Dressed in Christ's Righteousness

, open up to 1 Timothy chapter 2. As we're going to read some of the context here before we, hit the latter verses, just by way of reminder. This is a book written by Paul, to a young pastor named Timothy. And Timothy is the pastor of the Church of Ephesus.

And in this book we can imply that there's some messages that Paul wants to give to Timothy personally, but knowing that Timothy is going to read the text and preach the text, he's also backing up Timothy's ministry. Timothy is a young pastor is trying to accomplish certain things within the church. he's trying to help them understand that the Church of the living God is the pillar and ground of truth, and he wants to teach the church how to conduct themselves in the house of God, like it says in 1 Timothy 3:15.

And so Paul is writing this letter to both exhort and encourage Timothy, but also knowing that it's going to get to the congregation as well.

Let's read chapter 2 starting in verse 1. I'm reading from a New King James Version. Therefore, Paul says, I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings, and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceful life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God, our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.

There's one God, and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time, for which I am appointed a preacher and an apostle. I am speaking the truth in Christ and not lying, a teacher of the Gentiles and faith and truth. In those 1st 7 verses Paul exhorts Timothy and his pastoral ministry to offer up prayers for government leaders and all men that there'd be peace, but not just that there would be peace in the land, but so that the gospel could go forward and the Savior of all men, this mediator Jesus Christ, could be proclaimed and accepted because God wants to call people to Himself.

And then Paul reminds Timothy that this is why I'm in the apostolic business.

This is why I'm an evangelist, so that people can come to know the Lord Jesus Christ, even Gentiles. Then Paul turns his attention in verse 8 as Pastor Milton preached last week and applies this gospel message to men. I desire therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting. So what is the application to the men in Timothy's church in light of this eternal gospel?

It's that men would take up their leadership role as prayer warriors and that they would walk in holiness. And then Paul is going to apply the gospel to women. And what is the first thing that he says to apply the gospel, this eternal message that has come through Jesus Christ, and through the apostle Paul, and now here to Timothy. What is the one important thing that Paul wants to apply to women?

In like manner also that the women adorn themselves in modest apparel with propriety braided hair of gold or gold or pearls or costly clothing, not with braided hair, gold, pearls, or costly clothing. It's like somebody just let the air out of a balloon. I don't know about you, but, this seems very deflated. We're going to apply the gospel to the men.

Men, be prayer warriors, walk in holiness, men. OK, here's the application for women. Don't wear braided hair and gold and pearls, and don't be immodest or inappropriate with your dress. It's almost like Paul just jumped to the 1800s.

Is this the Elizabethan era? Are we talking about our grandma here? Paul wants to apply the eternal gospel and the thing that he thinks is so important for them to hear is how they adorn themselves with modest apparel. And so it begs the question, why would Paul make this the first application to women of the gospel, as Paul is trying to bolster Timothy's ministry, why does he make this such a sticking point?

What is it that's going on in the Ephesians church that Paul wants to emphasize the dress, the apparel of women? I don't know if, if I was a woman in the Ephesian Church, I don't know if I would feel like this exalted sense of worship come over me when this message begins to be proclaimed. But it is a message on the pages of Scripture and so we do want to deal with it this morning and so that brings us to our topic. We're going to title this message Dressed in Christ's righteousness because I believe that Paul, when he gives this instruction to women, it is not a trite instruction.

It is an instruction that is filled with gospel import. Now, let me give you a long introduction, which is something they tell you never to do, but we're going to do a very long introduction on this message. First of all, let me tell you why I don't want to preach this message. I don't want to preach this message first of all because of my own sin.

When you start talking about things like dress and clothing, and lust and sexuality, I think any man in this room would say this is something that cuts at the heart. What is one of the reasons why dads sometimes have trouble talking to their daughters about what they wear? It's because we as men deal with lust. If I were to list my three main sins that I've struggled with since I've been a Christian, even since I've been a pastor, it would be pride, anger, and lust, and not necessarily in that order.

And so to get up and talk about something that strikes at my heart as a man is difficult to do. I don't want to preach this message also because of my proclivity to say dumb things. Proverbs 10:19 says, in the multitude of words, sin is not lacking, but he who restrains his lips is wise. Let's pray.

And in this message See, I'm preaching here on Sunday, but I know Monday is coming, and around my house Monday is called Moaning Mondays. Because after you preach a message, at least in my case, and I know a lot of the other pastors do the same, you walk around the house and you go. And my, and then my son's like, what's wrong, Dad? I just remembered something I should have said.

Or I just remembered something I shouldn't have said, or I shouldn't have said it in that way. Or somebody gave me a funny look when I said this. So Moaning Mondays is coming. I also don't want to preach this message because of my fear of laying upon God's people an unbiblical burden.

Whenever you preach something like this, and you can read all kinds of materials and listen to all kinds of messages on the internet, there is a tendency of a lot of the material to just lay out rules and laws and do's and don'ts and to lay things on God's people that are nowhere in the written word of God. And I know, I don't just speak for myself, but all of the pastors here at Cornerstone is we don't want to lay an unbiblical burden on God's people. That would be offensive to Christ.

Another reason why I don't want to preach this message is the possibility of God's people misapplying this morning's message or disregarding it altogether.

Let me say not just possibility, but the absolute certainty that this message will be misapplied. Anytime you get up and speak in front of 400 people and 2 services, there are things that are going to be misapplied. I tell my children certain instructions and it gets misapplied, right? But that's where the Holy Spirit comes in to apply these things.

This is one of the reasons why we have care groups so that people can get together and talk through the issues and talk about how we apply it and so on. But let me tell you why this sermon must be preached, and not just preached this morning, but regularly and not just preached by the pastors of this church, but by the men of this church and the parents of this church, by the grandmas, by the grandpas, by the older brothers and sisters. This message must be preached regularly.

we do talk about this issue normally once a year either in man forum.

