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My wife hates when I use her for sermon illustrations, but let me begin tonight with a description of her extensive clothing selection. She has an 8 foot clothes rack in our bedroom, that is bending under the weight of many garments. She has an armoire in the guest bedroom where stays her coats and winter-style clothing. She has a 12 foot portion of rack in our utility/hobby room that is full to the brim with clothes. She has boxes of clothes stored in our various storage sheds. She has a myriad of drawers that are chock full of stuff, and the other day I noticed that some of her clothes had migrated into my closet, pushing my poor suits to one side and causing them to gasp for air! All of this and yet there are some Sundays where she has "nothing to wear!" I'm sure some of you ladies can sympathize.

Now my wife is not a spoiled brat and neither do I preach about her many clothes to make any such statement about her wanting to change -- I plan not to sleep on the couch tonight! And I hastily move on before we talk about how many ties or shirts or pairs of shoes that I have! But I bring up my wife's generous selection of clothing to point out that once it was not so. Once there was no need for closets because unless you were extremely overly rich or royalty, then the only garments that you owned were already on your back. The dress style of the Hebrew lady was of a one piece, long, flowing, dress-like garment with a belt at the waist. The standard attire for a Hebrew man was breeches -- where we get our britches or trousers -- on the bottom half, and a close-fitting shirt on the torso called a "tunic" and very similar in style and function to our "t shirt." On the outside of this, the man wore a long, style coat or "cloak." Because this cloak was worn by the man everyday, it became identified with the man himself and his identity and was known as his most precious belonging.

Furthermore, the trade of the man and the amount of money he made and where he was from figured into the style, quality, and appearance of the coat that he wore and so the coat became figurative for his character and calling in life. When Joseph was shown favor and honor above his fellow brothers, his dad had a "coat of many colors" made for him. The High Priest had a certain outer garment to wear when doing His priestly duties and such. Peter and some of the other guys had "fisherman's coats" that they wore belying their trade as fishermen of Galilee.

When a man slept at night, he usually took off his coat and slept in his tunic with his coat as his blanket to keep him warm. This is why the laws of Moses forbade you keeping somebody's coat as surety for a loan past sundown because then the man would have no blanket. Because of this, in Bible days a man's coat was very treasured and a precious possession. And, by the way, most of the men kept their breeches on at night which is still good advice for unmarried young men today!

It was to this setting that Jesus spoke the words of our text in Luke and I read it in the New American Standard Update, this time:

Jesus was teaching the principle of meekness and humility and the need for less aggressiveness behavior in His disciples. He said, "if they slap you, then offer the other cheek also." "If they take away your coat, then take your shirt off and give it to them too." (But keep your breeches on!) From this teaching of Jesus comes the modern saying "give the shirt off his back," and, in context, Jesus was stressing to His disciples the importance of not fighting their own battles and also making sure that they knew that He had come to set up a spiritual kingdom and not an earthly one. Jesus was not asking His followers to take up literal arms and fight for His cause, but rather to tear down the strongholds of Satan! By such teaching, He ensured that people did not get the wrong idea when He mentioned "His kingdom" -- although they still heard it as they wanted to hear it and still tried to make Him and earthly king.

Such was the aim of Jesus' teaching in context and I fully understand this. And we, today, would be well served to learn the principle of letting God fight our battles and not trying to get revenge when struck and attacked, either physically or spiritually. the Apostle Simon Peter taught elsewhere:

Do not respond to evil to you with evil of your own, or -- in the "holy book" of My Mom 1:1 -- "two wrongs don't make a right!" Jesus taught us to love our enemies and do good to them who despitefully use us. The Word of God says to:

It is very obvious that we should literally and spiritually obey the teachings of Jesus even today in refraining from retaliating as we normally feel in tough situations. The very word "Christian" means "Christ-like" and we are never Christ like when we have an agenda of unforgiveness and revenge. Christ prayed on the cross for the forgiveness of the very ones that had driven the nails and for those who at that very moment ridiculed Him. Such is the example of the Holy One; such should be the actions of us who are striving to be like Him! If our enemy should demand our coat, then certainly we should give him our shirt also!

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But what if it is not your enemy that is asking for your coat; what if it is God Almighty? Should we not be willing to do for God what He has commanded us to do for others? Certainly Christ's nearby teachings on "going the extra mile" applies not only to the demands of Roman soldiers but to our obedience to God's commandments. So then let us look tonight at the commands of our text and apply them not to human to human relations but let them speak to us of our response to God's Word and God's will for our life.

