Modesty in a World of Fashions

Thank you. Good morning. I'm actually nervous this morning.

Yeah. Because I feel like I'm gonna step on somebody's toe this morning. So get your forgivers out.

Be ready to exercise some mercy. And yeah, just hear that, you know, at the end of the day, I'm not your judge, it's God. And, but these are just some thoughts that I've had a burden for some time to talk about.

Three weeks ago or so, I started out the message. I just called it modesty. And if you weren't here for that, probably good to be go back and listen to that.

Just to give a little prelude, a buildup. I wasn't able to finish. And I don't even think I'm gonna be able to finish today.

Okay. But if you remember, we looked last time at just the concept of modesty in general. Can anybody remember what, I started out with, if you had a friend, you knew somebody that really, something they would love for you to do for them, would you wanna do it? And we talked about something past that.

If God, there was something God really loved, what would it be? Does anybody remember what that was? A meek and a quiet spirit. And I wanna start off with that again, that these messages are for that purpose. It's from the heart.

They could come across as nitty gritty. They could come across as small details. But I want you to think about where it's coming from.

It's from the heart. What's flowing from your heart? The nitty gritty details sometimes reveals, shows us. Do I have these things? Do I have an issue with these things? I remember when my wife first came to this church, you know, she had no clue.

She put on some interesting style of covering because she thought it was cute or something like that. And Sister Phoebe came to her and said, you know, Stephanie, that's just not how we do it here. Oh, didn't know.

And she was willing to lay it down. It wasn't a big deal. But sometimes that could just be all it is.

It's just, we don't realize. And so maybe that's all it is. But this morning, I just wanna remind us a little bit of what we talked about.

Modesty is not first an issue of clothing. It's primarily an issue of the heart. If you remember, we looked at the word chaste last time, which is in that passage of scripture and Peter talks about chaste.

And the definition of chaste is not having any sexual nature or intention. And I thought it was interesting that Peter, the Apostle Peter, who walked with Jesus, had the nerve, had the audacity to bring up details, to talk about an issue in his day. Last time we primarily looked at, and we didn't finish, but I was hoping to break it up into four parts.

And I'm honestly thinking we're gonna have to take another, at least one more sermon for three, if not two, we'll see. But the first part we've been looking at, primarily, we looked at pictures of 100 years ago, what people and the ladies dressed like 100 years ago. On the beach, if you remember, does anyone remember, tell me what you saw in the picture.

Anybody, do you remember what you saw in the picture? Yeah, ladies in full dresses. So within 100 years, we've seen really the undressing of America. And so we looked at the Bible last time.

We looked at nakedness. We looked at when Adam and Eve fell. We looked at when they fell, they immediately realized they were naked.

And that God, they immediately scrambled to try to find clothes, put something on once they realized that. And then God decided that their attempt wasn't good enough. And so then God clothed them with what he felt was the right attempt.

And so there's a principle there that clothing is to remind us of the shame of our fall. And that's an interesting thought. Every time you look down at your cloth, every time you look down at your fabric, every time you pick your fabric, it's a reminder of the shame of what we did, of our sin.

And so we looked at this rebellion that man has, and that is to take off clothes, to go back to nakedness. God says, no, that's not allowed anymore because of sin. And so we define nakedness.

We went through the Bible and we looked at different times, priests going up onto stairs and that under their robes would not be exposed. And many other verses we looked at, but we defined God's definition of nakedness. And we saw even in revelation that it was a shame to be naked.

And that God asks us to ask him to anoint our eyes so that we can see in that our nakedness, even our spiritual nakedness can be exposed. And so the first part of this message was, I called it sexual attraction. That's what we primarily have been looking at.

But a lot of that has to do with nakedness. And two, I wanna look at today some, I'm gonna call it adornment, or we could put it in here, fads and excess. Three, which is something maybe 20 years ago we would have never thought we needed to preach.

I'll call it gender identity. Today we live in a society that is confused, that is training their children that they can decide what gender they are. Parents who will say, let's not determine its gender until it gets to a certain age.

People who are struggling with depression because of these surgeries. I'd like to take some time to look at that and what we should do as a people to counteract that and what's going on with that. And lastly, I'm gonna call it identifying with the people of God.

I don't know how to spell that, but. And that primarily, I would say, is a reason. The burden of these messages were to understand why we do what we do.

Get the elephant out of the room, talk about it a little bit. It's a little like a family talk. So all the visitors that are here, we welcome you, thank you for coming, but just realize this is kind of like a little family talk.

We're gonna talk about some things. Like sometimes you do in a family. I remember showing you that picture of Costco when Costco first opened.

It was sitting at the Costco up here in town. And it had a picture back in the 70s. And it was shocking how many ladies were still in dresses.

And then I turned from that Costco picture and looked out at what I saw now and I couldn't find anyone in a dress. Showing you just in the last 30 years how much has changed. So back to remind us the purpose for clothes is to confess that we are not what we should be.

And God ordained clothes to witness the glory we lost. And it's an added rebellion to throw them off. Another point to remember is women are programmed to attract.

