I Want Women to Adorn Themselves...

especially those who are in authority, that we may lead peaceful, quiet lives. And he goes on about what he wants us doing. He wants us praying for those who rule over us. He wants us lifting them up. He wants us submitting to them to the end that we might live a peaceful, quiet life. And then he comes to the end of it, having said that there's one way that there can be peace in your life, and it's if those rulers and those who rule over you, and indeed all men, are reconciled to God because there's only one mediator, the man Jesus Christ. And so he ends that section by saying, likewise, I want men to lift up holy hands in prayer without anger or dissension. And that's where we stopped last week. This was Paul's instruction to men. And this week we're going to be picking up in verses 9 and 10 of 1 Timothy 2 where he has instruction for women. Before we read our text this morning, I want you to know that I believe the next couple of weeks...

of our time in the Word during the sermons are going to be quite helpful, the reason being that the texts we're studying are so applicable today. And I say they're applicable, and yet the reason I think they're applicable is because I think our practice and our understanding as a culture is so different than what we're instructed about here, about headship and authority, about the differences between men and women and the responsibilities of each before God. And so I understand these texts to be, not to be a hammer, to be, you know, or a baseball bat to whop people upside the head with. What I see them is God's good plan and his design being fleshed out and worked out in the lives of his people. I see them as being evangelistic. Because many people in our society, everyone's looking and trying to figure out, what am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to think? What am I supposed to be? What is my life supposed to be about? And whatever we're told in our society, it's very, very different.

than what God's word has told us. And so I actually, what my hope is and my prayer has been as I've been preparing and anticipating these sermons is that God would use them in our hearts and that he would make us not be ashamed of what he says, but we would see that everyone's asking the same questions we're asking and everyone's getting different answers. And what we want is we want God's answers and we want his truth for our lives and for the lives of other people because we can say, oh, I want people, you know, I desire salvation for the lost and I say, okay, how's that supposed to be worked out? What's that supposed to look like?

That's what we're going to be studying at the most basic level for men and women over the next couple of weeks. And this is an area of great attack and conflict in our society. And what I want is just not to be ignorant or ashamed of what God has said. I want us to love it and to speak it and to live it. And so realizing that there's tension related to these things, my exhortation to you, before we begin, is that as we learn from God's word, I want you to consider if what is being said is true. Is that what God said? Before you determine how you feel about it. Because I anticipate that there will be times where you'll go, well, I don't know about that. I don't like that. Say, okay. And that's not just this week. That'll be the next couple of weeks. I understand that. But we have to, as Christians, we have to start saying, is that what God said? Is that what it means? Okay, if that's what it is, then what I need to be doing is the work and the prayer of bringing my life

And my thoughts and my actions into conformity to what God has said. Instead of sitting in judgment over it saying, well, he just didn't know and didn't understand and this isn't applicable to me in these situations because of this, that, and the other. No. The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, able to divide between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. even today. And we're also told that his word doesn't go out and come back to him void. It goes out and it accomplishes the purpose for which he intended it. And so we have to see as we read these texts that there's a purpose behind God saying these things and us hearing these things right now in this day where we're at. And so my hope is that we'll submit ourselves to it and that we'll listen and that we'll wrestle through the responsibilities that come out of it to us each as men and women.

Would you please stand now for the reading of God's Word from 1 Timothy chapter 2, verses 9 and 10. This is the Word of the Lord, and it is eternally true. Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments, but rather by means of good works, as is proper for women making a claim to godliness. This is the Word of the Lord. You may be seated. Joseph, would you go get me some water? Thank you. Now the first thing you'll notice about this text is it's addressed to women. Well, it's addressed to Timothy about women. And this is what he's supposed to teach the women. Paul is saying, here's what's important, Timothy. Go and cultivate this, produce this in your church, in Ephesus. This is what you want to be aiming at. This is the target. I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing. Now there's a lot of talk about this. Well,

Maybe there's not as much talk as there is tension about the question of how women adorn themselves and what is adornment anyway. What I hope is that by the time we're done today, you'll have some idea of what God is saying when he says, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing. What good works are. What the priorities of your life as a woman or a man who has a wife or daughters ought to be toward them? What does God intend for them? So if someone walked up to you on the street and said, what is proper clothing? What would you say to them? I think we all have some conception, some answer. We'd say, well, I think it has to do with the length. I think it has to do with the cut. I think it has to do with the tightness. And some of you would be like, no, it doesn't have anything to do with that.

