WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.400 We're going to look this evening at the theme of beauty from Proverbs, but before we do 00:00:06.400 --> 00:00:15.200 so, now I'm a little bit more composed. Can I thank you for your surprise this morning 00:00:15.200 --> 00:00:24.359 and your kind words and your thoughts and your prayers. It's an honour to do what I'm 00:00:24.359 --> 00:00:32.000 been asked to do, though I make light of it. It is nonetheless a significant thing to do 00:00:32.000 --> 00:00:39.359 and I do covet your prayers and I value your support and I take comfort from knowing that 00:00:39.359 --> 00:00:47.840 I have the best congregation in the free church. Sorry about Dundee, but that's true. So I 00:00:47.840 --> 00:00:54.920 know that I will have your prayer support and I crave that. It's an interesting assembly 00:00:54.920 --> 00:00:59.680 that's coming up. There's a lot of exciting and good things happening, but there's a 00:00:59.680 --> 00:01:04.800 lot of difficult things happening as well. So we will need a great deal of wisdom as 00:01:04.800 --> 00:01:10.280 a church to move forward and pray that you'll continue to pray for the church and for me 00:01:10.280 --> 00:01:15.719 as moderator this year and the times that I'm away. I know you'll be supportive of that 00:01:15.719 --> 00:01:24.239 and we've got great support here while I'm away. So Katrina and I are very grateful for 00:01:24.239 --> 00:01:33.640 your kindness and generosity and support. So beauty, that is the theme and it's not a 00:01:33.640 --> 00:01:42.840 simple theme to extract from Proverbs. It is and it isn't. It works its way right through 00:01:42.840 --> 00:01:48.920 Proverbs but it's not a clear cut text that we can take. But we're going to look at that 00:01:48.920 --> 00:01:55.600 theme this evening. But I think we always need to start by recognizing and knowing that 00:01:55.600 --> 00:02:03.159 in God's perfect and glorious creation which we know He made at the beginning, beauty has 00:02:03.159 --> 00:02:08.640 been compromised. So whenever we speak about beauty we need to recognize that it's been 00:02:08.639 --> 00:02:14.959 compromised because of the fall and because of sin in the world and the outstanding creativity 00:02:14.959 --> 00:02:23.719 and good imagination of God and His gift to humanity of a stunning creation and shared 00:02:23.719 --> 00:02:32.639 creative capability that we have as people has been hijacked by humanity in our sinful 00:02:32.639 --> 00:02:42.119 selfishness and has been often prostituted so that we can't fully understand beauty as 00:02:42.119 --> 00:02:50.799 it was originally intended for us. Yet we know and we appreciate beauty in this world 00:02:50.799 --> 00:02:57.279 that points us to the beautiful one, that points us to our God, our Creator God and 00:02:57.280 --> 00:03:04.240 we have redemption which gives us amazing hope for a greater and more glorious expression 00:03:04.240 --> 00:03:12.120 and enjoyment of beauty in relationship with Him and in the world that He's given us. 00:03:12.120 --> 00:03:17.560 But we know that sin simply means that we've turned our backs on God and we turn our backs 00:03:17.560 --> 00:03:22.719 on God that means we've turned our backs on beauty as well in all its perfection. We've 00:03:22.719 --> 00:03:31.400 opened the door to beauty being distorted and deceived and misrepresented and destructive 00:03:31.400 --> 00:03:42.719 or destroyed in many different ways in this world and ugliness has become an unwelcome 00:03:42.719 --> 00:03:47.960 tenant in the world in which we live. So alongside beauty we recognize and see that 00:03:47.960 --> 00:03:52.800 sin has brought in ugliness into the world and that's the corollary, that's the opposite 00:03:52.800 --> 00:03:59.800 of the beauty of God's world. But I do think sometimes as Christians and maybe particularly 00:03:59.800 --> 00:04:07.960 Christians from our tradition that we are suspicious of sanctified imagination and beauty. 