It's just how they are. They are programmed inside to be attractive, to attract. Men are just programmed to be attracted.

That's how we are. Job had to say he made a covenant with his eyes, not to look upon a maid. That's just our natures.

We talked a little bit about how girls just have a natural desire to look, what is the word? To look, what did I say? You remember. A natural desire to look. Okay, but there's another word.

What do you think, if our girls here would have a struggle, what would it be? Would it be they wanna look like harlots? Anybody think that's going on? I don't think so. But what do they wanna look? Somebody please, girls, can you just tell, thank you. Cute.

I was gonna have to get the girls to say it. Cute, they just wanna look cute. They don't want to look.

Yeah. And that could look uncute by looking. Fat, thank you.

Yes, fat. You know when you look in the mirror and it says warning objects appear closer than they appear? I think sometimes that happens in mirrors for girls. There needs to be a little thing on the bottom that says objects look fatter than they really appear.

Because really, it happens. Now, you girls are laughing, but it's true, right? I mean, the guy, your husband could be standing there and saying, you do not look fat. And somehow, there's just a struggle there.

And I think it's because, and we talked about this last time, we're surrounded by a culture that says skinny is beautiful. And we talked about Barbie, if you remember. Barbie has been this doll that all the little girls grew up with.

And if Barbie were a real person, she would have half of a liver. That's how uneven her proportions are. She could not walk.

She couldn't even hold her head up. She'd have to walk on all fours. This was not something that some Christian came up with.

This was just an article. They did a study. They put Barbie as a full-size model and it didn't work out.

And that tells you that the proportions are wrong, but yet we idolize it. We idolize skinny. And we would be somewhat foolish to think that somehow the world's fashions don't come in on us.

Super interesting to see that even Mennonites, looking back, there's a guy who did a documentary on Mennonite clothing and how all the Mennonites in the early 1900s, the ideal with the world was a high hip line here for seams. And that's what all the Mennonites were wearing at that time. In the 1920s, 30s, all of a sudden the style in the world was to drop the hip line and it was just like straight down.

And guess what? A bunch of Mennonite dresses from that period started reflecting that. It's just natural for us to be influenced by the world. And so we just need to keep that in mind.

We also looked at some thoughts about beauty in other countries. If you remember, anybody remember what was beautiful in another country? Bat. Bat farms.

They send ladies away to get fattened. And that's beautiful because it means you're rich. Do you remember another thing that looked beautiful in another country? Small feet.

They bind up in Japan, they bind their feet up in these gnarly looking things to where their toes are like this, and they think it's beautiful. And they ruin their bodies because of beauty, what they think is beautiful. And Iran, nose jobs, we talked about that if you remember right.

Ladies actually go around wearing bandages on their nose because it is thought of, even though they never had a nose job, because it's thought of that you have lots of money and you got a nose job. It's just interesting things we do as humans to prove whether or not we are beautiful. Even in Africa, they have scarification where they poke themselves all over.

And that brings us up to where we left off. And the fear is here, if we have self-expression or we have this desire to be noticed, it's in our hearts, it's going to come out. Here's a question for you.

Do you think it's possible for a cape dress to lose its modesty? Is that possible? How? Make the cape tighter and the what? Fiddle string. And the fiddle string, okay. Oh, tighter than a fiddle string, got it.

Okay, thank you. Listen to this early church leader. His name was Clement of Alexandria.

This is what he had to say. He said, these excessive and lightweight fabrics are a sign of a weak mind. Now, he was dealing with this in his day of the church, 200 years.

They barely hide the shame of the body. Luxurious clothing that does not conceal the shape of the body isn't really a covering. Did you hear that? Luxurious clothing or fabrics that do not conceal the shape of the body is not really a covering, he said.

Such attire clinging tightly to the bodily easily conforms to its shape, almost becoming one with the skin. As a result, it highlights a woman's figure, making her entire body shape visible to onlookers without actually revealing the body itself. It's interesting that early church leaders were dealing with this too, writing about it.

He also said, what then is considered modest clothing? So he's going to give you what his definition, remember this man knew Greek. He knew probably the people that were discipled by the original apostles. He says this, what then is considered modest clothing? It is attire that fully and appropriately covers you without unnecessary decorations.

Interesting to hear an early church leader give his definition of modesty. Here's another one, Cyprian. He says, you draw the desires of young men after you, nourish the lust of sexual desire and inflame the fuel of desire.

So that although you yourself do not perish, but you cause others to perish and offer yourself as it were to others. You are as it were a sort of poison to the spectator. You cannot be excused.

And he goes on, for the sake of time, I'm going to move on. Just looking over our statement of faith, I thought it was interesting to go out there, look at what do we say as a church? What was this church even founded on? And it says here, brethren and sisters, this is in the area of Christian attire. Brethren, and by the way, did you hear your name there, young men, this is you too, and us, older men.

Brethren and sisters shall wear modest apparel and cover, which covers and conceals the body. And then it goes on to say, sisters are recommended to wear a double layer garment to conceal the form of the body, preferably a full length dress, such as a vest dress, cape dress or jumper. I find that interesting that right there, whoever, I think this probably was somewhat inherited from the early days of charity.

