A Plain People

Several times through and asking, what is the gospel? I came out of that saying the gospel is just Jesus Christ. That's all it is. It's the good news that Jesus Christ is the promised Messiah.

The one that God promised he would bring to bless his people. And then there's all these ramifications because of Jesus. You know, there's forgiveness of sins.

There's an inheritance with the saints. They're the, he'll turn us. One of the ramifications is if we put our faith in him, he'll turn us from light, from darkness to light.

And from the power of Satan to the power of God. And so that's the simple truth of the gospel. And what is the response to the gospel? The response is to turn our lives around, stop serving ourselves and serve God and receive his gift and walk in it.

As we talked in Matthew 25. But then I want to talk about some shoe leather. What does it look like? You know, that first day we see the simple truth of Jesus.

We see that he is the Lord, the Prince, the judge. He's the Messiah. But now what does it look like to walk in that? What does it look like from day to day? Just like we read in Matthew 25.

What does it really look like to make Jesus the King, the Prince, the Savior, the Messiah, to honor him as the son of God. And so a while back, sometimes when we hear all that, and then we hear head covering, we go, how do those have anything to do with each other? But a while back, we listened to a sermon of a man. If you remember that just started coming to the realization of in his church, the head covering.

And I wanted to have him preach it instead of me because it was so fresh. It was so real. It was so new to him.

And he was counting the cost. And that's one thing we believe here. And so I was hoping that through that, we would see some of the reasons why we try to walk out the goodness of Jesus Christ by obeying him in that.

Then the last time I preached, we preached on the authority of the scriptures, how we look at the scriptures. We view it as an authority. We don't view it as a watered down.

You can't trust it. But we look at it as how we even know about the gospel, how we even know about Jesus Christ. I mean, without the scriptures, we wouldn't even be able to know about Jesus and trust in him.

We have all so many opinions, but with the scriptures, we can see what he taught, what he wanted us to do. And so today I want to go into another thing we believe, but let's first read John chapter 17 and look at Jesus' prayer he had for us. Keeping in mind what Roger read out of the book of James, keeping yourself unspotted from the world.

Verse 11, he says, and now he's praying. If you look in verse nine, he's saying, I pray for them, speaking of his disciples. I pray not for the world, but for them, which thou has given me, for they are thine and all mine are thine and thine are mine.

And I am glorified in them. Verse 11, and now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world. And as long as your heart is beating right now, you're in the world.

And I come to thee, holy father, keep through thine own name, those whom thou has given me, that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name. Those that thou has given me, I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition that the scripture might be fulfilled.

Verse 13, and now I come to thee and these things I speak in the world that they might have my joy fulfilled in them. I have given them thy word and the world hath hated them because they are not of the world. He just said they are in the world, but then he says they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

I pray not that thou should send them out of the world, but that thou should keep them from evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth.

Thy word is truth. So here, Roger had the perfect example with the world. They're in the world, but I'm not asking you, Father, to send them out of the world.

You're just kill them and take them all home. No, I'm asking you to keep them from the world, so that they would not be of the world. Keep them from evil.

I have kept them while I was here, but then he says, now, Father, keep them. And then he goes on and says, sanctify them or set them apart through thy truth. Thy word, the very words you speak is truth.

So I want to talk about today the world and one of the categories in the world. You know, as I thought about this, what are some of the biggest things in the world that lure away Christians? One of the biggest things that tempt us to go through and get spots as that little Fred got on him. You know, I think of, we just recently as a church read through that book Gary Miller wrote on technology.

What a lure. Think about what we experienced in our gen, in the last 100 years, last 50 years, what we've experienced, the change in technology and how it's luring Christians into the world. Another one is music.

We would think, oh, well, music is all moral. You know, music, think of how many Christians get lured away from God just by starting off with music. Another one, and this is the one I want to talk about is fashion.

You know, you've heard the term plain people. You've heard the term nonconformity. You've heard the term separate.

And for some people, when they hear the word plain, oh, man, bells go off, whistles go off. You know, they've been abused maybe in some way. And so they immediately start thinking, oh, you know, not plain.

I was in a conversation with somebody about that. And it's interesting sometimes when you get into these debates, one person has one idea of when they think plain and another person, I know that this person I was debating or was trying, they were trying to debate me. As soon as he heard the word plain, he thought hypocrisy.

He thought, oh, they have an outer shell, but they're just totally hypocrites. And when I think of the word plain, I was thinking plain, you know, just not getting involved in all of the pride of this world. Just like the word conservative.

Oh, man, some people, that is the wrong word. You hear conservative and they think Republicans and they think Democrats and they think, you know, politics. Another person, they think conservative and they just think, oh, it's just, I don't wanna go down the track of dressing like that or looking like that or listening to that music.

So, you know, everybody has a different idea of some of these words. But I wanna talk about that word plain, about that word nonconformity. Now, just to set the stage, we might think that clothes and fashion is just, you know, how's that gospel? How's that part of the gospel? How's that part of following Jesus? I mean, really? And I think that shows sometimes, if that's where our heart goes, how much Satan can deceive us.

You know, Satan wants to make us think things aren't a big deal. That's how he lures us in. No, it's not a big deal.

But let's just look at the world and what they have to say about the fashion industry, the clothing industry. First of all, in the last 15 years, the global clothing industry has doubled in just the last 15 years. Now, what does that say? If it's doubled in the last 15 years, then there's something to this industry.

