The Call to Beauty

Well, let me invite you to turn in your Bibles to Genesis chapter one, Genesis chapter one. I want to talk to you guys this morning on the subject of beauty. Beauty. And if you want to give a title to the message, it would be the Call to Beauty.

How many of you want to be beautiful? Raise your hand. Come on. All right.

So about 4% of you are interested in being beautiful. I'm going to assume that, that all of you want to be beautiful and, that's actually a very deeply entrenched, desire within us that comes from a very ancient part of us that goes all the way back to creation. and we're gonna try to unpack that this, this morning. anyway, let me start off with this, and I've asked Chuck Stevekin for permission to share this.

I really appreciate his and his wife's ministry to the unborn and to the mothers and the fathers of the unborn. Chuck, has a ministry, and has been doing this for years where he has stood in front of an abortion clinic, and just by the grace of God, try to save as many lives and souls as possible. And just this year already, they, through this brother's ministry, totally by the grace of God, he gets all the glory for this. But over 200 babies have been saved.

So we rejoice in that. And not only 200 babies, but 200 mothers have been saved. The tragedy of making the choice to abort their child along with the fathers whose consciences have been spared the ravages of that choice being, being made. But Chuck has shared with me a number of times, we were talking again last night about this.

And he shared it with the men in the men forum a few months ago. But when Chuck first began his ministry in front of the abortion clinic, his demeanor was more, I guess, adversarial. toward those that were coming in to, abort their babies and toward the staff and toward the abortionist doctor in particular, and, he had the gruesome pictures along with great pro-life messages that were on display, but just his general disposition there was different than than what it is now. And When the abortionist doctor would drive by, there were times where Chuck would say things like, Hey, butcher, how many babies are you going to kill today, which is a factually true thing to say.

It just didn't help the relationship with this abortionist doctor. And after that approach for quite some time, the Lord began to get a hold of, of Chuck's heart and And the Lord essentially said to Chuck, Chuck, what are, I don't know if he calls him Chuck or Charles, but But Chuck, what are you doing? Treating people in this way. How have I treated you?

And as he began to ponder that, he realized, man, I deserve for God to be adversarial towards me, but instead, God has treated me with, with grace and with mercy. And he decided that from now on, I'm going to try to clothe myself with this disposition towards everybody that's coming into the clinic and towards the doctor and, and the staff. And so when, changed his approach to these ladies coming in and just more of a posture he cared before, but now that's coming out in a way that's more evident and clear to these ladies coming into the clinic and also towards the staff and towards the doctor, Chuck, he started waving to the doctor and, and just being kind in his disposition toward, this doctor.

And, the doctor up to this point, didn't really like Chuck.

he would greet Chuck sometimes by giving him the finger. or if there was water along the, in the gutter by where Chuck was standing, he would try to drive close to that so as to splash. Chuck and, and others, with, with the water. So things were not, were not good, but as Chuck's demeanor began to change over the weeks and the months, well over a year, there really was not that great of a change in terms of how this doctor responded to Chuck.

But then there was a day, well over a year after this God had done this work in Chuck's heart that, Chuck was greeting him every day and just wishing him well. And then one day this doctor drove by Chuck on his way to the parking spot where he would normally park, and he put the car in reverse after passing Chuck, and he began to back the car up to where Chuck was standing, and he lowered his window. And he said to Chuck, I've, I, I see that there's a difference between you and some of the others that are here.

Do you think you and I could talk sometime?

And Chuck said, absolutely, let's, let's talk. And thus began a relationship between, between Chuck and this doctor. They, you guys even brought him to church, the church that you guys were attending at the time. Chuck has been able to share Christ with him.

You both have, have sat down with him and his wife. And, and they've gotten to know him and a little bit of the backstory of how he got into the abortion industry. but as that relationship unfolded, Chuck tried to encourage him, there's forgiveness, there's grace for all of our sins, including killing babies, and we as Christians ought to know that. Amen.

There is forgiveness for taking the lives of innocent image bearers of God. We know that's true, because all of us have taken the life of the only truly innocent image bearer of God. In human history, and that's Jesus Christ and God has forgiven us. And so we can give that message of grace to everybody, including those who are taking the lives of the unborn.