Would you say that's true, Roger? Denny Kennison, I went and listened to some of his preaching on this subject in preparation for this. And I found it interesting that what it says is, we brothers and sisters will be concerned about some things. That we will be concerned whether it covers the nakedness and does it conceal the shape of the body? Does it conceal the form? That's part of who we are.

That's part of what we say when we commit to this little group, that these will be our concerns. And I wanna say this, first of all, before we get into any of these other things, I wanna bless you all. If I bring up some small things, in the large comparison to the world, it's a breath of fresh air.

We go out there in the world, and like I said, some churches, I think I said this last time, are dealing with yoga pants as, is this acceptable? So, don't think that anything I bring up this morning is somehow reflected of, that I'm not very blessed where we're at. But may I say this, no church ever changes overnight, amen? No person ever changes overnight. And they normally take small, gradual steps.

And if you look five years, 10 years down the road, then you say, oh, this is where it took them. So, if we bring up some of these small flags of issues, think about it as, is it heading us in a trajectory? Also, remember this, that the main purpose of these things is, are we truly, as Jesus said, are we taking up our cross? Jesus said, if any man would come after me, let him deny himself. Are we truly, in our hearts, denying ourself? Are we truly denying, it says in, I think it's Galatians, they that are Christ have crucified the affections and lusts.

Have we truly decided to die to our desires? We are bought with a price, the scripture says. Therefore, we'll glorify God in your bodies. Whatever you do, do all things to glorify him.

That includes whether we eat or we drink, or whatever we do. And so, that's the heart this morning, is what we're wearing, is it for self? Is it for Christ? And maybe some of the things I bring up will help think about that. And I also wanna draw this little picture here.

If, I might need more board here, sorry, Roger. If I, if this is where we're at as a brotherhood, and mind you, we're a lot different than other brotherhoods. You might jump into a brotherhood like the Amish, and they wouldn't even accept patterns.

But if this is where we're at, this is where we feel comfortable, and this is where we don't feel comfortable, and this is a line. Remember, this line is a gradient. It's not a on-off switch, it's a gradient.

Gradient means it gets a little darker or a lighter in slow successions. The point of this morning is we don't wanna be here. We don't wanna be living our life over here, pushing that line all the time.

Okay, so here's some thoughts. Oh, and I have, I have a picture here. There's a verse in Song of Solomon, and it says the little foxes, it says the little foxes that spoil the vine.

Now, the first thing is little foxes are what? What are little foxes? Thanks, Dennis. I was gonna say little. I can't type my password here.

Sorry, I thought I would have had this typed in. Very awkward. Little foxes are so cute.

They're little, right? They're little, but they're so cute. And so, yes, they're very cute. Also, little things, little things here.

This is a picture of a rat poison. Notice it says eradication, great for rats. It's peanut butter flavored, rodenticide.

It kills Norway rats, roof rats, and house mice. Can anybody read to me what is this active ingredient, diphosanone, what's the percentage of the killing ingredient? What do you guys think? 5,000s, that's teeny. I mean, that's like if you had an inch this long, your hair would be 5,000s in that inch.

That's how much poison is in to kill the rats. Just a little bit can spoil, just a little bit. And so, that's the thing we wanna talk about.

Little foxes that spoil the vine. So, let's talk about the nitty gritty details. This is where the nervousness comes up.

But let's talk about it. Here's the family talk. One thought for you ladies is when you are deciding to make a dress.

I was reading this online. This was not even a lady from among our people. She said you should consider doing a pinch test.

And that means you take your fabric and you pinch it. Is there much looseness there? I think my wife told me this morning or yesterday that when she sews a fabric, she gives about three inches extra to her waist. You yourselves just told me that we can take a cape dress and remove its modesty by making it tight.

And this lady that I was reading said if you can just pinch on this and there's just nothing to grab, it's probably too tight. Just a thought. Like I said, remember that little sign in the mirror.

Objects in the mirror may appear fatter than they really are. Remember that, that it may not be that bad. As least that you think.

Another thought. Now we're talking about, remember our statement says we will conceal the body. Brothers, this is to you too and I have a little for you in a minute.

But let's consider things like, things that would bring in non-concealing of the body. Like for example, a belt. A belt would possibly, if it's too tight, it would also pull in that hourglass figure.

I was talking to Caleb this last week and I guess years ago when you all were younger, I preached a sermon and I drew this hourglass figure. Does anybody remember that? And Caleb said that's all he could remember from the sermon. He's like, I don't even remember what it was about, but oh my.

So I decided not to draw that this time. But that can happen. Too tight of belts and things like that.

Necklines. Just remember that when you're standing in front of a mirror, it may look great, but when you bend down, it may not, the fabric may fall away. Let's think about sweaters.

Sweaters are a third layer of a garment, if you think about it. But the thing is, is if we said in our statement we would like it if it was two layers, so the third layer could essentially undo the second layer if it's too tight. So keep that in mind.

That sweaters can be a great thing, but if they're too tight, they can take away and start to reveal the shape. And that's what we're going for. I have an illustration this morning.