That's not what's being talked about here. And I'd say, well, actually it's part of what's being talked about here. It's not all of it. It's part of it. It's the manifestation of a deeper issue that we're going to get into as we dig into this text. Another way of saying that is this passage isn't that specific. There have been efforts made to be specific about it. Skirt length, sleeve length, hair length, makeup, no makeup. There's been effort made. one way or another, good, bad, or otherwise, to answer this question of what is proper clothing. But the text actually doesn't say this long and this way and this material. It doesn't give us that. But before we dig into exactly what proper clothing is, I want to ask you, is there such a thing as improper clothing for a woman? Is there anyone who would say, no, there's no such thing as improper clothing for women?

Maybe what might be said is, I think a woman should be able to wear whatever she wants, and it would be improper for her not to be able to. But you're Christian people. Is there such a thing as improper clothing? Okay, all right. What we're told here about proper clothing is that that proper clothing is for women who make a claim to godliness. And that means that the attire of a woman, the way she dresses, the way she carries herself, has something to do with her profession. of faith. The fact that she's a Christian and the way she dresses and carries herself are connected. They're tied together at the hip. And it means that the way that she's dressed is either going to be a positive reflection of her claim to godliness or it's going to be a negative impression. Now I asked you earlier if there was such a thing as improper clothing and you all said yes. But I didn't ask you what it was. And I want you to think for a minute about

Now, what constitutes improper clothing? Again, each of us would have answers. Some of us would say, well, it's this way or it's that way or it's this thing or it's that thing. Are all of those answers right? No. Are all of those answers wrong? You all said no for the first part, but not the other part. Is it true that there's a standard or a measure that we ought to be aiming for as Christians with regard to how women dress? There is. And we've all agreed that there is such a thing, that there is a category of improper clothing. for a woman. Now, what is improper? I think it's hard to define what improper is because we don't understand what makes proper or not proper. And so to answer the question of what's proper or improper, we have to talk about why women dress, what motivates women when they get dressed, when they think of how they're going to present themselves, what's going on in the subtext, the underneath. If I were to ask men,

What is improper clothing for women? If you were to ask Christian men that, the answer would be pretty simple. And they would say clothes that are tempting or that draw an eye inappropriately. And that could be applied to their wife or to their daughters or to a woman on the street. They'd say improper clothing is clothing that catches my eye and that carries with it a temptation to lust. And a lot of women, especially younger ones, would just balk at that answer. They'd just scoff at it and go, that's just terrible. Those men, they should never have that problem. That's such an inappropriate burden to place on women. Women should be free to dress without the responsibility to care for their brother in this regard. And I don't deny that men have to fight their lusts and fight until there's victory over their lusts.

But I also maintain that sisters ought to love their brothers and help them. And that proper and improper is defined by men as whether they're helpful or not in that fight. Now, if I were to ask women what improper clothing was, it wouldn't have to do with lust. What it would have to do with is what makes her feel pretty, what she's comfortable in, and what it communicates to the people around her. Because her clothes do tell a story. They do tell something about her. And so women communicate through what they dress and the way they carry themselves and the way they do their hair and their makeup or what have you, or whether they don't do those things. They're communicating. And they often communicate through these very ways, through the way they dress. Now I want to ask you a question. Is it possible for women to want to draw attention to themselves and to use the way they dress or carry themselves to do it? All of you should be saying yes. Yes.

It may be uncomfortable, and you may feel like you're on the big drop on a roller coaster going, I don't know where this thing's going to go. Just hold on. Is it possible for women to draw attention to themselves with the way they dress? Yes. Absolutely. And so the question is, what kind of attention are they drawing, and what kind of attention should they be drawing? What should they desire? Is it wrong for women to desire attention? Well, in some situations, yes, and in other situations, no. Should a wife or a daughter desire the attention of her husband or her father? Yes. Should he give it to her? Yes. Should she desire the attention of some other man? No. Should a married woman dress in such a way as to catch the eyes of the men at the gym? Nope. Somebody's going to have to help her understand that.