And there were times where this doctor would allow Chuck to pray with him before he went into the office to begin his deadly work for the day. And Chuck would pray and he would speak truthfully and just say, Lord, please show him that what he's doing is wrong. And please, help him to find another line of work. but this doctor would receive that and allow that to happen, and the relationship, was, was there to sustain that.

well, this doctor, thankfully has found another line of work, and it's not killing babies, anymore, and the relationship that Chuck and Lisa enjoy with this doctor still continues to this day. but I share that. And we obviously hope this doctor ultimately comes to faith in Jesus Christ, and does the crazy thing of believing that Christ died for sins, like what he has committed. And we can pray for this doctor that he'll come to that point of faith.

But I share that at the beginning this morning because what Chuck was doing before was speaking truth. What he began to do sometime back after the Lord got a hold of his heart, is he began to communicate and speak truth in love, and with beauty, and that ended up wielding considerably more power. than the prior approach. And I really, my burden for us as a church is that we would be a church that is characterized in our ministry to the lost and to one another by this very beauty that we not just think about what's right, but we also think about what is beautiful.

As Francis Schaeffer has said, the church must not only be right, but Beautiful. Also, Francis Schaeffer says this all too often people have not been wrong in saying that the church is ugly. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we are called upon to show a watching world that the church is something beautiful. It is important to show forth beauty before a lost world.

Lisa, Chuck's wife, used an expression a few months ago that, sometimes the church and its outreach to the world, the church is the bride of Christ, and sometimes the church becomes bridezilla. and behaves in a very ugly manner with a very ugly disposition towards the very people that we are trying to, to reach, and the church lacks beauty. Francis Schaeffer is trying to speak to that issue here in this quote that we need to put beauty on display to the world, both in the way that we go about relating to one another, and also in the way that we behave towards the world.

Francis Schaeffer also And right where this quote is in one of his books, he, he ponders the relationship between purity and love.

And one of the things he noticed is something probably that many of us have noticed, and that is that you don't see purity and love in In balance in most churches, he observed that there are churches that are real committed to purity of life and doctrine and orthodoxy, but they lack love. And then there are churches that are all into love, the love of God, the grace of God, mercy of God, but they lack purity of doctrine and of life. And he's like, I just don't see a lot of Christians or churches that have these two things in.

And balance.

And as he pondered why that was, he, he, he arrived at a conclusion. And I want to read to you his conclusion. This is one of the most profound things I've read in in recent days. Listen to this.

He says, I came to the conclusion that in the flesh, we can stress purity without love, or In the flesh we can stress the love of God without purity. He's like, I've realized, what, a church can be totally into purity of life and doctrine and be completely in the flesh, and you can pull it off if you do that without love. And then a church could be on the other extreme and be all into the love of God and ignore purity of life and doctrine, and they can be totally in the flesh.

You can pull off one of those two at the expense of the other and be totally in the flesh while doing so.

But he then says, but here's what I concluded that in the flesh, we cannot stress both simultaneously. You cannot, without the power of God in your life and the gospel at work in your life, you cannot exhibit both purity and love at the same time. He says, in order to exhibit both purity and love simultaneously, we must look moment by moment to the work of Christ and to the work of the Holy Spirit. That's the only way you're going to be able to pull that off, living at the foot of the cross, looking at who Jesus is and what he has done, and the salvation that you needed, that you could not earn, Christ dying on the cross, that is profoundly humbling.

to ponder moment by moment, to look upon, to be lowered and humbled by, and to experience the grace of God, to realize the amazing grace of it all. If we're living in the good of the gospel each day, moment by moment, depending upon the power of the Holy Spirit, we as Christians, and we as a church can exhibit both purity and love. In our relationships with one another and in our outreach to the world. And I want to submit that this is what the world needs to see in us.

In fact, we're talking about beauty this morning. Let me give you this definition of beauty. I'm going to steal Francis Schaeffer's wording, and, and we're going to use it for our purposes. let's define beauty this way.

It is purity and love in perfect symmetry. It is truthfulness and graciousness in perfect balance. We all, we don't really think this way consciously, but beauty does have a lot to do with symmetry. Someone can have a beautiful right side of their face and a beautiful left side of their face, but if it's out of symmetry, if this side of the face is 1 inch lower than the other side of the face, we would not look upon that person as being beautiful, right?