00:04:07.960 --> 00:04:15.319 We regard it as a kind of risque subject to move into Christians in pursuit of beauty 00:04:15.319 --> 00:04:22.519 in the arts or in music or in sport and in creation generally or maybe regarded with 00:04:22.519 --> 00:04:33.879 a bit of suspicion as if secondary only to a bare kind of soul salvation. And yet that 00:04:33.879 --> 00:04:42.839 in itself is very one dimensional and we struggle I think with the sheer extravagance and beauty 00:04:42.839 --> 00:04:50.119 and variety of the gifts and personalities God has given us. One of sin's failings I 00:04:50.119 --> 00:04:57.359 think is that we have a desire for everyone to be like us, to look like us and to think 00:04:57.359 --> 00:05:01.319 like us and that our version of beauty is the only version of beauty there is and it 00:05:01.319 --> 00:05:09.479 can be very confined and narrow and that becomes the lie of Satan in many ways as we make everything 00:05:09.480 --> 00:05:19.280 uniform and bland and simple without recognising the astonishing creativity and glory of our 00:05:19.280 --> 00:05:20.280 God. 00:05:20.280 --> 00:05:26.040 So in this chapter we've gone back to chapter 8 and I think we've decided individually and 00:05:26.040 --> 00:05:30.960 together, Cori and myself and Tom we preach chapter 8 and 9 but particularly 8 is a kind 00:05:30.960 --> 00:05:37.560 of pivotal chapter of Proverbs, it's a core chapter for everything blossoms really from 00:05:37.560 --> 00:05:44.399 it in many ways and it speaks of wisdom and we've read this several times as we've introduced 00:05:44.399 --> 00:05:49.639 the subject of wisdom and folly and the fear of the Lord and it's an important chapter 00:05:49.639 --> 00:05:56.560 and in verse 30 of this chapter we have this picture of wisdom at the beginning, we saw 00:05:56.560 --> 00:06:01.959 that before personified in the beginning of the world and he said then I was beside him 00:06:01.959 --> 00:06:11.560 like a master workman, we've got this picture of wisdom being God's craftsman in creation. 00:06:11.560 --> 00:06:18.799 So you've got this picture of wisdom personified as the creator of beauty, the creator of all 00:06:18.799 --> 00:06:25.879 of God's glorious creation that's listed and spoken of in the chapter that we read. 00:06:25.879 --> 00:06:31.359 And when Cori preached on this chapter he brought that link between wisdom and wisdom's 00:06:31.360 --> 00:06:36.480 work and wisdom being personified here as the creator of beauty and moving it forward 00:06:36.480 --> 00:06:43.480 ultimately to linking the wisdom of God with the word of God and the word of God being 00:06:43.480 --> 00:06:49.840 most enfleshed in the person of Jesus Christ. 00:06:49.840 --> 00:06:56.560 So we see Jesus in many ways and recognize Christ as the second person of the Trinity 00:06:56.560 --> 00:07:06.199 as the agent in creation, the great wise one who brought this world of marvelous beauty 00:07:06.199 --> 00:07:07.199 into being. 00:07:07.199 --> 00:07:14.160 In verse 30 we're told there that I was daily his delight rejoicing before him, I was rejoicing 00:07:14.160 --> 00:07:18.360 in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of men. 00:07:18.360 --> 00:07:23.600 So both the world that was created and humanity that was created within this world was a great 00:07:23.600 --> 00:07:30.080 delight and a great joy and a great pleasure for God to look on. 00:07:30.080 --> 00:07:39.200 So he saw this world and he saw us remarkably, it's beautiful, made in his own image, made 00:07:39.200 --> 00:07:48.000 us that way, made us with great beauty and great intricacy and great variety and reflecting 00:07:48.000 --> 00:07:49.920 his character. 00:07:49.920 --> 00:07:57.160 So this great Trinitarian God that we worship through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, 00:07:57.160 --> 00:08:04.040 is the source of all the delegated beauty and creativity that we see in the world in which 00:08:04.040 --> 00:08:05.640 we live. 00:08:05.640 --> 00:08:13.840 The art, the music, the craftsmanship, the architecture, the engineering, the fashion 00:08:13.840 --> 00:08:19.319 designers, sports people as they work out their creative gifts. 00:08:19.319 --> 00:08:25.920 Because God is glorified through these things, it can be for us a source of great rejoicing 00:08:25.920 --> 00:08:28.920 and of great thankfulness. 