Summer comes along, in staff meeting, it comes up. Some brothers or sisters who really love the people in this church will come. Hey, I've got a concern. A lot of times the concern may have something to do with Modest dress or whatnot.

but we haven't really preached this message a ton from the pulpit. 2005, we preached on it. 2009, we preached on it. And yet this is something that probably we could talk about every year.

But if our moms and dads and our families would talk about it regularly, I think we can really see some blessing that would come as we discuss this topic, particularly in the context of the gospel. The sermon must be preached on because every thought must be caught, caught captive, brought captive to Christ, right? We want every thought to be brought captive to Christ and thoughts about the body, thoughts about sexuality, thoughts about apparel, we should want to capture those thoughts, run them through our biblical filter, and make them bow to the Lord Jesus Christ.

What you wear this message must be preached because what you wear directly connects to your heart.

Your understanding and experience of the gospel are revealed. In your dress. This is my thesis. This is my main point.

I'll just let the cat out of the bag right now. How we clothe our bodies reflects our understanding and experience of the gospel, particularly the imputed righteousness of Christ. Which teaches us that we are dressed in Christ's righteous life. We'll be explaining what we mean by imputed righteousness, what we mean by being dressed in his righteousness.

But my proposition this morning is that clothing is not just an evolutionary topic. It's not just something that happens in culture. Clothing is very, very theological and it has a lot to do with the gospel. A couple of other parts of our long introduction.

Does God care what you wear? Ask yourselves a couple of questions as we warm up to this topic. Where did clothing come from? Did it just come from the cavemen?

And the cavewomen. What is its purpose or purposes? Is God merely concerned about our spirit? He really doesn't care about the body.

He only cares about the inside. Are there biblical standards that should guide our choice of clothing? Or has God left it pretty much up to each individual? And is the modern fashion industry neutral?

Some other starting points to, to help us get our minds warmed up. We're stretching out here, stretching out our muscles, right? Get ready to work out here. Everyone here.

Already has a personal theology of body and clothing. Whether you've thought through it or not, you have a theology of this topic. You're all dressed here, I see. Right?

So you all got up and decided, I'm putting clothes on today. It is not appropriate for me to come to church naked. Do you have a theology of clothing. You believe something about this.

The question is, do we have a theology that comports with the mind of Christ? reality is, is none of us in this room are perfectly consistent, right? We're all growing and we're hopefully growing into the mind of Christ. The only pers if you find a perfectly consistent Christian, you'll be looking at him in his casket, right?

When we die and go to heaven, then we'll be perfectly consistent. Our theology will match all of our actions, but for now we're trying to get our theology to match the mind of Christ. I want to propose this morning that you are what you wear. Henry Van Till, one of my favorite apo apologists, says that culture is religion externalized.

And there is probably no. A more truer thermometer of a culture than what it wears, what the culture, how the culture dresses. You can talk about food. You can talk about music, but what we put on our bodies says a lot about the culture.

Missionaries, when they walk in cultures that are untouched by the gospel, they can immediately assess things about that culture merely by what they, what they wear, by what they dress, or how they dress. And so you are what you wear. Another thought that I want to lay out before us. is just the issue and the dangers of legalism and licentiousness.

These are real dangers when talking about such a topic. In the book Public Undressing The Public Undressing of America by Jeff Pollard, he says this about the legalist. The legalist is one who creates laws and rules foreign. Let me pull that up for you.

foreign to the scripture by which he hopes to bind the consciences of men. That's one aspect of legalism. Alternatively, he is that individual who teaches that one's entrance to heaven is predicated on submission to a code of conduct. So when you talk about something like dress, you could fall into legalism which really has two different components to it.

It could be, hey, if you do this, this is what the Bible says and you should dress this way, even the Bible doesn't say that. Or you can say you have to dress this way in order to go to heaven. Both of those can be defined as legalism because we know we only can go to heaven through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, right? And we want to restrict our theology as much as possible to what the Bible specifically says, or by what in good order we can logically derive from the scriptures.

Anything beyond that could be categorized as legalism, but there's also the fear of falling into licentiousness, which basically tries to say that the Bible doesn't have anything really of direct statements to say about this topic and therefore it's pretty much whatever you happen to want to do in your culture at that time. I'm gonna be suggesting this morning that there's more to it than that. Samuel Bolton, a Puritan, gives us an excellent guide, actually speaking to his own congregation, says love will lend us one safe rule.

That we impose a severe law upon ourselves and allow a larger indulgence to others.

The rule of our own conversation should be with the strictest, but that by which we censure others a little more with the largest. That's good counsel from a pastor as we look at the past, the various passages in scripture. It's going to be very tempting as I preach this message for you to be like, oh yeah. I can think of so and so.

I sure hope they're listening to this, or you do that little elbow sermon. you're, Hoping the person next to you is, is paying attention. Really, we want to be more broad-minded when we're considering other people. I would encourage the dads and single moms and people leaving your homes that, that you really try to encourage your kids.

It's always a danger. You treat, teach your kids a principle, and right away, kids are tempted to legalize the principal or go licentious with the principal. And it's very tempting for my children to, I teach a principal and then they want to start judging others outside the very household with the principal. And I have to come right back and say let's look larger at other people.

We don't know if they're a believer. We don't know where they're at in their walk with the Lord, so on and so forth, but here's where we're at, and here's what we've decided as the berries. So with some of those preliminary ideas, here's our basic outline that we're going to follow. I'm going to ask 3 questions.

What do the scriptures say? And we're going to spend most of our time on that. What does the Bible say about this topic? And then what does the world say?