Because it lacks symmetry. And I think this is a good working definition for us that beauty is graciousness and truthfulness in perfect symmetry, and we don't really have to just make that definition up. We actually find that in John chapter 1. In verse 14, where John the apostle is describing Jesus, and he said the Word became flesh, and he dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory.

And that word glory is a synonym for beauty. We could paraphrase that we beheld his beauty, beauty as of the only begotten from the Father, and then look at what he explains. regarding this beauty, why Jesus exhibited such glory and beauty. He says he was full of grace and truth.

He doesn't say he was full of grace. He doesn't say he was full of truth. He says he was full of both. Full of graciousness and truthfulness.

That was the glory, the beauty of Jesus that we witnessed when he was among us. So let's go with that definition, the beauty that we'll be focusing on And our relationships with one another, and in our outreach to the world is a life and ministry, where graciousness and truthfulness is in perfect symmetry. I want to submit to you guys that the church is most powerful when she is beautiful. And I also want to submit to you that Christians are most powerful when they are beautiful.

That doesn't mean if we're beautiful, everyone around us is going to believe in Jesus. But it does mean that you are never more powerful than when you are beautiful. And if you are beautiful in the way that we're looking at in this definition, you will be exactly as powerful as God wants you to be. So based on that, how many of you truly want to be beautiful, exhibiting graciousness and truthfulness in perfect symmetry?

Raise your hand. OK, great. let's look at this morning's 6 truths to help us to appreciate and to give heed to the call to beauty. 6 truths to help us to appreciate and give heed to the call to beauty.

And let's do a little bit of theology. first, and lay a foundation. The first truth is that God made mankind in His image in order that we might display his beauty. If you actually go back to the beginning, of human civilization to creation itself, you actually come to observe that we were called to be exhibitors.

We were created to exhibit the beauty of God. in fact, follow my train of thought. I'll try to go through this pretty quickly. One of the Hebrew words for beauty, or beautiful is the Hebrew word tov.

Tov, say that with me. Tov. there's other words, but that's one of them. And you see this word used in various places to speak of something that's beautiful.

In Genesis 6:2, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were tove or beautiful. In Exodus 2:2, Moses's mother saw that he was beautiful or Tov. Esther 1:11, Esther is described as being beautiful. Literally, the Hebrew is Tove to the site, good to the site, and their desire was to bring beautiful young virgins before the king.

And again, that word beautiful is the expression good or tove to the site. Rebecca, who Isaac, the son of Abraham, ended up marrying is described in Genesis 24:16 in this way, it says, and the girl was very beautiful, and the Hebrew is Tov Mao. Tov me old. Remember that expression.

Tov meod. That doesn't sound flattering, but if you're living back in this day, and someone comes up to you as a gal and says, you are Tov me Od, that was like, that would make your day. So guys, write that down and include that in a note to your wife, honey, you are Tov Maod. but that's how she was described.

Now, with that in mind, if you go to the creation account in Genesis 1, you notice that after each day of creation, God looked upon what he had done. God saw that it was Tov. In other words, God saw with his eyes that what created was beautiful. So after the 1st day, God saw that it was beautiful.

The 2nd day, God saw that it was beautiful. 3rd day, God saw that it was beautiful all the way until we get to the 6th day. And at the end of the 6th day, it says God saw all that he had made. And behold, it was to me.

It was very beautiful. And that ought to make you stop and go, Well, what happened on the 6th day? Something special happened on the 6th day because up through the 5th day, everything was just Tov and now it's Tov meod. What happened on the 6th day?

What happened on the 6th day is God created Adam and Eve, and he created them in His own image. Here's what's going on on the 6th day and why God looks at what he's done and says it's Tov meog, and that is because God Himself. God. God is beautiful.

And he has just created two image bearers to display the image of this beautiful God and seeing all of creation. completed, and also observing as the apex of that creation, two image bearers of God exhibiting the beauty of this beautiful God. God looks upon that and says, this is very beautiful. This is Tov Mao, Genesis 1:27, God created man.

In his own image, and the image of God, He created him, male and female, he created them to be image bearers of the beautiful God. The human race, Adam and Eve, by original design were to be carriers of God's beauty. To exhibit God's beauty. This was man's original calling.

There's other ways of expressing it, but for our purposes today, this is how we are expressing this. God created us in His image to display his beauty. But a second truth is the fall, the fall of man into sin represents a rejection of God's beauty and a loss of our own. A rejection of God's beauty and a loss of our own.