00:08:28.920 --> 00:08:35.519 Cleesie asked his three, verse 11, says he made everything beautiful in its time. 00:08:35.519 --> 00:08:41.120 So we have that recognition and we have that knowledge that all good things, all things 00:08:41.120 --> 00:08:46.960 of great beauty come from and find our source in God. 00:08:46.960 --> 00:08:52.280 And Proverbs itself is a great illustration of that, as is the song of Solomon or as is 00:08:52.280 --> 00:08:56.720 the Cleesie astes or as Job is as well. 00:08:56.720 --> 00:09:04.639 These authors pull in God's creation to explain the character of God and to explain the glory 00:09:04.639 --> 00:09:05.639 of God. 00:09:05.639 --> 00:09:12.280 Proverbs itself uses many things in creation to express different wisdom, truths especially 00:09:12.279 --> 00:09:18.000 animals, he talks about horses and bears and dogs and lions and lizards and lambs and 00:09:18.000 --> 00:09:24.039 deers and coney eagles and ants, swallows and eagles. 00:09:24.039 --> 00:09:32.559 All are used by the author of Proverbs, Solomon the King and others to express and explain 00:09:32.559 --> 00:09:37.079 truths of God's world and God's wisdom. 00:09:37.079 --> 00:09:42.159 And who can forget the, and I've often spoken of it here in church of the great picture 00:09:42.159 --> 00:09:50.439 from Job and as we went through Job and God, how do we think God would explain himself? 00:09:50.439 --> 00:09:57.439 Great deep theological terms where he spoke in marvelous explanations of his deep ontological 00:09:57.439 --> 00:10:02.519 being, but yet he speaks about himself through his creation. 00:10:02.519 --> 00:10:06.399 Where were you when the world was, where were you? 00:10:06.399 --> 00:10:11.559 I was the one who made the storehouses as no one, then he speaks about the ostrich, stupid 00:10:11.559 --> 00:10:12.559 animal. 00:10:12.559 --> 00:10:20.079 Ostrich, not given much wisdom, but when he spreads his wings he laughs at a horse and 00:10:20.079 --> 00:10:26.599 rider, that most magnificent picture of God who knows and sees and understands his creation 00:10:26.599 --> 00:10:29.479 and recognizes it in all its beauty. 00:10:29.479 --> 00:10:35.679 But of course it would be unwise for us to stop there because we recognize that there 00:10:35.679 --> 00:10:41.159 is also within Proverbs and then with God's word this great recognition of folly and the 00:10:41.159 --> 00:10:47.759 deceptiveness of what folly has done and taken from God and from his word and from 00:10:47.759 --> 00:10:53.039 his original creation and destroyed it. 00:10:53.039 --> 00:11:02.079 Proverbs 31 where Corrie read from the wife of noble character, great chapter, great passage, 00:11:02.079 --> 00:11:08.879 but it ends with that section which says charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting. 00:11:08.879 --> 00:11:18.679 And so there's a recognition there of a misunderstanding of beauty and a recognition that beauty in 00:11:18.679 --> 00:11:30.120 and of itself as sometimes we accept it in its distortion because of sin is not the answer 00:11:30.120 --> 00:11:31.759 for us in our lives. 00:11:31.759 --> 00:11:35.120 In our rebellion we've stolen beauty. 00:11:35.120 --> 00:11:42.080 We've stolen God's beauty and we've ripped it and taken it from its roots so that at 00:11:42.080 --> 00:11:46.759 best it's a fading flower. 00:11:46.759 --> 00:11:52.080 It does have life but it won't last because it's been torn from its maker, it's been 00:11:52.080 --> 00:11:55.720 torn from its source, it's been torn from its God. 00:11:55.720 --> 00:12:00.680 So there is beauty there but it is fading and it is passing and sin has done that to 00:12:00.679 --> 00:12:07.559 beauty and we need to recognize that and try and redeem that as we understand it. 00:12:07.559 --> 00:12:16.319 See as sin closes the door in God and therefore as the door is closed then God is neither 00:12:16.319 --> 00:12:23.120 acknowledged as the giver or the author of beauty and he's not thanked or worshiped. 