We're not going to spend a whole lot of time on that. And then what do you say? What do you say about what the scriptures say and what the world says? We've got some decisions to make as individuals, families, and as a church.

So let's let's start with some points about just what does the scripture say about this whole topic of apparel and clothing and the body and how does it relate to the gospel? Why in the world is Paul applying the gospel To women, and the first point he wants to talk about is what they're what they're wearing. Well, let's hit a couple items as we do a quick survey. Now I'd like you to open with me to several of these passages starting with Genesis.

Genesis. Chapter 2 Verse 25. Where before the fall. We see that they were both naked and the man and his wife were not ashamed.

There's 3. aspects of this first I wanted to draw out. They were naked. Which simply means no clothes, right?

This was a man and his wife. It doesn't say, and the whole village was naked. This man and his wife were naked. And thirdly, they were not ashamed.

A man with his wife's not ashamed before sin, there's no shame. These folks are naked. But it's not too long before you guys know the story, we have Adam and Eve, they disobey the Lord. You look over at chapter 3, verse 7, and it's very interesting that the very first realization after the fall, their eyes, the eyes of both of them were opened.

What's the first thing that hits them? They knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. This is theologically significant.

The very first thing that hits Adam and Eve is, Whoa, baby, we're naked. We need some clothing. And what they do is they don't immediately turn to the Lord and say, Hey God, we messed up. Please help us.

No, they try to take care of it themselves. They're hiding from the Lord. And I don't know if it was Adam or Eve. Somebody said, hey, here's some leaves.

Let's get some leaves together and we'll cover ourselves up. And then the Lord shows up. A lot of you guys know what happened there. Turn over to verse 21, after God gives out all of the The curses and what's going to happen after the fall.

We have what's called the proto evangelion, the first seed of the gospel. Theologians look at this verse and see, this is, this is the beginning of the gospel, beginning to form. And what is it? And for Adam and his wife, the Lord God made tunics.

Of skin and clothe them. Why is this considered the first seed? Of the gospel In this chapter you can actually add to this the crushing of the devil's head with the heel. It's the Lord God Himself who is the actor.

The Lord God looks at their fig leaves, there's certain things that are cut are implied and meant to be derived from this chapter. God looks at Adam and Eve and recognizes the fig leaves are not enough. This is not sufficient. And so he creates a tunic, and this, these are tunics of skin.

How do you get skin, children? Anybody know where leather comes from? Anybody? Kids?

Yes, cows. That's right, Evan. And how do you get leather off a cow? He doesn't just unzip it and give it to you, right?

You kill a cow. And so God is the first one to kill. He kills an animal and he fashions clothing, and he doesn't just fashion some leather fig leaves. He fashions a tunic.

You do all the background study and what does tunic mean throughout the Old and New Testament. A tunic is a covering that covers the body. There's various lengths, but everybody's agreed it's at least from the neck down to the knee. that there's a covering.

This isn't the cavemen in their little bikini leather suits, right? This is a tunic that God created to cover them. And there's blood that has been shed. One of the reasons why this is called the proto-evangelism or evangelion is because of the blood, the shedding of blood that happens right here, that Christians for centuries have seen as a type of Christ.

That God comes and slays an animal and then covers Adam and Eve in that righteousness, as it were. They were trying to work out their own salvation with fig leaves, but God comes along and provides salvation for them with tunics and blood and skin. And so you have the righteousness of Christ being pictured in clothing. Clothing has a theological beginning.

It started with death and blood caused by God Almighty. And so when we get to the New Testament, we see Christ being called our righteousness. We see Paul saying, I want to be found in Christ, not of my own righteousness, but of Christ through faith. You see, in the book of Revelation, we'll talk here in a little bit of God giving them tunics, white robes to cover them, dipped in blood.

And so I want you just to think for a moment of just what's happened here as Adam and Eve sin. Shame comes to the picture, they try to address it themselves. And then the Lord comes and gives them covering in the tunics of skin. And this really is what happens in just about every culture historically when the gospel enters in.

It's interesting to see what happens when the gospel moves through cultures. you look at the Greek Greco-Roman culture, when Christ came on the scene, and when the church was brand new. The Greco-Roman culture was not a particularly moral culture by our standards. In fact, when you look at Greco-Roman art, think of a Greco-Roman statue.

What are you normally going to see? Or a lot of times You're going to see the naked body. When you study Greco-Roman religions, the mystery religions, how do they frequently worship? They worship with sexual immorality.

Their worship services are often carried on in nakedness, cross-dressing, Homosexuality in the Greco-Roman period is very, very common. Cross-dressing, very, very, very common. Very common for even senators and leaders in the Roman Senate to have boy lovers. This was just part of the day.

This is the world that Jesus and the apostles came into, but as the gospel went out and began to penetrate hearts, guess, guess what? Shame starts to rise to the surface. And suddenly people are like, wow, we don't want to expose our babies and let them die anymore. We need to save our babies and rescue other people's babies.

Boy, we used to not care about the poor. Now we want to feed the poor. Boy, we used to live in all kinds of immorality and actually carry out immoral acts to worship our gods. We're going to stop doing that.

We used to run around in nakedness. We're going to start putting on more clothing. And this, this is the testimony that you hear from missionaries as well as they move into new cultures and new lands. It happened in Europe.

Those of us that are of a Caucasian background and we think back to our European origin, the Visigoths and the Goths, and you go over to the British Isles and the Else, these guys were people that would run around in a lot less clothing than the Christians and do a lot of things that were considered immoral, sexually inappropriate. And guess what? The Christian missionaries didn't run around and say, Hey you guys, put on more clothes. Hey, you guys, stop having sexual immorality.