In Genesis 3, the story goes like this. Now, the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, indeed, as God said, you shall not eat from any tree of the garden. And the woman said to the serpent, From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, but from the fruit of the tree, which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat from it or touch it, lest you die.

And the serpent said to the woman, You surely shall not die. The serpent Satan through the serpent is being as emphatic in his denial that they would die as God was in telling Adam and Eve that they would die. what he's saying there? This beautiful God, Whose image you bear is a liar.

He is not so beautiful as you think. He has deceived you. And worse than that, verse 5, there's a reason for God's lying to you. For God knows that in the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

God is a liar. He is not so beautiful as you think. And not only that, but God has a reason for lying to you. And that is he's withholding something good from you, that you would be better off having.

And he doesn't want you to have that. He is petty and jealous, and is afraid you're going to become like him. And so he has deceived you to keep something good away from you. You see what's happening there.

He's assaulting Eve's view of God. Which is Satan's first point of attack, always. And so Eve is now getting a jaded view of God. He is not so beautiful as she thought.

She takes her eyes off of him and she starts looking at this tree, and guess what? The tree happened to be beautiful, says in Genesis 3:6. when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable or attractive to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate and she gave also to her husband with her. And He ate And so she rejects the beauty of God, whose image she bore.

And she chose this beautiful tree, instead, driven to do so because she was deceived into the lie of believing that God had lied to her and Adam, and that God was trying to keep something from them that they would be better off having. Well, once he partakes of this tree, what happened? Did greater beauty follow? No ugliness followed.

Adam and Eve began immediately hiding from each other. think about it, guys, they're husband and wife. They have the whole planet to themselves. And immediately they sow fig leaves for themselves to hide their body parts from each other.

Husband and wife, they are running and hiding from each other now, parts of their bodies so that their spouse cannot see. They also hide from God. They immediately turn into blame shifters. And Adam is like the woman that, that you gave to me, she gave to me from the tree.

And I ate this woman that he was called to lead and to love. He's now calling her out. And blaming her and blaming God for for his sin, death began to work and their physical bodies immediately and over the years and decades and even centuries that followed, they would grow wrinkled and gray, and their physical capacities would be reduced until they would end up ultimately breathing their last and dying on top of that. As a part of the curse, Eve would have within her a violent desire to master her husband, and he would rule over her imperfectly.

Contrary to this violent desire in her to master her husband, Adam would work by the sweat of his brow. He would eat his food and weariness and exhaustion. And the story continues. They have children.

Cain and Abel, and Cain murders Abel and read the rest of the Bible, and you see a trail of tremendous ugliness and brokenness that has emerged from this rejection of the beauty of God and a loss of our own beauty in the fall to where Paul provides this ugly description of the human race in Romans 3. He says there is none righteous, not even one, there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God. All have turned aside, together, they have become useless. There is none who does good.

There is not even one. Their throat is an open grave with their tongues, they keep deceiving. Poison of snakes is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery are in their paths.

That's an ugly picture. Think of the heights from which we have fallen as a race. We were called and created by God to be image bearers of God to display his beauty, but we have fallen from that. And what we are left with as we look at ourselves, and look at the world around us, we see remnants of that beauty that remain in us and in others.

But what we also see is horrific, mind boggling ugliness. In our own beings and in other people. I don't know if you guys have seen in the news this game that's all the rage now called Knockout. These young people just in public places, just hitting some random stranger and knocking them out.

And it's a game. It's a fun thing to do. And there's video surveillance footage of moments where this is happening and a person just collapses to the ground having been hit and knocked out and The people who did it just walk on laughing at what they did. That's the ugliness.

That's the brokenness that reigns in our society, but that leads to a third truth that can help us to build a foundation so that we can appreciate. And obey and give heed to this call to beauty. And that is that Jesus Christ through the gospel is restoring us to beauty. That's all of us who have believed in Jesus.

That's what Jesus is doing to us, is he is restoring us to that original beauty, and even taking us beyond that. Look at Revelation 21:2. I just want to lift one expression from this verse. It says, and I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem.

Coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. That word adorned is the word Cosmeo, a bride cosmeode for her husband. What's the English word we get from Cosmeo? Cosmetic, good, Brian.