My contention is that this reality, that women dress to get attention, is not inherently and entirely bad, but that there's a huge mountain of danger associated with it. Because all of women's desires are not pure and clean and snow white. Meaning a lot of their desires to get attention aren't good. And they dress in such a way as to get attention for themselves that they ought not to get. They ought not to want. And yet there's a lot of pressure on them to desire that sort of affection, that sort of attention. On this text, Calvin says this. He says, Paul, referring to this issue, to this fault of which they, women, are all too fond, he says this is the problem. They care. The care that they take over personal adornment, the way they dress and the way they carry themselves, is in hope of being noticed from afar. They want to stand out.

This is the danger of women, that they want to stand out, they want to be noticed, they want to be elevated above their peers. And this is difficult to talk about because whoever says that women are sinners and that they do things they ought not to do and that the things that they do that they ought not to do are really, really bad. Like, on almost the same level as being as bad as the sins men do. Have you ever said that to your wife? Or your fiancé? You're just as much of a sinner as I am. Right now, We're both sinners, and I'm not any more of a sinner than you. Maybe in the privacy of your own home, but here we are at church talking about it. Women are sinners, and they do all kinds of stuff with all kinds of terrible, wicked motivations. And yet, we're not supposed to say anything about it in our culture. It's like, it's wrong. And I say, no, my intention here is not to beat up on women, and for you to come away saying, oh, at this church, this is the skirt length, and this is the hair length, and this is the makeup position, and this is all that.

Because the scripture doesn't tell you those things. What I care about is proper clothing and adornment that gives glory to God. That the women, if you're a woman, that you give attention to it. If you're a man who is responsible for a woman, be that a wife or a daughter, that you take responsibility for it. And that you care about these things. That you don't let the world and everyone else instruct your wife or your daughter about how she's supposed to dress. And how she's supposed to carry herself. But that you would, according to God's word. And I take it as a foundational truth that your wife doesn't have perfect motives about the way she dresses, that she has some bad motives about the way she dresses, and she needs to be cared for and helped through those things in the same way that the rest of us do. So I want to return to a woman's desire. What do women like to do when they're discouraged or depressed or lonely?

Shopping, eat chocolate, yes. Yes, these things are true. Now, about shopping. Why does she want to go shopping? You might say, just because she's a woman and women like... You haven't answered, Josiah. Why do women want to go shopping? Are you nervous? Why is that? To get food? No, we're not talking about that kind of shopping, honey. Not when they're discouraged and depressed and lonely. They don't want to go shopping for food. For a new outfit. What were you going to say, Di? Instant gratification. She wants to feel something. She has a desire that's gone unmet. And she wants to feel pretty. Now, here's the thing, women. Where do you want to wear this nice new outfit you got? Do you want to buy your nice outfit and go stand in front of a mirror at home and then put it back in the closet? No. What do you want to do? You want to buy a new outfit and then you want to wear it. You want to wear it out. And I'm telling you, what you want is somebody to notice you.

Because you're feeling lonely or discouraged or depressed. Maybe it's not clothing. Maybe you want to do something drastic with your hair. You want to chop all your hair off. You want to dye your hair. You want to do something that has to do with your appearance because you're discouraged, because you're upset, because you're lonely. I'm telling you, this is your temptation. I want to feel pretty and I want somebody else to notice it. I want them to notice me. So you go shopping, you get a haircut. You do some other sort of thing that's meant to draw attention to yourself and to your appearance. And particularly, it's a strange thing. Now, I didn't grow up with sisters, but my wife did grow up with sisters. And I've learned about women from my wife. And when I think of it, I think, oh, women do that because they want to draw attention from men. And she says, yes, that's true, but also from women. And maybe even more so from other women. They want women to look at them and to be jealous. Now, can we just be all honest and say that?

Women are incredibly competitive, and the way they dress has everything to do with that competitiveness. They want to look better and have you notice them and to think, oh, I don't have a pretty new thing like she has a pretty new thing. She's got pretty new hair, and I don't have pretty new hair. Look at her makeup. She got new eyeshadow. Remember, the goal is proper adornment, proper clothing, as is fitting for women who make a claim to godliness. Paul's instruction is not that women shouldn't seek affirmation or that their desire to look beautiful is sinful. But it has to be worked out in its proper context. And it has to draw the attention of the appropriate people. And it has to not draw the attention of the inappropriate people. So what is proper clothing? What does proper mean? When you think of proper, I thought, you know, just appropriate. Just appropriate clothing.