Hey, you guys, stop cutting yourselves to your gods. What did they do? They went out and started preaching the gospel. People's hearts began to be changed.

A sense of shame began to well up in their hearts, and they started changing from the inside out. If you do some study on misology, you'll see very similar now. if you, if you take an anthropology class or whatnot. Christianity is always the bane and the cause of all kinds of ills throughout the world, and one of the ills that Christianity has caused is our missionaries have gone throughout the world and we spread Western culture.

We move into a peaceful, innocent African tribe that was doing just fine. Then the missionaries show up and then after a couple of years, everybody's wearing Western clothes and they've ditched their African roots. there are, there is some truth to that. But if you listen to the tales of the missionaries and the people that were there, they come in, they preach the gospel, people, the sense of shame starts welling up.

They're like, Whoa, we need to put on more clothing. We need to be faithful to our wives. What can we do? the church, a lot of times has given in to the Cinderella type of consciousness where we believe what the world is telling us about ourselves.

We think, oh, yes, we're terrible, we've done all these terrible things to everybody in the world. When the reality is from a Christian worldview is the gospel has changed the world. And yet we have the Cinderella type of conscience. We're the stepchild that believes all of the lies that are being told about us.

Let's consider Another point I'm not gonna spend too much on this, but God is the oneself who designed clothing for the Aaronic priesthood. God comes to Moses and says, this high priest who is a type of Christ, by the way, here's how he's going to dress, and then we are called priests in the New Testament, we become a nation of priests, correct? And so God's the one that designs the clothes. And when you look at the type of design, God gives the priest tunics and breastplates.

But what's interesting, you can see this in Exodus 28:42 and also in Exodus 20:26, is God was so concerned about the modesty of the priest, that even though he had a tunic that was head to toe, that the priest was also to wear trousers, lest his nakedness should be exposed when he's going into the holy of holies. Let me ask you a question. Who's in the holy of holies other than the priest? God, nobody else is in there.

There's no other human being in the holy of holies to see anything. But chapter 20, verse 26 and 42, 28, 42 and 43, says trousers to be made for the priests lest their nakedness should be exposed and God should kill them. You think God cares about nakedness. I just wouldn't want to be one of those priests who forgot to put my trousers on that morning.

Wind up dead and then they got to pull you out, right, with the, with the little rope that they put around your ankle. This obviously happened enough times that they figured out a method to get the priest out of there if he did die. Another point that we want to make as far as what the scriptures teach about the subject of dress and Christ's righteousness is is just the issue of what did Christ wear himself. What did Jesus wear when he walked the earth?

We have a little bit of evidence of this. We see that when the soldiers take his garments and start, rolling dice for them or or whatnot. they took his garments, made for parts of his outer garments, they also took his tunic. that was without seam.

So Jesus would have had a tunic, that was without seam. tunic is the exact same word that we see for tunic of Adam and Eve, and every other place that tunic is used, and he also had outer garments. So in life, he would have worn the typical garb of a Jewish male, the tunic and outer garments, that could be rolled up for work and whatnot. In death, however, Jesus Christ was completely naked.

Now when we see movies and pictures of Jesus, there's always the loincloth that is put over Christ in order to preserve his dignity as we consider him. But the reality was is that the Romans crucified people naked. They did not give them dignity. The shame of Christ's nakedness was on the cross.

And when you see the word shame being used in connection to the cross, it's not just the shame of death, it's the shame of nakedness, as Jesus is on the cross. Another thing that the scriptures tell us about clothing, is that we will be clothed with for all of eternity, there's several passages in the Book of Revelation that are forward looking, one of which is chapter 7, verse 9, and following after these things, John says, I look and behold a great multitude that no one could number every nation, tribe, people, tongue standing before the throne, before the Lamb.

And what, here's what the angels did is they said, OK, here's your cultural garment, and you're from that tribe. We're going to give you this cultural garment.

And here's this tribe. We're going to give you this cultural garment. And you all have differing views of what's moral and what's not, but we're going to give you garments according to your culture. No, what happened?

They gave each one of them. white robes. With palm branches in their hands crying out with a loud voice, Salvation belongs to our God. All of them are dressed as it were in the righteousness of Christ, symbolized by these white robes.

You see, the same type of thing in chapter 6, dipped in blood, a reminder of Christ's death. And so when we get to the eternal state, It's not as if, OK, we're all righteous now, we can all throw our clothing off and be naked again like the nudist colonies want to argue. The nudist colony says, Hey, what Adam and Eve did is the right way to live. And so all of us should cast off our clothing.

No, Adam and Eve sinned and fell. God put clothing on them to represent the righteousness of Christ, to represent the grace of the Lord, to accept mankind into His presence. And for all of eternity, we will always need to be clothed in the righteousness of Christ. And for all of eternity, we will be clothed in real resurrected bodies.

That's why this morning we could sing the hymn in this particular verse of the hymn. When he shall come with trumpet sound, may I then be in him, and him be found dressed in his righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne. The phrase dressed in his righteousness alone is, it comes from this whole Christian concept and theology. of the imputed righteousness of Christ that we wear and are dressed in his good works, and our clothing actually represents that, and we will be dressed in that righteousness, both physically and symbolically for all of eternity.

Another thing that the Bible says about clothing is the passage that we just looked at. earlier, and that is that the Bible seems to have a particular concern with what women wear. It's not that the Bible doesn't care about what men wear, but for whatever reason, there seems to be attention drawn to what women wear. In 1 Timothy 2:9.

You also see Peter, lest we think that Paul is a male chauvinist. Peter says virtually the same types of instructions in chapter 3, verse 3 and 4. To be careful to be modest, to be careful to have a shamefacedness. In fact, the new, not the new, the Geneva translation of 1599 brings out that shamefacedness behind the term modesty that gets translated modesty, where it says likewise also women that you array themselves in comely apparel with shamefacedness and modesty, not with embroidered here.