Yeah, we get the English word cosmetic from that. And here's a bride who's been cosmeoed for her husband. Every bride does this. No bride just pulls up in a parking lot and walks in and walks down the aisle.

Every bride takes a considerable amount of time to be cosmeoed for her groom. Many weddings that I have performed. over 60 of them over the years, and a number of them start late because the bride is being cosmeoed and prepared for her, her groom. And it is only when she has been sufficiently cosmeoed, is she ready to be presented to the groom, and all must wait until that moment of perfection.

And her appearance is arrived at. This is normal. This is understandable. And in that future day, he says the new Jerusalem will be made ready as a bride fully, perfectly cosmeo for her husband.

There will be no flaw, no blemish anywhere. And so just take that expression, and then realize that we, the church, according to Ephesians 5, are the bride of Christ. And we have not yet been presented to him in that future wedding ceremony. So what's happening right now?

We are right now in the stage of our existence as a church, where we are being cosmeoed, we are being made ready, we are being beautified. In Ephesians 5, Paul uses a bunch of different words to describe this process of, Cosmeo, look at what he says. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church, gave himself up for her so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the gospel word that he might present to himself. That's that wedding ceremony that he might present to himself the church in all her glory.

And all her beauty, having no spot, no wrinkle, any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless. We are right now, I'm right now, you guys, all of us together as a community, we're being cosmeed by Jesus Christ. We're being beautified. Made ready for that day when we will be presented to him.

Now, most grooms at weddings have nothing to do with the Cosmeo process. they let their bride take care of that and all of the bridesmaids and the makeup artists and everybody else that, and the groom is just waiting for this picture of perfection to come walking down the aisle. I've never done a wedding where the groom is in the room with the bride before the wedding and he's fussing over her hair and helping her with her makeup and tending to the dress and oh there's a wrinkle here.

I've never seen a groom do that.

Grooms don't do that. They expect the bride and everyone else to take care of that. You guys handle the cosmeo, and I will see her when she comes picture perfect down the aisle to me. Jesus, though.

is not that grim. He saw us. When we were a filthy, disgusting Mess full of stench and defilement. And he said to his father, You see that right there?

I love that. I love that. And I want to change that into something beautiful. And the Father said, if you want to do that, you have to get yourself crucified.

And Jesus said, I will. I will die so that I can be the one to save and Cosmeo the church. And turned the church. Into something beautiful, I will get crucified so I can be the one who cleans up the church's mess.

And that's what he's doing in all of our lives, and day by day as we follow Jesus, he's making us more beautiful, restoring the image of God in us that we might display each passing day to a greater, clearer degree than before, display the beauty of God to one another, and before a watching world. In Revelation 19:7, that wedding ceremony is spoken of. It says, Let us rejoice and be glad and give glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.

And I know when I read that like made herself ready, it's like, Jesus made us ready.

he's the one who has cosmeoed us so that we are ready to be presented to him in this grand, phenomenal wedding ceremony when Christ and the church are married. So are you understanding, guys, that, we were created to display the beautiful image of God, we fell from that. But when we come to Jesus by faith and believe in him and cry out to Him, believe in Him as our Lord and Savior, God gives us His Holy Spirit, He makes us his children, he makes us a part of the church. And thus immediately begins this incredible journey of us being cosmeode, rendered more and more beautiful.

To ready us for that time when we are presented to him. So this call to beauty ties to something very deep and very ancient in all of us. That leads to 1/4 truth that's good for us to look at, to help us to appreciate and give heed to this call to beauty. And that is that we are called to keep our behavior beautiful with evangelistic intent.

So take the 3 truths that we've looked at, and then the next 3 are actual explicit calls to beauty that we find in the New Testament. We are called in 1 Peter 2, to keep our behavior beautiful. That's the focus of this first call with evangelistic intent. Look at this verse 12.

Keep your behavior excellent. And the Greek word translated excellent is the word that speaks of something that is morally beautiful and good. Whenever you see this Greek word chaos in The New Testament, think of the word beautiful, and the word good. It speaks of that which is morally good and beautiful.

And so this is not just a call to do the right thing, but to do the right thing in the right way, in a way that is characterized by beauty. Keep your behavior beautiful among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may, on account of your morally good and beautiful deeds as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation. So he's saying as you interact with people and live amongst them and work amongst those who do not know Jesus, as of yet, You need to make sure that you are living in such a way, behaving in such a way that your behavior is characterized by goodness, and by beauty.