Fabrics. Now this I would call a lightweight knit, kind of. This actually isn't knit, but it's similar.

A lightweight, would you say this is lightweight? Slinky? Okay. And I want to do a little demonstration here. The difference between something like a lightweight versus something like a sturdy fabric.

This is more, I don't know, it feels like cotton or something. Yeah, cotton and some polyester. More sturdy, substantial.

Now here's the problem with any kind of fabric that is slinky or not sturdy. Is it can tend to, I'll use this box as an example. It can tend to drape, they call it.

So as I pull this over, you can see it very easily takes on the shape of the box. Does everybody see that pretty clearly? Okay, if I take a sturdy fabric on, I had two layers on that shirt, so we'll do two layers here. You can see it's much harder to take on the shape.

You see that? Is that making sense? It might seem silly, but this is just the truth. This is just how it works. And this is like what we think about when we make things.

So for example, if you think about a knit type of material, it can tend to be like little hinges. And what can happen is, I'll just draw a little example here, is instead of a sturdy fabric, if I had like a stool here and a sturdy fabric drape, it'll tend to do this more, where if I had a stool here and I had a knit, it would tend to want to drape more and take on the shape. Does that make sense? And when we get to the men, we'll talk about T-shirts a little bit because they kind of have the same problem.

So we'll pick on them. So also shoes. Did you know that, now this is a worldly study, high heel shoes.

Did you know that the study proves, this is the title of the study. The study proves high heel shoes have power over men. Interesting.

Listen to this. The study found if a woman drops a glove, so she's walking along and she drops a glove. They purposely did this.

She drops a glove on the street while wearing her heels. She's almost 50% more likely to have a man fetch it for her than when she's wearing flats. Now, what's that mean? We want to act like this is not a big deal, but it is a big deal.

It's because, I mean, the marketing people have it figured out. They're not dumb, right? They know that high heel shoes changes the way a woman looks. Another finding, a woman wearing heels is twice as likely to persuade men to stop while trying to get answers for surveys.

Should she stand on the side of the road? Hey, would you answer surveys? And what was the percentage I said? Twice as likely. The woman down around the corner who's in high heels will get two times as many men stopping to take the survey than the woman with flats. I mean, it's just what it is.

Okay, so enough picking on the ladies right now. Let's pick on the men a little bit. So we said, brother and sister, we will wear modest apparel and covers and conceals the body.

I don't know if you looked out there. You know, it doesn't take too far to look, but skinny jeans kind of tend to be in the in thing today, and maybe not here, thankfully, but they don't conceal the shape. There's still shape for men, and we don't have to get much further into that.

I'll be a little bit vulnerable right now. When I go to the thrift store and I am picking a pair of pants, you know, I'll walk out. Abe was at my house, I think, one time, right? And I'll do a little spin for my wife, and she'll say, approve or not approve? And what, is this true? You were there, right? Yeah, one time she said, oh my, or something like that.

And that meant no, that's not modest for me. So we need to think about those things. And I'm being vulnerable to say, even I have to do it too.

It's not like I'm just saying this thing, but we all should be thinking about things to conceal our shape. Tight shirts, even cowboy jeans that are too tight, short sleeves on the guys, T-shirts, polo shirts. Why do we pick on T-shirts? You know, Caleb and I got in this discussion this last week.

What's wrong with the T-shirt? Well, let me give you a little history on the T-shirt. In 1950, so before 1950, T-shirts were underwear. That's just what they were.

And it wasn't made popular until around 1950 for the broad public. And in 1950, on Hollywood, Marlon Brando famously donned a white T-shirt in a movie, it was a movie called, let me get it for you here. It was called, A Streetcar Named Desire.

And you can see in this poster, it's about this lady-like lady who went to this bum-like area of town and she meets this guy. And I think it's probably a romance. I didn't get too far into reading about what it was.

But this was the first movie that came out with a guy as normal wearing a T-shirt, 1950. And it became a fad. It became the thing to do.

Why not wear what we would normally wear in our under clothes? And then five years later, it was followed by another movie by James Dean. And this one, I saw this down at a restaurant once and it was so shocking. And the reason why is, first of all, look at his cool look.

This came out in 1955. He's got his T-shirt, he's sporting, he's got his cigarette. He's kind of propped up against the wall.

He's very cool, right? You all see that? Everybody see that? What's that? Yeah, he thinks he is. And off to the right is this girl. So it says Rebel Without a Cause.

That's the name of the movie that came out in 1955. And down here, this is the saddest part of it all. You can see how Hollywood was pushing rebellion.

It says, and they both came from good families. You see that rebellion that's being pushed in the 1950s. And this is what birthed, this was James Dean.

This is what birthed this new fad to wear what used to be our underwear on the outerwear as just normal. There was a man who went around and actually put on this little show of the history of the T-shirt and had all these things. But he said, in his little thing he gave, he said, it was associated with a movement of rebellion.

It was rebellious because T-shirts were actually undergarments. The T-shirt is a really basic way of telling the world who and what you are. So it's concerning that this garment started in rebellion.