I don't normally talk about Greek words. If you're here on Sundays, I don't talk about Greek words. But I'm going to talk a little bit about Greek words today because it was so interesting to me when I read this. The word for adorn and the word for proper as it relates to clothing are related to the word cosmos or world or orderly. It's different than when it says proper later as is proper for a woman. That's just the normal sense of proper. The word Paul uses here for adorn or proper is related to the orderliness or the adornment of the world. And so actually what we're learning is that the way a woman is to dress herself is in parallel with the way God created the world. When he made the world, he made it orderly. He made it make sense. He made it discreet. He also made it beautiful, right?

And so I don't want you to read this passage and say, okay, ankle length, wrist length, plain Jane, no anything fancy. That's what is being prescribed here. That's not what's being prescribed here. Women are to adorn themselves the way that God has adorned the world. And so that does not preclude them or keep them from adorning themselves with beauty. It needs to be proper beauty. It needs to be appropriate beauty. It needs to be a beauty that reflects and demonstrates their love for God. And so for you women, when you get dressed and you consider the way you carry yourself and the things you say or the way you walk or the way you do your hair, all of the stuff that matters to you, those things ought to matter to you, but they ought to matter to you in such a way as to say, does this give glory to God? Am I adorning myself in a way similar to the way God created the world? Is it beautiful or do I care? Do I think that looking like a desert is the way that,

barren wasteland is the way I'm supposed to conduct myself as a godly woman. And you say, no. And I say, are there things that are concealed? Are there glorious things in this world that are concealed? Absolutely. I love looking at pictures or watching videos of a volcano erupt. I would never want to be near one because there's danger. And that's just one small picture of the concealment of creation. There are things that are concealed in creation. And they ought to be. And there are things that ought to be concealed in the way that a woman carries herself, in the way that she dresses herself. To proper clothing, ordered clothing, in accordance with how God has made the world, Paul adds two modifiers or descriptors. He says modestly and discreetly. Now, what is modesty? Do you know what modesty is? You say, oh, well, it's just another word for proper clothing. And I say, no, not really. I mean, they are so closely connected.

But the words are not interchangeable. What modesty actually means is a sense of shame. A sense of shame. If you were to read this in the King James Version, he would say that women ought to dress themselves. This descriptor, instead of modesty, it says shamefacedly. They ought to dress with a sense of shame. And you ought to be sitting here going, a sense of shame? I'm supposed to be ashamed of getting dressed? And I say, no. You're not supposed to be ashamed of getting dressed. You ought to be aware that how you dress may incur shame. if you don't dress well. And not just shame for you, but shame for your husband or your father, but ultimately for God. That the way that women dress actually is, it gives glory to God or it's a shame to him. It's either telling a truth about him or it's telling a lie about him. And if we tell a lie about him, we ought to be ashamed of it, right?

Well, in dress it has to do with shame. Modesty means with a sense of shame. Realizing that as you dress and as you adorn yourself, there is the potential for you to bring shame on the name of Jesus Christ by the way that you dress. That's what modesty is. It doesn't mean cover all up and just wear the most boring, ugly stuff you can find. That's not the testimony of creation. But you ought to dress with this reality of saying that there's a proper way for me to dress. There's an improper way for me to dress. And whether I bring shame on my God hangs in the balance. I'm to dress modestly. Beauty is not shameful. Seeing what ought not to be seen, that's shameful. But beauty is not shameful. Beauty is glorious. And it's good. And you go, well, I don't know. Is there any difference between... How can something be beautiful if it's not...

Revealing. That's the tension you have to live in. And every couple is going to have to work that out. But there ought to be a mystery to the female form. And modesty ought to be the covering of it. Does that make sense to you? A man, you don't want, women, I've got one daughter and I've got a wife, but I'm telling you, you don't want men to know what every curve of your body is. Whether it's because it's uncovered or because your clothes are so tight that there's nothing left to the unknown. You ought not to want that. There are men in your life, there's a man in your life to be, your husband, whether you're married or you will be married someday, who will know those things. But that is not information, that is not beauty that has public access, that the public ought to have access to. You ought not use your body to shame other women or to make them jealous, and you ought not to use it to attract other men, and this has to do with how you dress. And yet you can still dress beautifully.