The truth is that God does demand the coat of our old identity when we come to Him. That is why you must repent of your sins -- dying out as we talked about this morning to what you have always been. That is why you must be baptized in the name of Jesus, because that old identity of who you used to be must be buried and done away with. And thank God that He doesn't just take away, but through the power of the Holy Spirit a new cloak of a new identity comes upon us and we are clothed in His righteousness and might! You cannot serve God without surrendering your old cloak of sin to Him. The prophet Isaiah said that Jesus came to:

How many of you are glad that you made the trade with Him? How many of you are now glad to be wearing the robes of righteousness rather than the rags of sin? How many of you proudly sport the garment of praise rather than the spirit of heaviness that used to enshroud you!? How many of you are glad that when Jesus called you to a new life from the tomb of your past, that like Lazarus, he commanded that you be let loose from those grave clothes of the past lifestyle?! Thank God for a change! Thank God for the change of our outer, spiritual coat!

And so understanding the spiritual application possible here, let me return to our texts.

But notice the contrasting verse in our other text in Matthew:

In the Gospel of Luke, it was if anyone wants your coat, give him your shirt. And the reference is from outside in. But in Mathew, He says that if anyone wants your shirt, let him have your coat also! That is the reverse of Luke's verses and the opposite direction, inside out. It is no accident nor slip of the pen that the two commandments are inverses of each other, but rather proof that Jesus was teaching us more here than just dealing with your enemies. The principle is that if the outer is asked then we must also give the inner. And if the inner is asked for, then we must also be willing to give the outer. Both principles are true in many, many ways. First,

God is not just looking for lip service of outward religious motion without the heart being involved. It is true that the Bible demands outward things -- the coats of Christianity, if you will. We are commanded to put on and wear such things as prayer, fasting, praise, church attendance, tithes and offerings, witnessing, Bible study, and obedience. But we must never forget that if such things are given without the inner will being involved in true worship, then all such outer things are in vain. We must be willing to give our tunic with the outer cloak! Jesus said:

Prayers are easily found among the heathen and false religions. Fasting is found there also. Praise and sacrifice and monetary giving and religious attendance and outreach and study are all found among every major religion of the world, whether that religion is based upon truth or not. (Now God forbid that we would be outdone by the Muslim or the Buddhist -- that they would be more faithful and consecrated to their man-made religion than those who have received the true manna from heaven! But that is another sermon for another time!) We must realize that the outward motion of prayer and fasting and praise and sacrifice and giving does not in themselves make us right with God. Neither does doing such things under the guise or title of "Christianity." What makes us as we should be is when we do such things not just because God demands it but because such things spring from an inner desire to please Him. God is a spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. In other words, God is not pleased in the

outward obedience if the inner man is not included with it. And I'll go even a bit further and say that giving the outward coat to God is pointless if it does not spring from an inner desire of your heart!

We are commanded to pray and certainly we should, but if you only pray because if you feel bad because when you don't, then I would say that you have truly missed the entire point of prayer and will accomplish little. We are commanded to praise God and to do so with outward motions such as clapping our hands and the dance, but if you do so only because "it is the thing to do" or "I have to" then you have not pleased God. I have several times in my life had people look at me and ask questions about praise only to be shown the scriptures and say "but do I have to in order to be saved?" There is not much that I do for such people, because they have missed the entire point. It's not that God is especially gladdened by the physical actions of clapping of hands and people leaping around -- He can get that a rock concert or a football stadium -- but rather God is impressed and attracted to when we have such a great and favorable view of Him and such a revelation of His goodness that we cannot help but praise Him outwardly in such a manner! We are commanded to praise Him "according to His excellent greatness!" We are commanded to praise Him, "for His mercy endureth forever." God does not want you just to give Him the outward coat of praise, but rather to somewhere along the way get the revelation deep down inside of just how true it is that He is worthy! He demands the outward, but craves the inner along with it!

How many people go to church and pray outwardly without their inner man being even involved!? How many people go through religious motion every Sunday and yet never experience anything new in God? They reach for Him without expecting to touch Him. They do the form of religion without having a relationship. They praise but never worship.

Even Pentecostals can be guilty of giving God the outward that He desires without the inner being involved! We can give faithfully of our tithing and offering and resent it inwardly all the time. But the Lord loveth a cheerful giver -- God loves those who when asked for their outer coat -- they that willingly also give the inner tunic! I have found myself before regularly fasting and yet not really seeking after more of God while I do so and just performing a ritual out of habit. If we are not careful, we can find ourselves being faithful to the house of the Lord and yet somehow think that just by our being there we have fully pleased God and yet despite our physical bodies being present, our minds wander away during service and we do not respond to the moving of His Spirit with all of our heart and mind and soul. We can come to Bible Study and go through the motions of learning and yet never let the truth of what we are learning change our way of thinking and our way of viewing life. We can pat ourselves on the back for giving so regularly and faithfully with the outward things, that we do not even realize that we are not truly giving God everything that He desires because He desires our heart also! If He demands the coat of your outer obedience, then give Him the inner tunic of all your heart, soul, and mind in doing it!