00:12:23.120 --> 00:12:28.039 And immediately it's taken out of its context, immediately it's ripped from its roots and 00:12:28.039 --> 00:12:33.039 beauty becomes something that it was never intended to be. 00:12:33.039 --> 00:12:40.559 Beauty itself becomes the thing that is worshiped rather than God so that in Romans 1, 25 which 00:12:40.559 --> 00:12:46.439 I think is up on the screen, or it will be, we've got that because they exchanged the 00:12:46.439 --> 00:12:51.360 truth of God, about God for a lion, worshipped and served the creature that rather than the 00:12:51.360 --> 00:12:53.159 Creator who is blessed forever. 00:12:53.159 --> 00:12:59.279 I mean, and that's what's turned around in this world, is that rather than worshipping 00:12:59.279 --> 00:13:05.240 the Creator of beauty, we worship beauty itself and we make that an end in itself. 00:13:05.240 --> 00:13:13.159 It loses therefore its divine depth and it is in danger of being only skin deep. 00:13:13.159 --> 00:13:15.639 A well-known phrase to us isn't it? 00:13:15.639 --> 00:13:18.279 Beauty that's skin deep, it's shallow. 00:13:18.279 --> 00:13:26.720 That end in itself when what can be seen, what is visible, what is attractive to us is all 00:13:26.720 --> 00:13:28.159 that matters. 00:13:28.159 --> 00:13:29.439 And we live in that world, do we? 00:13:29.439 --> 00:13:33.799 We live in that world today, more than ever, where image is everything, where what we see 00:13:33.799 --> 00:13:44.720 is everything, where wisdom and God's definition of beauty is rejected because it's too demanding 00:13:44.720 --> 00:13:52.279 because it exposes the ugliness and selfish and sinful appetites of our own hearts. 00:13:52.279 --> 00:13:58.759 But beauty is shallow when it's ripped from its roots in God so that we live in a society 00:13:58.759 --> 00:14:08.320 where sex sells, sex sells, beauty sells, looks count for so much. 00:14:08.320 --> 00:14:15.000 They are so significant in terms of human beauty moving away from the world itself to 00:14:15.000 --> 00:14:16.320 us. 00:14:16.320 --> 00:14:23.400 And it becomes something, beauty becomes something to be owned, to be controlled, to be what 00:14:23.400 --> 00:14:25.840 satisfies our appetites. 00:14:25.840 --> 00:14:30.760 And it becomes something that is all-obsessing in our lives. 00:14:30.760 --> 00:14:35.240 Physical beauty is worshiped and is sought after more than anything. 00:14:35.240 --> 00:14:41.519 And embarrassingly manufactured as we get older to maintain youthfulness and to maintain 00:14:41.519 --> 00:14:47.680 some facade of youthful beauty because that's all there is, the fear of losing youth. 00:14:47.680 --> 00:14:55.560 And that surface beauty that is so important in our society exposes the vanity of much 00:14:55.560 --> 00:14:57.960 of our lives and much of our thinking. 00:14:57.960 --> 00:15:01.519 And we get sucked into that as Christians. 00:15:01.519 --> 00:15:07.439 And easily get sucked into thinking that beauty is only skin deep. 00:15:07.439 --> 00:15:15.120 So that beauty has been overtaken so often by ugliness which is exposed in this broken 00:15:15.120 --> 00:15:16.840 world in which we live. 00:15:16.840 --> 00:15:22.120 And so we see beauty being scarred and destroyed, don't we? 00:15:22.120 --> 00:15:24.279 We see it in the planet. 00:15:24.279 --> 00:15:25.919 We see it in animal cruelty. 00:15:25.919 --> 00:15:28.759 We see it in war and destruction. 00:15:28.759 --> 00:15:34.799 Of all we see it in the way we hate, in the way we gossip, in the way we destroy one another 00:15:34.799 --> 00:15:39.679 and mock one another and violate one another and cheapen one another. 00:15:39.679 --> 00:15:45.919 And ultimately we see it in the ugliness of death which is the opposite of all the beauty 00:15:45.919 --> 00:15:54.120 and life and creativity and energy that God initially and originally created for us. 00:15:54.120 --> 00:16:02.399 It tears apart and it breaks and is desperate in its ugliness. 00:16:02.399 --> 00:16:09.399 So we take the beauty that is spoken of in Proverbs chapter 8 as personified in wisdom 00:16:09.399 --> 00:16:12.879 and in wisdom delighting in God's creation. 00:16:12.879 --> 00:16:20.879 And we recognize that that hope of a renewed recognition of beauty can only be fulfilled 00:16:20.879 --> 00:16:24.399 in Christ and in Christ's redemption. 