The difficulty is our culture would tell you that beauty is revealing what ought to be concealed and that there ought to be no shame ever associated with the attire or the adornment of a woman. And that's not biblical. You might wonder, well, how am I going to get attention? How am I going to get married? How is anyone ever going to notice me if I'm not competing on the world's terms? What if I'm tall? What if I'm short? What if I'm big? What if I'm small? What if my complexion's like this or my hair's like that? How am I going to compete? How am I going to get a husband? How will I get someone to love me? How will I keep my husband loving me? How will I keep him from wandering off in his heart? These are the fears that women have. And they say, well, the way I dress myself is the answer to it. And I say, no, it's not the answer to it. Instead of adorning yourself with outward beauty,

or outward attention-seeking. Paul tells you to adorn yourself with good works. Scripture tells us that beauty is fading, but a prudent wife is a gift from the Lord. And one of the things that I tell men time and again is I say, listen, your desire to find women attractive, that's not wrong. But if that's all you, if that's your only thing you're looking for as you find a wife, you are very likely to make a very poor decision. Because beauty is fleeting. And in our day and age, what I tend to find is that the more beautiful someone is, the greater the temptation is for her to actually be godly. She struggles. Because she's just used to getting lots of attention. But not from good works. And the women who give themselves to good works get less attention. Because they're not playing the game. And if a man marries a woman simply because of how she looks, and he doesn't give attention to good works, what's he going to do when her beauty fades?

Who's he going to be married to? What's he going to be left with? Not something good. As I was thinking of preparing this, I realized how difficult this is to have to be a man. If there was ever something I'd want a woman to talk to another woman about, this is near the top of the list. Because it's uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable for me. I know. I'm looking at your faces. You're all uncomfortable. I don't know if my face looks uncomfortable. I don't know if I'm hiding it. But I'm uncomfortable. Okay? But Paul wasn't uncomfortable when he told Timothy this. And I trust that Timothy wasn't uncomfortable when he told the women in Ephesus this. So is it appropriate that a man in due course would talk to women about how they dress? Yes, it is. And so it follows then that this sermon is not just for women. It's addressed to women, but it has everything to do with the men in this room. Because you have a responsibility to help your wives honor Christ with regard to their adornment.

It means you have to talk to your wife about how she dresses and how she carries herself, or you have to talk to your daughters. You wives and daughters have to listen to your men, and you men have to speak, and you have to tell them. Every married man here has had his wife wear something that caught his eye. Now, is it appropriate for it to catch his eye? Yeah, sure. There's nothing hidden between the two of them. That's appropriate. What should that husband say at that point? That's beautiful. You're not allowed to wear that out in public. This is a good rule of thumb for you men. If your wife wears something that you go, huh, you ought to think twice about whether you let her out in public wearing that. Because you're not the only person whose eye is going to get caught. And she'll love you for it, but not in the moment. It's an acquired taste that women would listen to men about their adornment to their husbands. Because I don't know anything about style. If you think anything I wear is nice, it's because my wife picks it out.

You think, oh, that's a nice shirt, huh? That's right. And yet, you men have to love your wives and take care of them in this way. You have to talk to them. And she says, well, I just want to feel pretty, or it looks nice, or somebody else has a pretty thing just like it. And I say, good, I hope she wears it at home. Put a sweater over it. Wear some stockings. I don't know. Out in public. I'm serious. You don't understand the danger that exists. Women do not understand the sexual nature of men. You hear these quotes, how often does a man think about sex during a day versus a woman? And it's just mind-boggling. And the men are like, well, yeah. And the women are like, oh. And I say, okay, it's true. And it has to do with how God's made us. And so sisters have to help their brothers. Women have to help men. Christian women making a claim to godliness.

have to bear this responsibility and their men have to help them bear it as a protection to them and as a covering to them. There are times to wear things and there are times where you can enjoy freedom with no shame attached to your attire, but that is in the privacy of your marriage. This even applies to your children. It even applies to children, your children. You say, oh, I can't wear it out in public. And I say, yeah, you probably can't wear it in front of the kids either. It's got a bunch of boys. We're teaching them. To acquire their appetites and things that they look at. It matters. It's hard work. It's necessary work. This is modesty. A sense of shame. Proper clothing. What about discretion? Discreetly. What is discretion? Well, it's decorum or propriety or sobriety. You know there are times when you can dress nicely? If you were going to go to a wedding and...