I don't want to be like the people that Sis. Sibley once preached about, who will miss heaven by about twelve inches, the distance from their heart and their brain. They know that they should do things and they do them, but it is not in their heart to do such things. Make sure that as you obey the commandments of God, that it springs from something inside that desires to obey and is not just outward motion by itself!

A second principle from our texts is that:

I'm drawn to the story of King David bringing the ark of the covenant where God's presence dwelt back into Jerusalem, and the Bible says:

The fact that he was "wearing a linen ephod" indicates to us that he was wearing the tunic or inner shirt of a priest who ministered before the Lord. His wife would later criticize him for "revealing his nakedness" but he was not exposing his body, but rather that means that he had removed his kingly robes and royal arraignment. David didn't let the outer robes of success or power, keep him from letting his inward identity of a true worshipper and praiser of God come out! He did not feel that he was "too good" to be sincere before God. He did not hide behind a pretentious mask of who he claimed to be. When it came to the things of God, he realized that all of the robes and calling of this life were unimportant compared to the importance of being real with God!

We could well learn a lesson from King David. Matters not whether you wear the robe of success or nonsuccess in this life. Whether you have royal robes or the rags of a pauper. It matters not if you are the boss or the grunt, the leader or the follower as to this life -- when you come to God, if you want to genuinely give Him your heart and soul, then you will have to lay down the outer robes of position and life. You cannot give the inside without truly laying down the outside also!

And let me say this: I've seen people and you can immediately tell that they are wearing the outer cloak of a hard life. You can tell that they are no stranger to violence. I remember being in Los Angeles and seeing a guy come by a red light whose demeanor and clothing and car markings clearly indicated that he was a part of some gang from the wrong side of town, and my brother looked at me and said, "how in the world can you win someone like that to God?" I smiled and told him about someone we won out of the barrio here in San Antonio. The trick, you see, is to realize and to help them to realize that the outward cloak of hardness and toughness is but a front and a coat that they feel they must wear to survive. Within that outer cloak of bitterness and unforgiveness is a soul that was created to serve and worship God that is dying to get out. And so if they are to give their heart to God, they must be willing to lay down first the outside front.

And the same applies to you and I. We must be willing to drop the masks of pretending that everything is alright when it is not. We must get beyond from the cloaks of deception and the fake smiles that we put on to sometimes come to church. If everything is great, then great! But if it is not, then we only hurt ourselves by wearing a mask of deception and trying to hide behind it. You will only get better if you will give the inward hurt to God, and He says come and lay your burdens upon Him and you can find rest, but you cannot give your inner hurts, until you drop the outward front that you placed around yourself. This is not a place for pretending but rather a place to get real with God! To give Him the inner, we must give Him the outward and vice versa. Matters not if it goes inside out or outside in, we still must give both to Him!

Moving on, notice a third principle taught by our texts:

Everyone can see the giving of the outwardly, but the giving of the inner man is only seen by you and God. By telling us to be willing to give the inner when asked for the outward, Jesus was teaching us that our true inward commitment must match our outward commitment. In other words, we should not just seem to be giving or obeying or believing, but we must to the very core of us being doing so and vice versa. We should be real and genuine and not hypocrites.

A few years ago, my parents bought a bunch of books that contain the genealogies of the Sibley family in America. We found out that all Sibleys in the States are the offspring of one of two brothers that came from England on a supply ship to the early American colonists. We even found our English family shield and crest and the family motto -- a long Latin thing that I finally looked up one day and was surprised to find it meant "to be and not to seem." Sibleys -- at least according to our crest of old -- are supposed to be known as people who really are what they claim and not just seem to be something and yet be something else.

"To be and not to seem" is not just the motto for the Sibleys but for the entire family of God. During His ministry, Jesus was the most merciful and compassionate and kind and non-judgmental person that ever lived. In fact, Jesus only hammered and cursed one group of people during His ministries, and that was those Pharisees who appeared religious on the outside and yet were spiritually dry and empty within. In other words, Jesus actively combated those whose outward motions implied a commitment that they really had not made on the inside. Not only did Jesus deal harshly verbally with such people, but twice He took off His belt and drove them out of the temple using it as a whip! The only people that Jesus ever pushed out of church were those who claimed to be sincere on the outside and yet were living a double life.

