong words to say about being judgmental?  And yet here we are still being  judgmental.  We focus on the faults of others and miss our own faults.  We’re quick to tell others how bad they are.  Kinnaman and Lyons suggest a new perspective: Christians show grace by finding the good news in others and seeing their potential to be Christ followers. I like your style!

All of these new perspectives sound pretty attractive to me.  I think they line up more closely with the way that Paul talks about how we should live.  He says:

Since God chose you to be the holy people whom he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy [“compassion” in other translations], kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. You must make allowance for each other’s faults and forgive the person who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. And the most important piece of clothing you must wear is love.
Colossians 3:12-14, NLT

I love that.  “Clothe yourselves.”  Have a style that goes deeper than just the outside.  What is that style?  Mercy.  Kindness.  Humility.  Gentleness.  Patience.  Forgiveness.  Love.  If you want to share your faith with others, clothing yourself with this kind of lifestyle will be the most effective.  It’s not the method that you tell the gospel.  It’s the way you live your life.

I asked this past week on Facebook about when people had a hard time showing mercy, kindness, gentleness and patience.  Whoa!  What a response I got.  It turns out that people have a hard time doing this just about all the time:

• “On Mondays.”
• “The times that I am too busy for hand holding.”
• “Every day at work.”
• “When my husband asks me to do something he really needs to do, and then tries to tell me how to do it differently when I take on the task.”
• “When dealing with a difficult patient, when I’m sick, when my kids won’t go to sleep, when others do not take responsibility for their actions.”
• “When you add a full-time job plus my kid’s zillion activities with no day off, no one to turn to for help and no end in sight, compassion just does not exist anymore.  You just become a robot and do the little you must do to JUST cope.”
• “I find it hard to be compassionate with my family, I guess because I know them so well I know the buttons that they push and games they play.”
• “When I am already angry or when I am just having a bad day.”

I also asked when you saw someone being merciful, kind, gentle, and patient.  I got a lot fewer responses to that question!

Let me share with you some times I have seen people being these things.  When it comes to compassion, I’m learning a lot lately from my wife.  When my son, Micah, four-months old, is crying, my first thought is, “How do I get this kid to shut-up?!”  I’m focused on how his crying is irritating me.  Sarah has a different response.  She feels compassion for him.  Why is he crying?  What can she do to help soothe his suffering?  What is hurting him?  She’s focused on Micah.  I’m focused on myself.

When it comes to humility, you can really see this virtue in someone based on how they receive feedback.  The most recent issue of Psychology Today had an article about giving and receiving feedback.  One thing that jumped out at me was the suggestion that we are more open to receiving feedback when we ask for it.  Ah, but asking for feedback takes humility!  If I am good at this, it is only because I have seen it modeled by John Savage.  Many of you know him because he worked with our church when I first came.  John taught me to continually be asking for feedback.  This is not always easy, but John lives out a lifestyle of humility that makes it easy for him to ask for feedback, and when you give him honest feedback (“I don’t like it when you do…”), he doesn’t get his feathers all ruffled.  He talks it out with you.

Then there’s gentleness and kindness.  I went out golfing with Eric Kuprel last fall.  I hadn’t golfed in probably ten years or so.  I was a little rusty.  It was a great golf-course for me because the fairways were lined up side by side.  So when the ball went wide, it didn’t end up in the woods or in a lake, it just ended up two or three fairways over!  But the best part of the experience was Eric.  Eric was about as kind and gentle with this rusty golfer as I could have hoped for.  His quiet soothing voice spoke as an equal and not as one imparting knowledge.  His suggestions were offered humbly without frustration or impatience.  He seemed to be in no hurry to get off the golf course.  In fact, maybe he enjoyed golfing with me because it meant we were outside longer than he would have been otherwise!

Patience.  Ah…The staff at SCC has a saying about patience: Don’t ever pray for patience.  The reason being is that you will then be given lots of opportunities to practice patience!  While I was working on this sermon, I was sitting in a coffee shop.  I saw a middle-aged woman bring in an elder woman, perhaps her mother.  The mother walked with a walker.  The daughter seemed in no rush.  She held the door.  She slowly made it to the counter.  She ordered.  They sat and shared a couple of words but mostly sat in silence enjoying one another’s company.  When they were done with their conversation and their drinks, the daughter slowly escorted her mother back to the car opening the doors on the way there.  This was patience personified.  Meeting the needs of another in their time rather than our own time.

Lastly, Paul talks about clothing ourselves with forgiveness.  I’d like to dive into forgiveness, but I’m going to wait, because the next series is all about forgiveness.

Compassion/Mercy, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness.  These all are the substance of love.  Living this way will make others say, “I like your style!”  But how do we develop these virtues if we don’t already have them?  There are a lot of different ways to cultivate character in ourselves, but I want to mention just one today: journaling.

Journaling

John Wesley, the 18^th Century founder of Methodism, used a journal for one primary purpose: to track how he used his time.  He asked the question each day: “Did I use my time in a way that God will be able to bless?”  He asked of himself three questions: Did I avoid harm and evil?  Did I do good?  Did I stay in love with God?  You could simply sit down each day with a journal and ask yourself these three questions.

Another church leader who can provide us some direction on journaling is Ignatius of Loyola, the 16^th Century founder of the Jesuits.  Loyola developed what he called the daily examen.  You begin with gratitude.  What are you grateful for today?  Then you move on to ask for the help of the Holy Spirit.  From there you review your day: actions, thoughts, motivations.  After reviewing your day you confess how you have not lived up to what God would desire of you.  Then you finish by resolving with God’s help to live differently tomorrow.  This kind of examen could easily be done in a journal each day.

Glorify God

The goal of this message today is to encourage you to share your faith using your most powerful tool: your lifestyle.  When people say, “I like your style,” they’ll be more open to hearing your story.  You have to be the gospel in order for people to hear the gospel (Michael Slaughter).  So how will people know when they see your lifestyle and are attracted to it that the glory belongs to God?  This will happen in one of two ways.  First, you will tell them.  “I live this way because of God.”  Or second, because you are doing it with a community that bears God’s name.  The name of the community does the work for you.  And these are the subjects of the next two weeks.

Let me finish with one story.  While I was at seminary I became friends with a Muslim in the religion department.  We had several conversations about Islam and Christianity.  These were inspiring and thought-provoking conversations, but my friend never really seemed all that interested in what I believed, until he found out about the house I lived in.  I lived with some other Christians who offered hospitality to women and children in transition.  It wasn’t the power of my beliefs that made him take interest in my faith, it was the way I lived my life.  That’s when he said, “I like your style.”

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