It started as underwear. It's very casual. And is that the kind of people we wanna be known for at the end of the day? Also, just to put on top of that, it's very revealing.

And I'm sure you guys have looked in the mirror when you put your T-shirt on. It's not as sturdy of a fabric as this, as a different type of shirt because it's more of a knit. So many styles of our world today are based on self-expression and self-image.

And we wanna be a community that takes practical steps to live out what Jesus taught and what his apostles taught. And we wanna take it seriously just because the culture around us is undressing and rebelling against God. We wanna stand in opposition to that.

And I think we're making a determined stand to do that. And I also think we wanna make a determined stand when it comes to this right here, gender identity. We'll talk about that later, another day, if the Lord wills.

But we wanna dress like we mean it. We want it to have purpose. And so I wanna encourage you as we end this section, the first section, fathers, please talk to your daughters.

I know it can be awkward, but I remember many conversations with my daughter. She's shaking her head. Talk to them about what men think.

Not all men, not all daughters know how men think. Like they really don't know that we can be creeps, right? They think, you know, they don't realize what we struggle with. Talk to them what they think.

I met many times my daughter coming down, Papa, is this dress modest enough? Talk to them about these things. Is it concealing shape? Is it doing the things that we want? I would encourage you young ladies to look to the majority of the older ladies in our church and look to them for your models. If we're honest, we influence each other, right? We for sure influence each other.

If one person does something, we're like, oh, that's cute. Let's try it. Let's all do it.

And we can end up leading ourselves down things and paths because of that influence. So look to some of the older ladies. Ask yourself the question, would so-and-so that you respect as a godly lady, would she dress in this same kind of thing or the same kind of pattern? I'd also encourage you parents.

I made a mistake with my children as a child when they were children. I used to put cowboy hats on Timothy. And I think he created a real struggle in his heart.

As he got older, you know, he looked back and he kind of wanted those cowboy hats. And so don't train your children and put things on your children that they then have to undo later. The Bible says to train them up in the way they should go, not train them up in the way that they will have to undo.

I would encourage you, if it wouldn't be right for an older person to wear, don't do it because you'll probably put struggles like I did. I put this cute little cowboy hats. I thought he looked really cute, you know, going around with his little gun.

And, you know, I probably set up things in his heart that I shouldn't have. And let's remember, it's in the sight of God a great price. Our clothes should not say sexually attractive or proud or excessive, but they should say purity, humility, and moderation.

Okay, so I'd like to go into now a little bit on the second point, and that's this adornment. So in our, and I'd also add fashions and excess, but in our statement of faith, we talked about that it should conceal shape, but then it goes on to say this. It says, clothing shall exemplify gospel simplicity and be free of all evidences of pride, display, or adornment.

So let's talk about that a little bit. We, as a church, had agreed years ago when this church was started that we want our clothes to display or exemplify gospel simplicity, simplicity. And, you know, you probably heard the term, a plain people.

And I wasn't raised in that. I honestly, I remember going to my closet and looking at my suits and my ties and my different shirts, and how can I match these things and do all that? And coming into this people, I have come to appreciate the stand on simplicity, plainness, not being concerned about decorations and adornment. Let's just draw this out for a visual illustration.

So if God clothed Eve, and I don't know what her dress or what it looked like, but I'll take some liberties. It looks like she had a problem with one sleeve. Okay, we'll say this was God's clothes, God's design, we'll say.

And man wants to rebel against God, and he wants to, let's see how I can draw this. He wants to do something like, oh, that's too long. Is this, I'm kind of worried now.

Some child is gonna remember this only thing from the sermon. He wants, God, the devil wants us to rebel in this direction, take off your clothes, make it as little as it can. And I could have drawn it even more immodest, but there's also an added rebellion here that we need to be very careful of.

And that is we could take something that God designed and still use it as a way to, maybe it's not like, maybe it's concealing shape and things like that, but we can then start putting all the bells and whistles on it, as I call it. I don't know, maybe we put a little belt here and we've got like a nice little flowery thing or a bow, or we can put some long, what are these things called, flares. This, honestly, the flare thing reminds me of the hippie days when I, growing up, because all the guys wore their jeans like this and then flared them out.

But, or we could, I don't know, put some drapey things here, I don't know. But the thing is, the question is, the question is, do we use our clothes to adorn, to decorate, to draw attention to us still? Maybe we're not doing it with the nakedness, but we're doing it with all the ornamentation, things like that. Is something confusing? No, I didn't know.

So, and Peter talks about this. He says, whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning. He doesn't want us to focus on outward adorning.

He wants us to focus on the inward adorning, and it will come out of the outward. Let's see, here's a quote from Clement of Alexandria. Yeah.

Oh, you know, I totally, I forgot to read a quote. Well, no, I think it's coming up. I think it's coming up.

Here's a quote from Clement of Alexandria. If then he takes away, oh, sorry, I need to mention this first. What did Jesus say about worrying about clothes? Anybody tell me? Take no thought for our clothes.