One way or another, it's communicated to you that you're supposed to dress nicely. They don't want you showing up in cargo shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. They want you to wear something nice. And usually that is indicated by the style of the invitation. If it's a really nice formal invitation, that's meant to communicate to you that you're supposed to dress just like that thing looks. And if it shows up and it looks like a kid, you know, they used a font that looks like a kid drew it with crayons, then that tells you you can wear your Hawaiian shirt. This is all stuff that's lost, but I'm telling you that's what it means.

And so if it says, dress nicely, are women in the clear then? They can just dress in any way they want. No, they have to dress discreetly because they can go, okay, we're all going to dress nicely, but I'm going to dress the nicest of all. A little bigger earrings, a little bigger necklace, a little fancier thing. I'm going to have glitter. I don't understand glitter. I don't know what the purpose of it is other than to draw attention to yourself. You want to sparkle like a diamond. You're to dress discreetly. There's a certain propriety about it. You can dress nicely. You can dress beautifully. You can dress very attractively and still be dressing discreetly, not drawing more attention to yourself than is appropriate. Another way to think about it is wardrobe malfunctions. You hear about these in Hollywood and different things. There are wardrobe malfunctions. Wardrobe malfunctions are often happening to wardrobes that are far beyond the pale of what Christian women ought to be wearing anyway, but there is some line drawn somewhere, and a wardrobe malfunction is we're tracking right on that line, and there's a problem, and we fall over into something that's actually not discreet, even by the world's standards. And the whole goal of when women get dressed in our society, whether they're models or whether they're celebrities or what have you, what is the purpose except to draw as much attention on the red carpet as

possible. That's it. This is not discretion. This is not dressing discreetly. And so a woman ought to dress in a way that matches the occasion, but she ought to dress even at that occasion in such a way as to not draw more attention to herself than is appropriate. And you say, well, that's not very concrete. And I say, I know. You have to work it out. Listen to your husband. Don't overdo it. Now, I've talked a lot about clothing. I haven't talked much about how you carry yourself, but these things are Intimately connected. The way a woman dresses and the way a woman acts are hand in glove. Another thing I haven't talked about much is makeup. Now here's an interesting thing. You ready? You remember the word for adornment and the word for proper clothing? Cosmos? Cosmetics. That's the closest word we have in America, in English, to get at this. What is the purpose of cosmetics, of makeup?

Is it to draw an undue amount of attention to your eyes or to your jawline or your cheekbones or whatever? No, it's not. I learned something a long time ago from Vanessa and she said, good makeup. Good makeup is not a lot of makeup or a little makeup. Good makeup is the type of makeup that doesn't look like you're wearing a lot. It's not meant to go, I've got pink and green and these like, incredibly loud colors coming at you. It's meant to even out complexion because not everyone's complexion is fair. Sometimes you have a scar. Sometimes you have some sort of spot. I don't know. I don't know what they're called. Men don't worry about these things for themselves. But cosmetics are meant to even those things out, to make those things beautiful. Some of you might say, well, I don't think anyone should wear cosmetics. And I say, okay, fine. That's fine for you, but you don't have a biblical case to make against it.

Okay? But you can say they shouldn't wear makeup in such a way as to draw attention because they've done these things to their eyes and their lips that draw inappropriate attention. Cosmetics are meant to flesh out the beauty that's already there. And so it ought to be an addition to it, not a distraction from it. When our leaves change color outside that God's created, it's not inappropriate. It's beautiful. But it just completes the story or the cycle of a tree. And we appreciate it. But we don't get in car accidents very often looking at leaves that are changing color because it's not distracting in that way. So how about women to adorn themselves? Well, simply put, by contenting themselves with the beauty that God's placed in them as a woman and giving themselves to good works. You say, well, that's not going to get me the attention of the world. And I say, you're right.

you shouldn't want it. They don't want your good. They want to consume you. The lie of feminism that says that women can dress however they want wasn't made up by a woman. No woman decided that women shouldn't dress modestly. That was a man's decision. And he tricked you into wearing things that he can now consume and to carrying yourself in such a way that he can get what he wants. They don't have your best interest in mind. They certainly don't have your... your soul and mind. But Paul here says that the women ought to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair, gold or pearls or costly garments, all in an effort to draw attention to themselves, to distinguish themselves from other women, but rather by means of good works as is proper for women making a claim to godliness. So you have to work it out. And I thought as I'm preaching this, I'm going to have women in the congregation thinking, am I dressed?