God is saying, I want your behavior toward and around the lost.

To be such that when the day comes that I visit them in mercy. Your behavior will be useful. And causing them to respond in faith. to Jesus, and to give glory to God.

What you don't want is for God to visit someone in your life and mercy, and they're feeling the stirrings of the Spirit of God working in them. And, and then they think of you. And they think of the way you are towards them. They think of your behavior and the ugliness and say, well, this person claims to believe in the very thing that I'm pondering believing here, and they start thinking about your behavior, the things you've said and done, and that your behavior is actually a tool used by Satan.

to persuade them from believing in Jesus. God says, I may just show up and visit those in your life with a visitation of mercy. And when that day comes, if you have behaved beautifully towards them, the beauty of your deeds will be useful. On that day, and causing them to believe in Jesus and thereby glorify God.

How is your behavior towards others in the church and towards those who do not yet know Jesus? So truth number 4 is we're called to keep our behavior beautiful. With evangelistic intent, but then 1/5 truth looking at another passage is that we're actually called to beautify ourselves. With evangelistic intent.

Yeah, we beautify our behavior, and we keep that beautiful. But there's language used in 1 Peter 3, where we're told to beautify ourselves. With the intent of increasing our evangelistic impact upon those who do not as yet believe in Jesus. Now, this counsel is given to wives, but the beautifying qualities that Peter is going to point out for wives happen to be qualities that elsewhere in the Bible, all believers, men and women are supposed to exhibit.

So let's look at what he says and why he says it the way he does. He's speaking to wives. And by the way, he's talking to women, in Roman society, women did not have a lot of power. Their testimony was not admissible in a court of law, and they were in a submissive role in the marriage relationship.

Their husband was supposed to be allowed to have mistresses for sexual purposes, and the wife was supposed to just be OK with that. There's actually ancient written evidence of like at a, a wedding shower before the wedding where the person is speaking to the bride saying, now, your husband's probably going to have mistresses and that needs to be OK, for you. and I'm not going to go any further into that, but just, and brides were supposed to be, oh, OK, that's, I guess that's OK.

Women, wives were in a very vulnerable position, a position that was not characterized by power.

often wives would feel disempowered by that role that they were in in the marriage relationship. And Peter speaks to these women feeling disempowered, especially women with an unsafe husband, and they feel stuck and without power. And Peter's saying, Sister, let me tell you, you've got enormous power. And let me tell you how to wield that power.

In the life of your husband, he says, in the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands, so that even If any of them literally are unpersuaded by the word, the gospel word, even if your husband is unpersuaded by the truth, they're unpersuaded of the truth, and the beauty and the power of the gospel. Even if any of them are unpersuaded by the gospel word, they may be one without a word, by the behavior of their wives as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior.

So they look at your life and your behavior. And God can use that to bring them to a place where they're persuaded of the truth and the power and the glory of the gospel.

He goes on to tell them how to wield this power in the life of their husband. He says, do not let your adornment, literally the word is let, let not your cosmos, your cosmetic, Adornment is that which a woman uses to make herself beautiful. He's saying, don't let what I'm about to say, don't depend upon these things to be what makes you beautiful for your husband. Do not let your cosmos be merely external braiding the hair, wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses.

He's not saying don't do these things. What he's saying is don't depend upon these things to be what makes you beautiful, but let it, your adornment be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable, the ageless quality of a gentle, And a quiet spirit which is precious in the sight of God. Ho ho, these qualities catch the eye of God. God loves these qualities.

They catch his eye. God deems these qualities to be beautiful, a gentle, and a quiet spirit. What does gentle and quiet mean? Well, A gentle whenever you say to anyone.

This Greek word and say be gentle implied in that is the existence of power that that person possesses. You don't come to some weakling. Imagine some weakling in the room here who has just no power. They couldn't hurt a flea, and this room is filled with a bunch of people that are so much stronger than them.

No one would ever come up to that weakling and say, Now you be gentle. He doesn't have power to hurt anyone, even if he tried. And when you have an injunction like this, where essentially Peter is instructing women to be gentle, this is a nod to the power that women possess. He's saying to the ladies, you have enormous power.

In your relationship, in your marriage for good and for evil. And he says, I want you to be gentle. This is a quality that catches the eye of God. Sometimes people define this word as power under control.