What will we eat? What will we drink? What we will put on? He says, God will take care of that. So then Clement makes this further assertion. He says, if Jesus takes away anxious care for clothes and food and other things that are unnecessary, why would we imagine ought to be said of, what would we imagine, sorry, to be said of a love of ornament and dying of wool and variety of colors and particulars about gems and exquisite works of gold? And he goes on and staining the eyes and all this stuff.

If Jesus would want us to be just simple people who aren't worrying about our clothes, what we're gonna have, why would, do you think it makes sense for him that he would want us to then worry about adornment and put all these things in bells and whistles on it? That's what Clement's trying to say. Let's remember that when God make this original garment here the original garment for Adam and Eve, it was not for comfort. He wasn't feeling like, man, they needed a more comfortable garment.

It wasn't for fashion. It wasn't for self-expression. It wasn't for breathability or any of the other many reasons that we give today for less rather than more clothes.

It was made to cover. And it also excludes fashions and excess and decoration. If we just think about the original purpose of God's clothes it was to cover our shame.

I wanna read from 1 Timothy. If you wanna turn there, 1 Timothy 2. Let's read in verse nine and 10. Can somebody read that for me? 1 Timothy 2, nine through 10.

Okay, this is the second passage in the New Testament. Now this is Paul. So we have Peter and Paul, both pillars in the early church.

And he's warning that here to Timothy, he's saying that these godly women should have shame-facedness. That's an idea. It actually literally means downcast eyes.

It just means kind of a sense of blushing, a sense of not boldness. A girl who's bold and just looks you in the eye and is brash. But no, she's got that meek, quiet, godly spirit about her.

She's bashful. She's reverent. She's respectful.

It's exactly the opposite of what our culture teaches. Our culture teaches be yourself, express yourself, be bold. Sobriety, that means self-control.

She's calm. She's not under the influence of passions. She has a sound mind.

She's discreet. She's temperate. And it says apparel here.

That word is katastole. And that means, a stole actually was a garment that they wore in those days. And I have a picture of it, but I won't show it right now.

It's looked like a bunch of, it looks like a long dress robe thing. And kata in Greek means down. So it's a down-flowing garment.

Our US culture tells us that, this is a rule. This is a thought that is placed in our hearts. Clothing is definitely a means to express yourself.

Would you agree with that? That's what our culture tells us. That's what it's about. Here's a quote I found.

Fashion has always been a powerful means of self-expression. We must guard against that. Sorry.

The clothes we choose to wear can convey our personality, our cultural background, our unique sense of style, but fashion goes beyond mere aesthetics. It's a form of identity. That's interesting.

Clothing communicates. Here's a title of a book from a lady. Your clothes say it for you.

Talks about first impressions that people get when they first meet you. Our clothes communicate a message. There's just no thing about it.

And the world knows that. Peter's told us, he said he begs us. If he were here today, sitting here, he'd probably beg us too.

He says, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims. And then he goes on to say, abstain from fleshly lusts that war against our soul. Fleshly lusts.

Back in Isaiah, God says he has an issue. He says, I have an issue with the children of Zion. He says, they go around with haughty looks, walking around with outstretched necks, and flirting with their eyes, strutting along with swaying hips, with ornaments jingling in their ankles.

Now, if you read this in Game J, it's kind of hard to get because it's some old, but I just read it from the NIV that time. And he goes on and he talks about all these things that they're doing. They've got bracelets, and they've got inklets, and they've got this.

And he says, but the problem is, it goes all the way back to their haughtiness. He says, I have a problem with their haughtiness. And that has a tendency to come out if we have pride in our heart.

And so he goes on and says, I'm gonna take all that stuff away. I'm gonna take all your fine robes, and your this and your that, and I'm gonna give you baldness, he says, instead. And I'm gonna basically bring shame upon you because of the pride that's in your heart.

Does anybody know one of the seven things that's an abomination to God that I'm thinking of right now? A proud look. Sometimes I think we forget that God hates. It's an abomination.

He abhors pride in our hearts. And if it comes out in any fashion, especially if it comes out in our clothes, we need to deal with it. And that doesn't exclude you when you dress up.

You come here in a nice white shirt. If you have pride in your heart, the Lord knows it. We have to guard it from all angles.

So check your heart when you're buying your fabrics, when you're buying your jackets and your sweaters and your shoes and your hats, young men, and all the different things, because there are two kinds of rebellions, at least that I'm seeing. There's a rebellion of wanting to throw off our clothes and a rebellion to want to adorn. Peter talks about adorning.

Don't adorn with these things. I have a question for you. Are your clothes a mean to draw attention to what is under them or to God? What are your clothes doing? Are they drawing to God or are they drawing to what is under your clothes? I was kind of, I thought it was neat.

And I want to bless you all for this. Simplicity is beautiful. Simplicity is beautiful.

We've recently had some weddings over here and I was amazed at some of these comments that came in from those weddings. Listen to some of the things people from around the world, because we did put it online, said about it. This person said, beautiful wedding, the simplicity of it really blessed me.

I think that's powerful, that we can make simplicity a beautiful thing. A plain people can be beautiful to others. They see the rat race out there and they look and say, how refreshing.