appropriately? That's a good question. I'm not ultimately going to be the judge of every single one of you. I can't. I'm not. But you should ask the question, and you shouldn't just ask it now. You should ask it when you get dressed. Am I dressed inappropriately? Are there things that I ought not to wear? Does my wardrobe need to change? Do you need to tell your husband, honey, I need to go shopping? Not because I'm discouraged or lonely, or because I feel fat and ugly, but because I'm I need to dress like that. I need some help. And you remember last week at the end of the sermon, we talked about prayer and how Paul was emphatic that this was the men's instruction. And I asked at the end, I said, does this prevent women from lifting holy hands in prayer? Does it say, well, they just aren't supposed to do that? And I said, no. So now I'm going to do the same thing. Does this have any bearing on men and the way they dress? Are men ever susceptible to wanting to draw?

Yes. And increasingly so in our society. The way they do their hair, the types of shoes they wear, the layers of their clothes, the types of cool glasses they have or don't have. Men are not above these temptations. And it's just as immodest for men to dress in a way that doesn't give glory to God as it is for women. I had a friend who was trying to get at this. and what he said about men, and I don't know that I agree with him entirely, but generally I think it's good. He says men ought to be able to be dressed and out the door in less than five minutes. That's not true of women, but it should be true of men. You should be able to get up, brush your teeth, comb your hair well enough, and get dressed and be out the door. Dressed in clothing appropriate for the task at hand. It shouldn't be clothing that's going to draw attention to you, positively or negatively.

It ought to be appropriate. Some of us went, Daniel Meyer, we went over to his house and worked on his roof yesterday, shingling, tearing all the shingles off, working to put them back on. If you've done that kind of work, you know it's dirty work and it's hard work. I took a couple of my boys with me. And I knew what was going to happen to our clothes. And I didn't wear my nice jeans or my nice shoes to Daniel's house because I knew this is going to be the end of these clothes. And so I wore work clothes. And so did everyone else that was there. I told Daniel, tell them to wear clothes that are near their omega, their end. Tell them to wear boots. Men ought to dress appropriately for the work at hand. And so this instruction is for both of us, for men, for women. Dress practically, dress appropriately. Women dress beautifully. Men dress for the work at hand.

Because that's what's appropriate for those who make a claim to godliness. The way you dress matters. Men ought not to wear women's clothing. It has to be said. Men ought not to wear women's clothing. What's that? And women should, yes, that's where I was coming to. Thank you. And women ought not to wear men's clothing. And you say, what's men's clothing? What's women's clothing? And I say, ask Dan George. He'll tell you. He's got the energy to do it. But there is a difference. And women ought to be concerned about their adornment. That it be modest, but also that it be beautiful. And there's no tension between attractiveness and modesty. And I can tell you from a man's perspective, you know when women might tend to feel the most unattractive? It's when they're pregnant. That's one of the times they feel the most unattractive. And you know what's true, women?

It's that there's a glow about you when you're pregnant that's beautiful. And your complexion's all messed up. And your clothes don't fit. And you don't feel good. And everyone knows that you're throwing up. And you're beautiful. When you feel the most ugly. And I'm telling you, there is something in the way God created the world that that is beautiful. To men. And there's not any shred of lust or inappropriateness in that attractiveness. And so if I'm telling you men can find women who are pregnant attractive, and it can be first trimester pregnant when they're sick, and it can be third trimester pregnant when they're super uncomfortable. If men can find you beautiful and say, that woman is glowing with life and attractive, then remember it when you get dressed tomorrow morning.

You don't want to give away what doesn't belong to other men. Another way of saying it is men actually are attracted to feminine, godly beauty. That's what the attractiveness of pregnancy is. It's just beautiful. And they say yes. There's something inside of men because of how they've been made to say that is beautiful. And it's not immodest. And it is proper. So don't believe the lies that you have to run in the competition of this world. dressing the way they do, carrying yourself the way they do with your hair and your makeup and your clothes and the way you stand and the way you talk and all that stuff. Don't play the game. The game doesn't have your best interests at heart. God does. So trust him and confess your faith by what you wear and how you carry yourself. Let's pray.