That's half the definition. A gentle person is someone who has power, but they restrain that power so as not to hurt or injure somebody. But instead of merely restraining their exercise of power, they actually harness that power and use it to do good. to the people in their lives.

So he's saying to the wives, the power you possess, don't use that power to do harm to your husband. Use the power that you possess for his good, to serve him and to bless him. And he also says, have a quiet spirit. This speaks of a spirit, a heart that is still, that is tranquil.

The heart that has a quenching effect upon troubles when disturbances come your way, ladies, are you the person that when a disturbance on a level of 2, on the scale of 1 to 10 comes to you, that man, by the time it gets to you and the way you respond, you can turn a 2 into an 8 like that. Everything gets worse when it gets processed by and through you. Or do you have a quenching effect, a tranquilizing effect? Upon difficulties, a woman can only be this way, who has crazy hope and trust in God, confident, robust trust in Him to where she comes to her husband from a place of strength.

And power and a connection with the Almighty. She is a fearless woman, so fearless, so brave, so courageous, that her heart is at peace because her hope is in God. And she's got this enormous power that she's aware of every day. And she's like, I will not use my power to do harm to my husband, but I will seek to do good to him.

Peter says, if you adorn yourself with these qualities, And you are beautiful for your husband in this way, God can use that beauty to bring your husband to a place of persuasion. Of the truth and power of the gospel. This, like I said, applies to wives whose husbands don't know the Lord. They're completely unpersuaded of the gospel.

But I just, I think I speak for every Christian man in this room. When I say that all of us Christian husbands, not a one of us is fully persuaded of every truth of the gospel, every moment of every day. We're all fighting to believe every day, and some days we believe we're persuaded more than other days, and we need our wives to play a role in our lives, to bring us into a deeper persuasion of the truth and power of the gospel moment by moment. And our wives need the same from us, because we're all fighting to be consistently persuaded.

of the truth and the power and the glory of the gospel. So he's telling women, I want you, I'm trying to elevate you to a tremendous position of power in the life of your husband. And one of the ways that you do that is by being beautiful for your husband, with the qualities of gentleness, and a tranquil. Spirit.

Now husbands don't read that and go, Man, I'm glad my wife has to be gentle and quiet. That is something she's got to do and I don't have to do that. Well, Jesus would say, hey, I'm gentle. He uses that word to describe himself.

He was a man. Jesus' blessed are the gentle. They will inherit the earth. This is something called upon, upon all believers in First Timothy, we are all to lead a quiet life and all godliness.

Same word is used. This, this applies to men. And to women, I want to be characterized by gentleness, and a tranquil spirit as much as I would ever want my wife to, because I can display beauty to her. If I do that as much as she can toward me.

So we're called to beauty. We're called to keep our behavior beautiful. and then truth number 5, we're called to beautify ourselves with evangelistic intent. And lastly, we're actually called in Titus chapter 2.

To beautify the gospel with evangelistic intent. What Paul says in Titus 2, I would have never thought to write it this way. It's the opposite of what I would have thought to say. But look at what Paul says.

He's speaking to slaves, and again, this is the most disempowered people in Roman culture. If anyone had a right to say, I have no power. I'm a nobody. I don't even exist.

I'm owned by some other person. I don't even have freedom. It was the slaves, and they had every right to think, Man, I just don't have any power. I don't have a voice.

And Paul says to the slaves in the church, you've got enormous power that you can wield in the life of the person who owns you. Your master, and other people that interact with you. And I want to show you how to wield that power. Paul is talking to Titus, and he says, urge bond slaves to be subject to their own masters and everything to be well pleasing, not argumentative, not stealing, but showing all good faith that they may adorn.

Same word that we get cosmetic from, so that they may adorn Cosmeo, the doctrine of God, our Savior in every respect, the doctrine of God, our Savior, the teaching of God our Savior. What is that? That's the gospel. He's saying, if you behave in this way, you will beautify and adorn the gospel.

He's depicting here the gospel. As something that in and of itself is tremendously beautiful, but which God intends to adorn with the behaviors that are listed here in this passage. Look at the behaviors, behavior of submission to your master, submission, he would add, for our purposes today, to the authorities that are in your life, to the governing authorities, being well pleasing. To those that are over you, to those that work alongside of you, this doesn't just mean to be pleasing.