00:16:24.399 --> 00:16:27.919 In Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 7, in Him we have redemption through His blood, the 00:16:27.919 --> 00:16:33.080 forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace. 00:16:33.080 --> 00:16:40.320 So we have this picture of Jesus Christ in all His richness, in all His graceful, glorious 00:16:40.320 --> 00:16:45.320 provision for us in redemption, and His beauty is evident. 00:16:45.320 --> 00:16:53.720 It is an amazing, rich, glorious, beautiful redemption that He has purchased for us. 00:16:53.720 --> 00:16:57.879 We see it in His character and we see it in His work. 00:16:57.879 --> 00:17:07.759 Now, Jesus Christ by God's standard is the most beautiful person who ever lived, okay, 00:17:07.759 --> 00:17:11.840 in His whole character, most beautiful person who ever lived. 00:17:11.839 --> 00:17:19.039 Only though, that didn't make Him look like a God, I don't think. 00:17:19.039 --> 00:17:25.559 It didn't make Him kind of glow, apart from in the Transfiguration, and that was different. 00:17:25.559 --> 00:17:29.439 He simply, He looked like us. 00:17:29.439 --> 00:17:34.079 I don't think as He grew up, people looked Him and said, my, He's the most beautiful 00:17:34.079 --> 00:17:38.559 specimen who ever lived and He must be a God. 00:17:38.559 --> 00:17:46.000 He just grew up and His beauty was not what we judge beauty as being. 00:17:46.000 --> 00:17:49.919 I don't think He stood out physically on the surface in any way. 00:17:49.919 --> 00:17:54.359 In fact, Isaiah speaks of Him as being one who was despised and rejected. 00:17:54.359 --> 00:17:58.960 He had no beauty that we should desire Him. 00:17:58.960 --> 00:18:07.440 There wasn't the kind of outward marks of beauty that humanity gauged people by. 00:18:07.440 --> 00:18:16.680 His beauty, and He had beauty, but it was despised and was rejected. 00:18:16.680 --> 00:18:24.519 People referred to John 3.19 says that this is the judgment, that light is coming to the 00:18:24.519 --> 00:18:30.039 world, beautiful light, but that people loved the darkness rather than the light for their 00:18:30.039 --> 00:18:31.680 deeds were evil. 00:18:31.680 --> 00:18:40.000 So interestingly, in our sinfulness, true beauty to us is something we recoil from. 00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:45.720 It's something that we find a great challenge to us, and that's a challenge to you and 00:18:45.720 --> 00:18:54.000 me in our Christian lives when we tend to dovetail in our thinking with the world and 00:18:54.000 --> 00:18:59.320 think that the world's concept and our natural concept of beauty is all that matters. 00:18:59.319 --> 00:19:10.000 And yet Christ was rejected because people found His light too bright, too exposing. 00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:16.839 The standard of beauty too great, and they preferred the darkness of their own one-dimensional, 00:19:16.839 --> 00:19:23.639 narrow-minded, sinful, flat version of life and beauty. 00:19:23.640 --> 00:19:29.560 So He was the most beautiful of all human beings, yet He was despised and rejected. 00:19:29.560 --> 00:19:37.759 And though He was so beautiful, we find that He is crucified in the ugliest place of all. 00:19:37.759 --> 00:19:43.880 Calvary, now it's a bit paradoxical, Calvary is both the greatest, the most ugly place 00:19:43.880 --> 00:19:46.880 of all, but also a place for Christians of great beauty. 00:19:46.880 --> 00:19:52.920 It's darkest, the blue-kissed place of all, where the light went out on the beauty of 00:19:52.920 --> 00:19:54.800 God, the sun. 00:19:54.800 --> 00:20:01.080 But even the Father wouldn't look on the sun, and the sun wouldn't shine on the moment 00:20:01.080 --> 00:20:06.680 because there was so much ugliness there as He became sin for us. 00:20:06.680 --> 00:20:12.759 Forsaken, cast out, experiencing hell, and all that is ugly and all that is dark and 00:20:12.759 --> 00:20:22.000 all that is awful, yet paradoxically a place of great beauty for us. 00:20:22.000 --> 00:20:28.920 Because that great transaction happened where love and justice meet, and where rescue and 00:20:28.920 --> 00:20:32.119 redemption is won. 00:20:32.119 --> 00:20:39.400 And it's where we can recapture and understand true beauty through the Holy Spirit and live 00:20:39.400 --> 00:20:41.319 true beauty. 