Here's another person. I must say so many weddings these days, people spend thousands of dollars for a wedding and even get into debt to do so. She talked about she did this.

No, she said she had a simple wedding, but she goes on, you show by your lovely weddings, you can still have a wonderful day without the worry of a huge cost. So, you know, your simple weddings are ministering to people. They're actually preaching the gospel of simplicity and they're asking questions.

Where are you? Who are you? Some of these people, it's shocking. They think you're so modest and it's so beautiful, but you go look on their channel and they're not anywhere in that camp. So, but you're still preaching a message of simplicity, of just following Jesus and the beauty of that.

Here's another comment. Dress so modest, so nice to see. I love this last comment.

The only difference between her wedding dress and the everyday dress is that it is white. And then she goes on to say this, never anything showy in their lives. That is a blessing.

That is a, that just is a testimony. Here's another quote from Clement of Alexandria. He says, man requires clothes for nothing else than the covering of the body for defense against excessive cold and intensity.

And if some accommodation is to be made, women may be permitted to use softer fabrics provided they avoid fabrics that are foolishly thin and of curious texture in weaving. They should also bid farewell to embroidery of gold and Indian silks. I thought, here's another very interesting quote.

This was from Charles Finney. Anybody know who Charles Finney was responsible for? What was he responsible for? The second great awakening. He said this, it is your duty.

This is a man within what? The last hundred, 50 years? When was the second great awakening? 1800s. It is your duty to dress so plainly as to show to the world that you place no sort of reliance on the things of fashion and set no value at all upon them, but despise and neglect them altogether. There is no way by which you can bear a proper testimony by your lives against the fashions of this world, but by dressing plainly.

This wasn't even an Anabaptist person. This was just Charles Finney who was bringing up, preaching the gospel. But he said that.

Reminds me of Hebrews that says, strangers and pilgrims that declare plainly that they're seeking another country. Here's a question. Do your clothes declare plainly that you're seeking another country? Something to think about.

Do they declare plainly? I would say from some of those comments, yes. People are saying, this is so different. This is so opposite of what we see.

So I wanna bless you in that. Listen to John Wesley. Anybody know John Wesley? What was John Wesley responsible for? The Methodist church, which has seriously slumped off.

But in its day, it was a society of holiness. It was a society that believed you needed to strive to live sinless lives. They had a good heart.

John Wesley had a good heart. And he said this, spiritual adornment is the reality. That's your heart.

That's the hidden man of the heart. That's the reality. But then he said this, physical adornment is the symbol of that reality.

Our external clothing is of secondary importance. So if you come away from this message this morning and you think, Jeremy just preached on all these little things, that's not the most important thing. The most important thing is our spiritual adornment inside.

He said, it's of secondary importance, yet it is not inconsequential for it bears witness to our spiritual clothing. What we're wearing on the outside bears witness to what is going on in the inside. Remember, who shall ascend up to the house of the Lord? It says, those who have clean hands and a pure heart.

God is a God of hands, right? It's not just clean hands. It's not just a pure heart. It's the outward and the internal.

It's both. God wants both. He wants us to live lives as if we were bought with a price.

Here's a great quote. It's from people you know, Stephanie and Sister Phoebe. Now, you know, this isn't just perfect, but we wrote it down a while back and maybe we would modify a little bit there, but this is just the heart of some of our ladies.

We wanna lead our girls and ladies to wear dresses with sturdy materials, smaller prints, solids, and softer colored fabrics. We want to try to avoid tight dresses, slinky polyester and bold colors, curious and abstract fabric designs. And if you don't know what that curious and abstract, just think of, well, just ask the question.

Is that what the others are doing? But curious and abstract are kind of designs that you have to take a second look at. Like, what is that? That's strange. It's not what you see normally.

We just don't want to stick out from others. We want to be, like Roger said, doing things together. I'll give a quick little testimony here.

We're almost done. For a long time, when I first came to this church, you probably remember me, I struggled with dressing up because I came from a church that I dressed up and it was all about pride, right? It was all about ties and suits. And so I've associated dressing up as hypocritical.

Come here, put on your show, act your act, and it could be in people's heart. And it was for me. And then go back Monday through Saturday and live your life, right? And so for a long time, I struggled with that.

But a couple of years back, maybe, I don't know, three, four years ago, I finally came to peace that we can do things together and it keeps the other things out, right? It's just, it's so peaceful not to have to think about, do I need to put on this or that? It's just, it's a way to keep out the fads and fashions of the world. That's my personal testimony. So do our clothes exemplify, as our statement of faith says, gospel simplicity? And are they free from evidences of pride, display, or adornment? I've got a couple of tips.

I gave you a couple of tips on this first one. Let's talk about a couple of tips on this next one. So let's talk about fabrics for a little bit.

Do your fabrics that you choose, do they communicate this message of simplicity? Or are they modern? Like I said with this line here, are they modern and edgy? Are they, I mean, modern's kind of, it's like contemporary Christian music. Any song that comes out can be contemporary, right? But are they pushing the line? That's the better question. Are they edgy? Think about that.