It means to be extremely pleasing. So he's saying to the slaves, you need to seek as much as you possibly can to not just get by, but you need to be asking, how can I be extremely pleasing to the people that are over me and around me. He also says, don't be argumentative. Don't be argumentative.

This literally means talking against. Don't be someone who's always talking against other people, talking against your master, talking against other people. Being against all the time and speaking out against other people all the time. That's not what I want you to be known for.

I would ask you, is that what you're known for? There are people who use the mediums that are available to them, such as Facebook and other forms of social media. They use forums like that to talk against Everyone else that's saying and believing and doing stuff that is wrong. and I'm not, I don't really so much have a problem with that, but you might look at someone's Facebook page, and a year has gone by, and all of these other people, these idiots out there, they, they've called all of these people out and pointed out everything that they're doing wrong.

And not one time in the past year has that person Done any introspection on their Facebook page and called themselves out for any sin. There's a complete lack of introspection. And humility. If Martin Luther was right when he wrote his 95 theses, and the first of which is that the Christian life is to be a life of daily repentance, I would think that if you have a Facebook page somewhere, if you're repenting every day of sin in your own life, somewhere that should be reflected.

Rather than calling out everybody else for the sin that's in their lives. Again, I'm not saying that it's wrong to do that, but I, I honestly believe that people, the world around us would be more interested. And our criticisms of other people. If they would hear us first, criticize and demonstrate humility and a spirit of repentance.

And then even when we do criticize other people, we do so with a spirit of grace, knowing but for the grace of God, There go I. God has been gracious to me, and I'm going to treat other people with grace, with dignity, and with respect. And if my life is a life of daily repentance, I want that reflected. I want people in my life to see that on display as I live from day to day and even in whatever forms of social media that I might have access.

To, are you guys hearing what I'm saying? Would to God. That people the world around us would say, one thing I can say about Christians. is they seem to display remarkable courage.

In facing their own sins. In speaking about their own sins. And repenting of their own sins. And yeah, they, they talk about the sins of other people and sins in our culture, but man, they have an amazing courage in the way that they call themselves out, a courage I don't have, but I see these Christians have this courage.

I wish that is what we were known for being the biggest repenters in our society. We're out of time, but just our behavior also being ethical and trustworthy. Paul is giving hope to slaves. He's saying, you, as you guys go into the workplace, tomorrow, you think your work is all mundane.

What does this have to do with the gospel? You come from the high of this worship service on a, on a Sunday, and now you're going to your mundane task of slavery, thinking, what does this have to do with the gospel? And Paul says, these very things I've listed here are the jewels that bedeck the gospel. That put the beauty of the gospel on display and show it to be the attractive thing.

That it is. One writer says, and I'll close with this, we Christians must act in a way so as to make the teaching about God our Savior more attractive. By exemplary Christian behavior, a slave has the power to enhance the doctrine and make it appear beautiful in the eyes of all onlookers. I pray that God will give us grace.

Give us grace to be beautiful, displaying graciousness and truthfulness. In perfect symmetry. Let's go to God and ask Him to help us to do that. Lord, we thank you for Just the help that you give us in your word, we confess that we are far too often ugly.

We confess that we often choose ugliness to get our way. We confess that sometimes when the world is ugly towards us, we just give them a taste of their own medicine and we're ugly right back because that's the way they're treating us, little realizing in that moment that we've just given them the ultimate victory. We've become just like them. Help us, Lord, when people are ugly towards us to respond with beauty.

And may the beauty they see in us and our behavior. Serve as jewels that adorn the gospel and cause them to take a second look at the gospel and be attracted to it. You call us to beauty. And give us the grace to heed that call.

That we might serve your sovereign purposes and glorify your name. We thank you for this opportunity to give of our offerings to you, Lord, receive these funds, do much with them for the glory of Jesus. Use the funds that are given, Lord, to not only serve your work here, but also the money that's given to the Agape Fund. Use these funds, Lord, to bring relief and real and practical help to people in dire need.

In the name of Jesus. And may the love that's shown, the charity that shone serve as jewels that would cause them to look afresh at the gospel. And consider you as their Lord and their Savior. We love you, Lord, we trust you.

We thank you for loving us. We give ourselves to you in the name of Jesus. And all God's people said,