00:20:41.319 --> 00:20:48.720 And that brings me to, we looked at very loosely going through Proverbs in many ways here, 00:20:48.720 --> 00:20:54.160 but seeing it as part of the ongoing redemptive revelation of God. 00:20:54.160 --> 00:20:59.160 We've seen the beauty of the Lord as it's revealed in Christ who's the Word, the great 00:20:59.160 --> 00:21:03.519 personification of God's wisdom and God's redemption for us. 00:21:03.519 --> 00:21:10.559 But we also remember that in salvation the people of God are the bride of Christ. 00:21:10.559 --> 00:21:21.799 In 21 verse 2, it says, hopefully, no, okay, I'll look it up. 00:21:21.799 --> 00:21:24.000 I only gave these texts very late on. 00:21:24.000 --> 00:21:27.559 I thought I'd given them and I hadn't. 00:21:27.559 --> 00:21:32.839 And I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God prepared 00:21:32.839 --> 00:21:36.799 as a bride adorned for her husband. 00:21:36.799 --> 00:21:48.159 And it's that great picture of the beauty of the church redeemed as a bride prepared 00:21:48.159 --> 00:21:52.440 for her husband, the Savior, the Redeemer, God. 00:21:52.440 --> 00:21:57.000 Now, I may be wrong exegetically here. 00:21:57.000 --> 00:22:01.240 I'm the moderator this year. 00:22:01.240 --> 00:22:02.240 No. 00:22:02.240 --> 00:22:09.920 So, no, so I'm taking that bride of Christ, okay, that's spoken of in Revelation 21, and 00:22:09.920 --> 00:22:15.559 I'm applying it to the noble wife of Proverbs 31. 00:22:15.559 --> 00:22:21.680 Because the noble wife we have, if you remember for whom Proverbs was written, we believe 00:22:21.680 --> 00:22:26.880 it was written for young men, young men of the royal house. 00:22:26.880 --> 00:22:34.840 And there is wisdom that is given to them for life and what greater wisdom than looking 00:22:34.840 --> 00:22:40.840 for a wife of noble character for the young prince. 00:22:40.840 --> 00:22:51.440 And in many ways, what we have here is an idealized personification of the wise wife, the beautiful 00:22:51.440 --> 00:22:53.480 wife. 00:22:53.480 --> 00:22:54.480 It can be applied to marriage. 00:22:54.480 --> 00:22:55.800 It can be applied to wife. 00:22:55.799 --> 00:22:59.240 I believe it could be applied to husband. 00:22:59.240 --> 00:23:01.720 It can be applied to individuals. 00:23:01.720 --> 00:23:08.680 But I believe perfectly it's applied to the redeemed church, the bride of Christ. 00:23:08.680 --> 00:23:13.399 So it applies to every believer, the ultimate bride, the bride of Christ. 00:23:13.399 --> 00:23:22.279 And we find in here the personification of absolute beauty, of beauty redeemed, beauty 00:23:22.279 --> 00:23:23.279 in Christ. 00:23:23.279 --> 00:23:32.960 And we are to strive with the Holy Spirit, with our new hearts and our new beings to 00:23:32.960 --> 00:23:36.799 live beautifully. 00:23:36.799 --> 00:23:42.720 And to strive after the beauty that is revealed in this passage. 00:23:42.720 --> 00:23:48.839 Strive because we have the energy and we have the life of God enabling us and His forgiveness. 00:23:48.839 --> 00:23:51.119 It is priceless beauty. 00:23:51.119 --> 00:23:54.559 It is much, much deeper than skin. 00:23:54.559 --> 00:23:57.439 It is the retaking. 00:23:57.439 --> 00:24:02.639 It's the recapturing of our whole being for God. 00:24:02.639 --> 00:24:07.799 For all that we are, it's a picture, if you go through that passage, it's a picture of 00:24:07.799 --> 00:24:15.879 someone who trusts in the Lord, who is loving, who is wise, who is merciful, who is energetic. 00:24:15.879 --> 00:24:17.519 This is where all the beauty comes in. 00:24:17.519 --> 00:24:22.799 Who is creative, who is imaginative, who is entrepreneurial, who is strong, who is hard 00:24:22.799 --> 00:24:28.000 working, who is generous, who is protective, who is an educator. 