Are they, and if it is, then ask yourself why. Is it coming from that heart of self-expressions, individualism? How will you know? How will you know if they are? Maybe you just don't know. Maybe you're like my wife.

Somebody just needs to come tell you because you didn't realize it. Ask, ask the older sisters. Look at the older sisters.

What are the majority of them doing? Ask yourself, are these things that they would wear? And same for you guys. I would encourage you in the same way. I don't wanna just pick on the girls.

Ask those same questions. If it would be very odd to see an older man in it, then maybe it's a little edgy. Let's talk about sweaters for a minute here.

They're designed to bring warmth, but I have a concern. They can become less of a design to bring warmth and more of a design for this thing right here, right? Can I say that? Can it become more about adornment and less about keeping you warm? Is that possible? Yeah. Should I show a picture? I struggle.

Here's some pictures. I saw all these weddings of a Mennonite wedding. This is in the Mennonite church.

This is just, to me, it's turning into, is that a sweater for warmth? I mean, listen, at the end of the day, I came into this movement and took off my tie because it was a decoration, right? So I have a question for you. I have a question, is that not the same heart? I know it's bold, but I just wondered. And I don't know how to say it without showing a picture.

Picture's worth a thousand words, right? So think about those kind of things. Are they designed to capture attention or are they designed for what they're for? We talked about some of these things, belts and sleeves, twists and ties and meaningless buttons and bells and flares and buckles. Those are just some things.

Are they inspired by pleasing God? Here's a question. Are they do all things for the glory of God? Are they inspired by that or are they inspired by self? Only you can answer that question, but think about that. Fabrics with, well, okay, another picture.

Picture's worth a thousand words. Okay, so this, to me, is a dichotomy. This is interesting.

I did blur the faces out. That way, if you know these people, I won't be in trouble. But this guy is in a plain coat, right? He's in a plain coat.

But if you look at the wedding dress, it's not plain anymore. It's lost. It's like, I don't know, can you all see this? It's like many, many layers.

I just have to wonder, is that becoming self-expression? And sometimes weddings become a day of self-expression. I mean, here's another lady. I mean, her bridesmaids are pretty simple, but her dress is turning into more, it seems to me, am I just making this up? But it feels like it's turning into more about self-expression.

And, I'm sorry. I would be concerned that we wanna be careful of that heart. Now, that's way down the scale, on this gradient scale, right? But I'm bringing up extreme cases.

I don't think we're heading there. But you answer that own question in your heart. Is that where you're at? Couple minutes to pick on the guys now.

Hats, think about that. Hats are a great thing. But if they become, it's gotta be this logo.

It's gotta be this company. Is it any more about the hat that's protecting you, or more about this thing that you need to be seen in? I'm just gonna say it like it is. I don't know what this movement is, but there's a sticker movement where we have to leave the sticker on the hat.

And I mean, if I came, and I left my Dickies sticker down the side of my pants, and walked around, and you all, you would think something's wrong. And, but if we were all doing it, then we'd be like, okay, that's, I guess, what we do. We leave the stickers on.

I mean, I'm just asking, is that coming from, I don't know if you've seen this, but I'm talking about they buy a hat, and they leave the sticker on. It never comes off. What's that influenced by? Is that influenced by pleasing God? Or is it influenced by pleasing each other and self? Just remember, we do have that tendency to please each other.

Boots and shoes, think about that. Also your pants, whitewashed or certain brands. You can only have this brand of pants.

I understand there are more quality pants out there than others. Don't get me wrong, but if it's gotta be a certain brand. Certain shirts, short sleeves, even our hairstyles, guys, we can start to get a little bit, main up there, and it's gotta be a certain length of a sideburn, or it's gotta be a certain facial hairstyle.

These are just like, I'm wondering, are these not areas we begin to, we begin to want to impress others and not impress God? And just remember, these are things that I believe as we want to do that, we need to have a heart that we wanna do everything to please Him. So let me just close with these thoughts. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Who shall stand in His holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, and hath not lifted up his soul into vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.

And we are those that want to declare plainly that we are seeking another country. So let's do it, let's declare it plainly. Let's dress like we mean it.

Let's not be ashamed to exemplify, as it says in our statement of faith, gospel simplicity. Let's just be simple, let's just be plain. Let's just put it in cruise control.

Set it and forget it. Just, you don't have to be like that story I heard where somebody had like 100 dresses. Somebody in this valley had 100 dresses.

And when they went to move them, they were bringing out the truckloads, and I don't know what that person had to do when they were looking through all the dresses to decide what to wear. It seems like we're losing that gospel of simplicity. I just don't think Jesus had 100 robes to choose from, right? So maybe I stepped on somebody's toe.

I hope nobody has 100 dresses here, but it comes from a heart of, remember, this comes from a heart of, let's be concerned about what matters to God. And that is a meek and a quiet spirit. It is a great price to God.

These things can tend to take away from that and get our eyes on us and others. Let's just focus on simplicity. And thank you.

I hope you exercise any forgiver, your forgiver muscle wherever I sidestepped. And God bless you.