I can't say it the way they would have said it back then. Go read your Chaucer or whatever. Anybody, any Chaucer fans in here or? No?

OK. Anyway, So shamefacedness, the idea is that there's a sense of shame in the way that one would, would clothe themselves, not, not like, oh, I'm such a terrible person. I'm just so ashamed. No, it's a sense of, of, of what, would be appropriate before a holy God, as we come to worship Him.

And, and what would be respectable in the presence of my brothers and sisters who have been purchased by Jesus Christ Himself. so there's a sense of shame, an orderly aspect of peril and a sobriety and self control. But let's also consider that the Bible seems to have a particular concern with what men look at. This is not to say that the Bible doesn't care what women look at, but when it's talking about lust, talking about lust of the eyes, men seem to be pointed at much more than women if women are ever pointed at.

Matthew 5:28, where Jesus says, if a man look upon a woman, it's pretty clear he's talking to men there. let him pluck out his eye, right? Proverbs speaks many times about what men do with their eyes, and Job, Job says, I've made a covenant with my eyes that I should not look upon a fair maiden. So it seems like the Holy Spirit, as God understands our hearts and our propensities towards depravity, understands that there needs to be some instructions that are given, particularly towards women about what they wear, and particularly towards men about what they look at.

Again, that's not to say that there aren't any crossovers at all. I can remember for myself. some areas in which I needed to grow. I became a Christian at 14.

And before I was 14, I had less shame than I did after I became a Christian., and let me just set this up this way. A lot of times we think of in, in, in American history, we think of the good old days and things are getting worse and worse and worse. There's this concept of the golden age, that's really mythical. the 1980s in some ways were worse than today.

for instance, in my high school, I was in the marching band, and every tournament that we traveled to, we had coed buses where we dressed, undressed and dressed in front of a guy or a girl, and that's just what we did. And it didn't get questioned until finally some parents rose a stink and said, Hey, we don't like this, so they said, OK, we'll make a couple extra buses for the prudes and all the boys can go here and all the girls can go there. So I'm 14 years old. I'm not a Christian yet, and I'm stripping down to my underwear, and here's all these high school girls stripping down to their underwear as we're putting on our band uniforms.

I got to tell you, as a 14 year old high school student, that didn't bother me a bit. Until I became a Christian. And once the Holy Spirit came into my heart, I started to feel a sense of shame being in that bus. And I used to go out of the bus and hide myself somewhere where I could get into my uniform and people would make fun of me at 14 years old.

Why did I start doing that? It wasn't because somebody sat me down and said, let me Hey, you gotta be more modest. It's like the Holy Spirit started working on my heart. The sense of shame came over me.

I'm like, I should not be in a bus with a bunch of high school girls stripping out of their underwear. it should have been obvious to any parent that was part of that band, but that's what was going on. So the Lord's working on me and I'm growing, this or that, like anybody. And then you go through ebbs and flows, and so I get to college, start thinking I'm pretty cool in a Christian, Christian band and all that stuff.

I get up at a concert, I'm gonna preach the gospel. And back then, I think this was Late 80s, there was this style where guys would wear loose shirts, that came just to the top of the belt. Does anybody remember that? A really, really, really loose shirt that comes just at the top of the belt so that if you yawned, you could show off your six pack.

Right? And So, I'm thinking I'm pretty cool. What I didn't know is I had a nervous tic when I spoke, and that is I would get my hand underneath my shirt and start scratching up here. And so I'm in the middle.

this concert is in a church, and I'm trying to preach the gospel while I'm scratching up here, just revealing just about everything on my upper body. And the pastor came up to me afterwards and very lovingly said, that's not cool. That's not cool. But what, this, this sense of shame came over me.

I was like, oh man, I didn't realize I was doing that. You're right. Guess what? I went out and bought some new shirts, started tucking them in.

And and so the Lord was working on me, right? The Lord works on his people over time. The issue is, is whether you're a man or a woman, it's like, are we willing to at least bring those thoughts captive to Christ, we willing to consider that we're dressed in righteousness of Christ, to consider how this has an effect on people around us, even. We've had, we've had people in our church, we've had men or single moms or people that have said, what, I've tried to lead my family in this area, and they've come back to me and they said, what, that's their problem, meaning that's the guy's problem.

If they're going to stare and, and if they're going to be that perverted, that's their problem. I want to just very gently share with you on behalf of a lot of people in this church, probably just about all the men, including a lot of the moms, that it's not just their problem. Jesus is the one that indicates that men have a propensity towards lust. Jesus is the one that over in In Mark 9 and in Matthew 8 says, whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him if he had a millstone hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.

By the way, the context here is not just about little children. He's speaking of children as people. Look at the context of Matthew 18. It's the children of God.

If you cause somebody who's a child of God to stumble, God doesn't like that. OK, now we theologically, we have to mess that in with is it a Christian is a non-Christian, are they saved, so on, are they willing to repent. But just know that we want to be careful about unwittingly, or even worse, knowingly causing a brother or sister to stumble in their faith. In their walk with the Lord.

And so that's something for us to consider. And then finally, as far as some of the teachings of Scripture on the issue, the Bible seeks to preserve masculinity and femininity. If you look over at Deuteronomy 22:5, just be one place, the Bible says that a man should not wear the clothing of a woman. A woman should not wear the clothing of a man.

The whole concept of transgender or cross dressing, this is not new. This was going on in Canaan and all the pagan lands, and it was seeping into Israel, and that's why God has to give this instruction through Moses. There should not be any cross dressing because it's an abomination to the Lord. And so it should not shock us in our own culture as we're moving into a post-Christian era, as a lot of people say we are.