To be and not to seem. Such was the sin of Ananias and Sapphira; their bringing and laying of their gift at the feet of the Apostles implied total commitment on the outside, but inwardly they had not made such a step! And even then the result was the judgment of God and the quick wrath upon their situation. The fountain of mercy and revival had to be halted temporarily in the Apostolic church so that judgment could go forth! Woe be to us who would not match inwardly what we give outwardly because nothing brings the wrath of God quicker than such people! Others may only see the cloak, but Jesus sees the tunic! He sees all and knows all and blesses and exalts those who are truly what they profess to be!

If you want to go far in the kingdom of God, make sure that you are what you appear and claim to be. Make sure that the claims of your outward actions reflect who you really are on the inside! Man may be fooled by empty actions, but God is not fooled! Don't just give the outer form of a religious commitment, but make sure that your private actions and your inner self and thoughts match that commitment! Don't give the outer without giving God the inner. Give Him your coat, but also give Him your tunic! Whether it be inside out or outside in, we must give God both!

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I begin to aim this message to the runway by bringing you two, final, equally important and similar thoughts from our text. The first is:

God does care about the outside. He cares about the outside of your body -- both what you do with it, where you take it, how you dress it, and how you act with it towards others. Much of Christianity is caught up in a lie of interpreting grace and mercy as a license for believers to live like they want to and do what they want and sin willfully because they know that they can receive forgiveness. Such concepts are far from the truth of God's grace and mercy. Paul said this:

You've heard of the man Noah whom God commanded to build the ark before the great Flood of Genesis. The scripture says of the man Noah:

Noah found "grace" in the sight of God. We can therefore say that when Noah was saved from the flood, that he was "saved by grace." But yet we also find that when Noah had found grace in the sight of God, God gave him specific instructions on how to build the ark and what to do and what not to do and only by obeying outwardly and fully what God had commanded in his lifestyle did Noah find salvation!

We are saved by grace, but beware those who tell you that you are saved even if you choose to disobey God's Word, because you may have found grace in the sight of God, but you still had better outwardly obey everything that God has told you to do! If Noah would have sang Amazing Grace a zillion times and yet not obeyed God's commandment and built the ark as he was supposed to do, then he would have been swept away by the Flood regardless!

Is this not what our text is teaching? You cannot give the inside without giving the outside! God will not take one without the other! Let him who is asked for his tunic, give his coat also!

"Well, I'm saved by inward faith and believing, I don't need to get baptized." Foolish man, "He who believeth AND is baptized shall be saved." And might I add, "He who truly believes will get baptized." You may have found grace, but unless you act upon it, your belief is pointless. Faith without action is dead. Listen to this scripture:

And in another spot, Jesus said:

God does care about your outward actions and obedience. He asks for your heart and your mind, but if He has those, then He will certainly have your outer man as well!

To think that God can change your inward man and change it without proof or changes on the outside of that event is foolish and improbable. The followers of Christ were first called "Christians" at the city of Antioch because their outward appearance and actions reminded the town folk of Jesus Christ. Simon Peter was easily pegged and identified at Jesus' trial because he looked like, dressed like, acted like, and talked like someone who followed Christ. The scripture talks about how we should live holy in our actions, responses, mouths, dress, and modesty. To say that God does not care about such things, is to ignore half of the New Testament and the clear teachings of the Apostles otherwise. It is impossible for God to really change your inward man and it not affect your lifestyle or appearance on the outside. Most often, people's outside demeanor and appearance is a reflection of what is truly on the inside. If God's power is manifest on the inside, then there will be a noticeable difference on the outside. God may most often work inside out, but eventually someone who is truly changed and on fire for God will stand out in this world. He asks for your heart, but we must be willing to give Him our outward actions also!

At the same time, we must also realize our second point is just as true and that is:

Perhaps you look the part of the Christian. Perhaps you wear your clothes just so and you dress the part and are modest and have a pure house and guard your eyes from seeing things that you should not see, but we must never forget that as God asks for the outside, then we must be sure to give Him the inside. I've known people who looked Godly who were living for selfish ambitions and not for the will of God. I've known people who looked and appeared the part on the outside, but inside were full of bitterness and unforgiveness and spite and envy. You can be holy on the outside, but never forget that we must be willing to give our inner tunic also. Both are important and both are required. One does not substitute for the other. Whether it be outside in or inside out, we must be holy. Whether it be inside out or outside in, we must be real. Whether it be outside in or inside out, we must serve Him with faith and genuineness. In the areas that He demand our outer cloak, we must be willing to give our inner man also. In the areas that He asks for our heart, we must be willing to give the outward things also. We must give both the inside and the outside, both the cloak and the tunic; both the coat and the shirt. We must inside and out and outside and in be surrendered to Him!