00:24:28.000 --> 00:24:34.639 And it's a picture of something far greater than just outward beauty that we often make 00:24:34.639 --> 00:24:36.519 judgments on, isn't it? 00:24:36.519 --> 00:24:41.759 Don't we often judge people just by what they look like? 00:24:41.759 --> 00:24:47.720 And here is this character of great beauty and it comes from within 1 Samuel 16,7. 00:24:47.720 --> 00:24:48.720 Did they get that one? 00:24:48.720 --> 00:24:49.720 I did great. 00:24:49.720 --> 00:24:54.240 The Lord, the old text, the Lord said, Do not look on His appearance or on the height 00:24:54.240 --> 00:24:57.879 of His stature because I've rejected Him. 00:24:57.879 --> 00:25:02.799 For the Lord sees not as man sees, man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks 00:25:02.799 --> 00:25:03.799 on the heart. 00:25:03.799 --> 00:25:08.799 And that's the great difference, isn't it, between us and our sinful natures and what 00:25:08.799 --> 00:25:15.079 we ought to be as believers, we ought to see beyond the surface, we ought to see beyond 00:25:15.079 --> 00:25:22.559 the gossip, beyond what is an instinctive judgment on someone's character, and also 00:25:22.559 --> 00:25:26.480 we should not seek to portray ourselves in that shallow light to others. 00:25:26.480 --> 00:25:28.519 It's only what they see. 00:25:28.519 --> 00:25:29.919 It's only how we portray ourselves. 00:25:29.919 --> 00:25:32.279 It's only what we look like on paper. 00:25:32.279 --> 00:25:38.759 He says, No, as Christians, there is something far greater, something far deeper, and this 00:25:38.759 --> 00:25:53.160 wife of noble character as a reflection of the bride of Christ is an exegesis, an explanation 00:25:53.160 --> 00:25:55.480 of grace at work in our lives. 00:25:55.480 --> 00:26:02.319 I wonder if this is a glimpse of what we will be like in heaven and what heaven will be 00:26:02.319 --> 00:26:03.319 like. 00:26:03.319 --> 00:26:16.200 I think it is education, entrepreneurship, imagination, creativity, energy, retaking 00:26:16.200 --> 00:26:22.279 of the whole person, love, wisdom, and mercy. 00:26:22.279 --> 00:26:28.319 So much of what we call beauty today is deceptive and fleeting. 00:26:28.319 --> 00:26:36.639 You are asked, and I am asked to repent from all that is ugly, all that is ugly inside, 00:26:36.639 --> 00:26:45.839 all this stuff of selfishness, bitterness, and pride, and ignorance, and the things that 00:26:45.839 --> 00:26:51.839 sometimes we enjoy and we embrace and we incubate. 00:26:51.839 --> 00:27:01.480 We foster and we nourish and we rub its back and we encourage, and he says, No, God recoils 00:27:01.480 --> 00:27:02.679 from all of that. 00:27:02.679 --> 00:27:07.839 Recoils from all of the ugliness that might be very important in society in which we live, 00:27:07.839 --> 00:27:10.399 but is skin deep. 00:27:10.399 --> 00:27:18.720 So we recognize that the beauty of the bride is genuine beauty, and genuine beauty should 00:27:18.720 --> 00:27:26.319 also be something for which we are thankful and a heart that gives thanks to God, a recognition 00:27:26.319 --> 00:27:32.759 that he is the author and he is the giver and Psalm 106 verse, give thanks to the Lord 00:27:32.759 --> 00:27:38.319 for he is good, his love endures forever, and all the beauty that comes from him. 00:27:38.319 --> 00:27:44.519 And you know, I was reading this week something about, I have no idea where and I have no 00:27:44.519 --> 00:27:50.759 idea what it was, and it's probably just not genuine, but there was something I was 00:27:50.759 --> 00:27:56.720 reading that was saying, if you are a thankful person, it is good for you physically and 00:27:56.720 --> 00:28:07.759 psychologically, because it makes you humble and it makes you recognize your dependence 00:28:07.759 --> 00:28:10.359 on others and your thankfulness for what you have. 00:28:10.359 --> 00:28:13.759 And that of course is we are created to be thankful. 00:28:13.759 --> 00:28:20.000 We are created to have this healthy perspective to value God, to worship Him and to glorify 00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:26.240 Him, for all He is and for all His creativity and for all His beauty, and above all for 00:28:26.240 --> 00:28:28.480 the beauty of the cross. 