It should not cross. It should not shock us that as we become more and more pagan as a land that we're going to see things like a rise in homosexuality, a rise in cross dressing, a rise in immorality, a rise in less clothing. That's just what happens to cultures that turn away from the gospel. When the gospel comes into cultures, it has an effect on their person, which includes their body, which includes their sexuality, which includes their clothing.

Just has has that effect. And so these are some of the things that the Bible says, I believe, about apparel. The big thing we want you to get is that clothing is not just something that happened through the evolutionary process. It has theological import, was created by God as a type of Christ that we'd be dressed in the righteousness of Christ.

And every time we get up in the morning and you begin to put on your clothing, you can actually physically or you can, you can think about this, that I am what I am doing right now. is something that God did for Adam and Eve, and this points to the gospel. When a woman is getting dressed or a man is getting dressed, we can think about the gospel, in our clothing and as we get dressed. So let's talk about what the world says.

We're not gonna spend a lot of time here. I think we know what the world says. The Bible says purity. Allure Is what the world says Allure magazine.

the Bible says be humble in the things that we put on. The world says if you got it, flaunt it. Right? I've heard this phrase a lot of times from different people I've are in my circles is like, Oh, I could never wear that.

I'm too fat. I'm like, if you were skinny, would you wear that? If you got it, flaunt it. Moderation.

The Bible says moderation. The world says indulge. There's lots of brands out there. This is a popular brand, defend.

this is culture. What are these brands about? It's about promoting something. There's a line of soaps and underwear that are marketed to mid to young teen girls that have titles that I could not utter in church or it would just be offensive just to even say the words, and yet they're marketed, marketed to young girls, promoting immorality among young girls.

And these are very, very, very popular brands. I've On our Facebook page, the Cornerstone Facebook page, I, put up a video by actress, Jessica Ray, who has her own bathing suit line, modest bathing, bathing suit line, and she discusses the history of the bikini and just really excellent video on the history there and how it came about, and so on and so forth. Some of the things that she does talk about in that video, the history of swimwear demonstrates an interesting tug of war.

between what used to be considered shameful and what was becoming fashionable and even profitable for the industry.

Yeah, it used to be, and again, it's not the golden age. If you go before the 1890s, you can find all kinds of crazy dress. Go to the Renaissance period, see how some of the gals and guys dressed back then, go to the Greco-Roman period., there's ebbs and flows to this thing, but in, in American culture since 1880s, 1890s, there had Been a move towards more modest dress that began to decay in 1920s, 1930s. You had the flappers of the 1920s, but at the beach, there was a certain protocol, I think at the late late 1800s, a woman would actually get into a horse drawn carriage.

And she would change in the carriage, and then the carriage would be backed up to the beach, and then the ladies would get out of the back of the carriage and get in the water as fast as they could, even though they were wearing something that was basically a bathing dress. And then they would go swimming, and then they would jump into their carriage and change into their clothes. so it was just at that time, it was just considered scandalous, even just to be seen getting into the water in your bathing dress.

and by the way, it wasn't always popular for men to go bare chested on the beach or anywhere else.

This came into fruition in the 30s. Here's a, this is from an article on the history of swimwear from a very positive viewpoint in their perspective. Though men were getting the opportunity to look better, there was still the little matter of baring the chests. Quite simply, it was frowned upon.

However, men could continue to fight for their right to expose their chest, and by the early 1933, the result was the convertible style suit that allowed the top to be removed. The introduction of the men's topper introduced a new thrill in men's swimwear. So it used to be that. You didn't, didn't do that.

I thought about it just as an object lesson to come in and preach this sermon in my Speedo. And just see how that would go over. But the Holy Spirit got a hold of me this morning. That sense of shame welled up in my heart.

And I resisted But But what, if you guys were to see me down at the beach in my Speedo, You would be shocked and amazed, right? But you'd be like, well, he's at the beach. I didn't know pastors were speedos, but hey. but really, what's the qualitative difference, right, if I'm up here preaching in a Speedo or at the beach in my Speedo, right?

why don't we have, what would be so wrong with our ushers, both men and women, coming down in their bathing suits to take up the offering? Is that a big deal? Why is that, why is it OK, at, at the beach for that to be OK, but we wouldn't take up the offering that way. And it just brings up the point, something I'd just like you to consider.

We're going to start, we're starting to delve into things now that aren't directly in scripture. So you could say, OK, these are principles that are given by our pastor, but They need to, we might not agree with all of them. Cultural holiness is a concept that many people have considered in American Christianity, but really all over the world. The idea is, is instead of looking to the righteousness of Christ as our ultimate standard for what we should do or where or say, is we just say, if we're just a little bit better than the world, So if the world says this is OK, we would never do that.

And so what's happened is what the unbelievers would see shocking in the 1950s, Christians do in the 2000s without even a thought. And so it's it's the old adage of the boiling frog, right? It's like we're just a little bit better than the world and as the world moves down we move down with them and it really is that the proper standard for clothing and dress and those types of decisions? I want to suggest that it's not, that there, there's definitely cultural things that we do.

You can go completely the other direction too and get so freakish with your dress that people are looking at you. Like, whoa, I didn't know we had the Amish here in Southern California. that can draw undue attention too, and that's really not modesty. The idea of modesty is you want attention deflected from you.

And I'll be honest with you, I went through a period in high school as a young Christian where I, I went through exactly that. I would not wear a pair of blue jeans. Because I didn't want people to think I was trying to be cool. I went to a thrift store and bought the ugliest green jacket you can imagine.

Ask my sisters. And this one girl that I thought liked me when I showed up at her school with that green jacket on, she dumped me. And then I would never wear sunglasses because I didn't want people to, I thought the only reason for sunglasses is to look cool. And I'm not wearing them.