00:28:28.480 --> 00:28:38.879 And so then, as we close, let's be people who live lives of, I hesitate to say spiritual 00:28:38.880 --> 00:28:45.320 beauty, I just mean beauty, that includes the spiritual and the physical. 00:28:45.320 --> 00:28:50.080 It is living that life of beauty, it is what we are called to do, and dwell be the spirit 00:28:50.080 --> 00:28:57.800 of wisdom and beauty, obeying the laws of love, which are love your God and love your 00:28:57.800 --> 00:28:58.800 neighbor. 00:28:58.800 --> 00:29:00.120 It's the beauty of holiness. 00:29:00.120 --> 00:29:08.000 It's not cheap, this is not shallow, this is not soft-soaping the true gospel. 00:29:08.000 --> 00:29:13.640 This is the gospel that we live this beauty, this beauty that is radically different, that 00:29:13.640 --> 00:29:19.359 is a life of repentance and faith that is plugged into God through prayer and through 00:29:19.359 --> 00:29:24.000 the Word, that sees Him in His living Word and looks beyond the surface. 00:29:24.000 --> 00:29:32.000 And so in our churches, we are not people that make judgments on the surface and judge 00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:39.799 people's beauty on the surface, that we embrace the beauty of the heart and the graceful life 00:29:39.799 --> 00:29:47.680 and we see beyond that, and we live and we look for transformed hearts and embrace the 00:29:47.680 --> 00:29:52.680 beauty in art and in music and in culture and in everyone's individual gifts and everyone 00:29:52.680 --> 00:29:54.240 being different, isn't that good? 00:29:54.240 --> 00:29:59.079 I want people to be the same, I just want everyone to look like me and be like me, because 00:29:59.079 --> 00:30:02.519 that would make things easier and I would understand life more. 00:30:02.519 --> 00:30:07.919 No, let's worship and praise and thank God for our diversity and for the variety of our 00:30:07.919 --> 00:30:14.319 gifts and see the hand of God in them and rejoice in that under Christ. 00:30:14.319 --> 00:30:18.759 Praise Him for common grace at points. 00:30:18.759 --> 00:30:25.279 We seek that to point others to the Creator, but more than the Creator, the Redeemer, the 00:30:25.279 --> 00:30:33.639 Savior who in the ugliness of Calvary births the most beautiful salvation. 00:30:33.639 --> 00:30:36.119 Amen, let's pray. 00:30:36.119 --> 00:30:41.759 Father God, we ask and pray that You would help us to understand Your beauty, forgive 00:30:41.759 --> 00:30:49.000 us for being so shallow, for being taken up by surface beauty, often the beauty that 00:30:49.000 --> 00:30:56.119 breaks marriages and breaks relationships and leads to adultery and leads to selfishness 00:30:56.119 --> 00:31:05.839 and leads to lust and pride and ugliness, a shallow beauty that is self-centered and 00:31:05.839 --> 00:31:11.920 about receiving rather than giving and is about taking control of rather than giving 00:31:11.920 --> 00:31:14.119 glory to God. 00:31:14.119 --> 00:31:21.799 Help us for thinking Your salvation is plain and ordinary when it is really so multifaceted 00:31:21.799 --> 00:31:29.039 and deep and beautiful and relevant and meaningful and true. 00:31:29.039 --> 00:31:36.159 And help us to worship You in the beauty of Your holiness and remind ourselves that we 00:31:36.159 --> 00:31:40.799 often are attracted to the darkness rather than the light. 00:31:40.799 --> 00:31:47.960 We reject Your beauty because of its great standards and because of its brightness and 00:31:47.960 --> 00:31:51.000 because of our love of darkness. 00:31:51.000 --> 00:31:52.200 Forgive us for that, Lord. 00:31:52.200 --> 00:32:01.000 Forgive us for above all trying to hide that by an outward sophistication or an outward 00:32:01.000 --> 00:32:10.079 religiosity to try and cover up and help us to be honest and rejoice in Your beauty and 00:32:10.079 --> 00:32:15.839 rejoice in who You are and what You have done for us and what You will do for us and what 00:32:15.839 --> 00:32:22.919 the new heavens and the new earth will look like in all its beauty and all its provision. 00:32:22.919 --> 00:32:25.199 We ask these things in Jesus' name. 00:32:25.200 --> 00:32:41.279 Amen.