And then I went skiing with somebody and I got fried. I said, Whoa, there's a purpose for sunglasses. you, when I was wearing that green jacket, you could identify me on campus. Is that really what the Lord is intending is that we dress so differently, and we so avoid looking cool that we actually look a little freakish.

I just let my wife dress me, so. so cultural holiness. Now, here's the last couple of things we got to close, which is a meaningless preacher's statement. how do we know what standards to keep?

This is just so tough. Should we take our cue from the secular anthropologist that says, hey, it's really just about the mores of that culture, and whatever goes in that culture, then that's OK. no, I want to suggest that what we've talked about this morning is the righteousness of Christ should be what guides us. But are there specific things in the Bible that would help us know exactly how we should, what are some of the standards?

we could think about modesty, OK, are we trying to draw people only to us, or are we trying to reflect the glory of God? That's clearly a standard, sobriety, self control. What Paul is probably most particularly talking about in First Timothy 2:9 is people coming into the church that are trying to show off their wealth, and they're so flamboyant in what they're wearing is that they're causing envy on the part of the rest of the congregation. That's something to consider.

I would encourage you to take a look at 1 Corinthians chapter 12, particularly 23, where Paul, by way of analogy, is analogy is talking about the human body and how that we're all part of the body, and in verse 23 actually talks about the private parts, the parts that are not disclosed, and actually they're given more honor because they're covered. And then in Proverbs chapter 5, the writer of Proverbs says something to the effect of husbands, you should enjoy your own wife's breasts, not somebody else's.

I think there's enough information for us to discern a Christian view of what should and should not be covered without getting and falling into legalism. Let's look at what Pastor Calvin had to say back in the 1500s.

The pastor of a church trying to figure this stuff out just like everybody else when he's preaching on this passage. Here's what he said. And hence we ought to derive the rule of moderation, for since dress is an indifferent matter, as all outward matters are, what really matters is the heart stuff, but this is, this is a, it's an outward matters. It's difficult to assign a fixed limit how far we ought to go.

But godly teachers whose business it is to guide the consciousness consciences ought always to keep in view the end of the lawful use. So it's like these are difficult matters. We know that there's a basic principle, but we've got to be careful about assigning fixed laws. But as pastors we do need to give our flock some guidance.

He goes on to say, This at least will be settled beyond all controversy that everything in dress which is not in accordance with modesty and sobriety must be disapproved. So if it doesn't have a sense of shame, if it doesn't have a sense of self-control, it should be disapproved. Yet we must always begin with the dispositions, the heart. For where debauchery reigns within, there will be no chastity and where ambition reigns within, there will be no modesty in the outward dress.

That's some really good counsel. We could make all kinds of rules, and say, here's what we can start measuring hemlines and all that stuff. But Calvin says the issue is, is, is the heart, the disposition, and the clothing merely reflects the heart. So I want you guys to ask yourselves a few questions and you can talk about these in family worship.

You can talk about them in care group. I hope you do. But will you consider what the scriptures say? 1 Corinthians 6 says, oh, do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own, for you have been bought with a price, therefore, glorify God in your body.

Does God care about you, about your body? Yes, he does. It's his. It's his body And so when I'm asking, what should I wear, I should be asking the question, not just what do I want to wear, but what does God want me to put on his body?

How can I best reflect His glory? How can I feel his pleasure with what I wear? Another question, will you be more critical of the world system or just assume that they're neutral? They're not.

They're not neutral. And it's not just about making money. It's also about changing the culture. Will you be more critical of yourself than others?

You look at yourself and say, OK, here's the things that we need to do in our family. And then a couple of other very important questions. Will you lovingly speak to others that may need instruction or correction in areas of modesty and moderation? Churches need to have a culture where people can humbly go to one another and share their insights if, if a younger brother or sister needs to be corrected.

I was, I'm very grateful for my pastor that came to me. I had no idea what I was doing when I was preaching the gospel. I'm very grateful that I have, have had people in my life that felt that they could come and talk to me. And, however, there's a lot of wisdom that needs to be applied here, and a whole sermon could go into this about the manner, the timing, qualifications.

I'll just say, guys, it's probably not a good idea for you to walk up to somebody's wife and just say, that's immodest. Not a good idea. there's ways of doing it. There's ways of approaching maybe a, a husband or if, if somebody's underneath your particular ministry and they're of age, you might approach them yourself in all humility.

you might approach, gals may approach like mothers and just be very humble about it and say, hey, what do you think about this or that? Let me just sit, just be very, blunt with you that as a pastor and as a pastoral staff, it is a befuddling issue sometimes when we have people who love Christ and love the Lord and love this church, and they'll come to us and say, boy, I love this family over here. I love that person over there, or this sister or that brother. but here's an issue with their dress and what they're wearing, and I don't know how to approach it.

And then we say, I don't know. Deal with it. Is that what I say? No, no, that's not what we say.

But I'll tell you what, every time something like that happens, this little like, thing runs up the back of my spine. I'm just like, run, get out of here. I don't want to have anything to do with this. And yet it's an issue that needs to be talked about, that needs to be dealt with in a biblical gospel centered way, which means this will you humbly receive the input of others even if you disagree with their manner or message?

Well, I dispose myself to let you come talk to me about my daughter. or to come talk to me about my son. Or to come talk to me about me. You come up to me after a message, say, Pastor Mike, I hate to tell you this, but XYZ.

Like, thank you very much. Why didn't you tell me before the message? Is, do they not know what that means anymore, X Y Z? Is that You got it.

OK, we got it. Trevor and I got it. OK. OK, look it up X Y Z.

So dispose ourselves to be able to receive that and, and what, and also, and not, not be nitpicky about every aspect of the manner and the timing. Was it done exactly right? Were they perfectly humble enough? Did they, did they say they choose the exact right words?

I need to like be humble enough to not require that of people that even if somebody comes and maybe steamrolls me once. that's an opportunity for me to minister to them, right, to be humble and show them how to receive that. maybe if I get steamrolled and they're right, I just have to like take it on the chin and be like, they're right, right? men, husbands, fathers, will you control your eyes and thus protect the women of your family and your church?

Will you lead the women in your household with humility and courage? Will you, will you step out and say to your daughter or say to your wife, hey, I think that we might need to work on that or what have you, or what do you think? It takes a lot of courage. And let me just say that I'm doing for a lot of our dads and even single moms what Paul did for Timothy.

Timothy, he was struggling, and I'm sure there were some things that he wanted to say to his congregation. And he's probably just sitting there. I just wish Paul would write me a letter so I can just read it. So Paul writes him a letter.

And you get up there and just read it. And guess what? I'm speaking on behalf, on behalf of dozens of people in this church. Dozens of people in this church that would love to get to say, hey, let's grow in this area.

Are we willing to grow together? Wives, women, mothers, will you dress yourself in such a way that honors the righteousness of Christ? Will you watch out for the purity of the men of your family, and your church? We watch out for them.

And I'm very grateful, at this time in my life, one of the things that, I'm, is very pleasing to me. Is that my 11 year old daughter is at a place where she'll come in. To, my bedroom and say, Daddy, is this OK? And I'll just be like, oh, that's so cool.

And then I'll fall on my knees. I'll be like, God, may this continue, please, because I know the day's coming, but that ain't going to happen. Right? That's common.

but I'm amazed. I'll tell you what. As a, as a man, I was expecting a lot of pressure on my son. My son, we already have conversations about lust and things like that.

And I was expecting that pressure, because I know what's out there in the culture, and I know my own struggle. But I got to say, I was totally unprepared for the pressure that is coming on my daughter at 11 years old. Both from the messages she gets from the things she sees on TV, the messages she sees from just what everybody else is wearing in the culture, what everybody else says is OK, and even just the pressure on her to judge and get judgmental. Daddy says, hey, let's do this.

But then there's a tendency in her heart to wanna, oh, OK, well, what about those people? I, I just, I, I gotta tell you, I don't know that I was prepared for that. And we need to pray for our gals. I have a whole new respect for what our gals go through in this culture.

It's I don't know, it's crazy. And so we need, we need to pray for our gals. And then a gal goes out there and, and is really doing a great job, walking in modesty and pleasing the Lord. And then the guys aren't asking out on dates.

That's the other issue, right? And so it's like then there's a, then there's the temptation of, well, all those girls are getting out on dates and I'm not getting outside on dates. Well, what am I gonna do? And that's where some of us guys need to step up and get some backbone.

We'll talk about that in another message. OK, so, finally, just some resources that we're going to suggest to you guys, on the back table. I hope there's still some left. We give this out, I think, on a yearly basis, the modesty Heart Check.

It's a really good, just a little gospel centered thing for, families to run through. I, I think a lot of gals, maybe just are in a situation where they're not really sure or don't realize what they could, what they might be doing in a worship service or in another setting. gosh, I'm over time. Just real quick A buddy of mine went to a conference, music conference several years ago.

We're running around after two days, and he says, have you noticed anything? I'm like, What? And he goes, there is no immodesty here. And so then that got my brain buzzing.

So now I'm looking around to see if there's any immodesty. And I'm like, Whoa, you're right. And this church just taught on that, and nobody was dressed like Puritans or whatever. They were just dressed really cool and slick, but there was like, it was clear that they had taught on that in that culture.

And it was so cool for just 4 days straight just to worship the Lord with absolutely no distraction. And a cornerstone, honestly, our pastoral staff will probably give us about a B+, B+, maybe. Because I'll tell you what, there's times where I've been here worshiping, and I'm trying to worship the Lord, and I'm like, don't live there. don't look there.

don't look that place. And just honest with you. As a man, that's what comes up. Call me a 45 year old pervert if you want, but I got a bunch of guys in here to tell you the same thing.

Think about it. Think about it. How can we protect our brothers that modesty heart check is a good way to run through that and just think about it in a gospel centered way. We're not laying down laws.

Worldly Amusements by Wayne Wilson, Christian, Christian Modesty and the Public Undressing of America. The art thing I was posting on Facebook, modest swimwork designer speaks out on bikinis, Jessica Ray. She was a Power Ranger, by the way, Power Ranger, OK. Let's have our ushers come forward.

Very difficult topic. Hope you guys can apply some of these things in your care group family worship. Eat the chicken, spit out the bones, pray for me on moaning Monday. Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you so much for your goodness to us. We thank you that you are the one who has addressed us in the righteousness of Christ. We do not need to work out our own salvation. We're not trying to apply fig leaves to cover up our sin.

You have accomplished it all and sending your Son Jesus Christ to live the perfect life. To die on the cross and be raised for us, we think that we, as we walk around this earth. Even the believers, the brothers and sisters in this room, even when we are walking in immaturity, even when we may be walking in immodesty, If we truly know Christ, we're addressing your righteousness. We just pray, Father, that That would be reflected in our decisions and our choices.

Her spirit would move among us. That we would have that proper sense of shame and make decisions that are based upon grace. Protect us, Lord, from judgmentalism, protect us from legalism, protect us from division. people can get offended over these kinds of issues.

But we just thank you so much. We pray for anybody that may be here that has not experienced that righteousness of Christ, that they would come to know you, that you are the one that can save them from sin and rescue them and bring them to heaven in those white robes of righteousness. Christ's name we pray.