This is appalling to me, but on average in America, every piece of clothes, each piece worn of clothing is worn on an average of seven times before it's thrown out, seven times. That's where our industry has gotten and our country has gotten. And in China, it's three times.

And I read somewhere, and I don't think I have this fact here, but polyester is the number one thing. And they were showing how many gallons of oils it takes to make, and it takes 200 years to decompose. And yet this stuff, in fact, they said the ocean's all clogged up with all these microfibers of plastic.

A large majority is from the clothing, the small little fabric pieces that probably come out in our wash. In 30 years, the fashion has grown from a $500 billion trade, primarily domestically, or primarily here in the US produced, to now it's a 2.4 trillion a year global behemoth. And I wish Glenn could come up here and draw the stars and give us more ideas of trillion.

But one trillion is one million times a billion. One million times a billion is a trillion. It went from a $500 billion to a 2.4 trillion.

Now think about this. Nine out of 10 workers interviewed in Bangladesh cannot afford enough food for themselves and their families, forcing them to regularly skip meals and eat inadequate or go into debt. Now think about when you're buying your fabric, you're buying your hat, you're buying your pants, your clothes, your whatever.

Think about as you're over there buying it and you're making your decision and you're buying it actually from that person who looks all emancipated, or however you say that word, hasn't eaten and has been making those clothes for you. Think about that. I've got to move on.

I'm going to run out of time, I'm so fast here. Okay, so the fashion industry is designed to make you feel out of trend after one week. Once upon a time, there were two fashion seasons, spring and summer and fall and winter.

Fast forward to 2014 and the fashion industry is churning out 52 micro seasons per year with new trends coming out every week. The goal of fast fashion is for consumers to buy as many garments as possible, as quickly as possible. And then lastly, the US is the largest importer of garments in the world.

Then China, Europe and Japan making those four, Europe, China, Japan and US make up 75% of the fashion clothing industry. Okay, so we come back to the question, what is a plain people? Plain, you know, you think of plain, vanilla, right? What is a plain people? Well, let's look at four scriptural principles that affect our personal appearance. Does anybody, I mean, somebody help me out here.

What's the primary reason for clothing? What do you think the primary reason is? What did you say? Warmth, warmth, okay. Okay, cover nakedness, right? Let's go back to the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve didn't know they were naked.

They sinned, now they knew they were naked. What did they immediately do? They looked for fig leaves, sew them together and God said, ah, it's not gonna work. So he got himself some animal skins and made them what? God made clothes for them.

And the primary reason for it was to cover nakedness. Can we keep that in mind? That's the primary reason. Now, can you imagine God over there with Adam and Eve, you know, he's out there, he's found the perfect skin and he's now over there putting the perfect little patterns on it and, oh, sewing in some logos and some emblems and some certain styles of thread this way and that way and, you know, I'm not, you know, don't take me too far but I'm trying to make a point here that we get caught up in.

That clothes, the major purpose for them is to cover nakedness. It's like I go to Home Depot and I want a tarp to cover my wood. You guys already, George knows where I'm gonna go with this.

And you come over to my house and I've got all these cool little sewing patterns in them and logos and emblems and this and that, you know, and ribbons and buttons and you'd be like, Jeremy, it's a tarp, right? Okay, so that's kind of like what it's like when we take this thing too far. Now, the devil always wants to pervert what God creates, right? God sets up a marriage between a man and a woman, what does he wanna do? Turn it around. Oh, let's mess with this.

God says, wait until you're married to have that relationship, but what does the devil do? Let's mess with that. God says, here's godly music, let's mess with that. You know, anything that God puts out, the devil wants to pervert it.

And he wants to make you think it's not a big deal. Why wouldn't he pervert this thing, right? Why wouldn't he pervert fashion and clothing and get us all into it? Just like if I was just wound up with my tarp covering my wood, right? So the number one thing clothing is for is to cover nakedness. The number two thing that we need to think about here, we're looking at scriptural principles, is it's not about our glory.

When we say yes to the gospel, to Jesus, we are saying it's about your glory. And I want to look at 1 Corinthians 6 for this. 1 Corinthians 6, verse 19.

I was going to say, by the way, there'll be a stoning afterwards. I'll be the one you guys come after me. All right, 619.

It says, what? Know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you. Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which you have of God, and you are not your own. For you are bought with a price.

Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit. You know, I heard of a Christian man just recently. He went to work for a company and he, you know, he was trained.

He was given the equipment to do his job. And this was a Christian company. In fact, one of the people there was a widow that was supported by this company.

And he went out and he started doing his job. He had all the equipment. He had the name on the side of the vehicle of the company.

And he took advantage of all of that. And he started generating his own invoices. Took the logo from the company, smacked it on there, put his name, his address, his email, instead of the company's, and started turning in these things and receiving the checks to himself.

And this was a Christian. I was appalled. He was stealing from this widow.

He was going in under stealth and cover and using the logo, the name, the good reputation for his own glory. And yet that's the same picture we can do. We're bought with a price.

And we can come in under God's name and his gospel and then start trying to collect, right? Trying to collect some glory for ourselves. I had a client actually just move to me recently. And I asked him, what was the primary reason you moved to me versus staying with this other person? Because I want to make sure.

Anyway, and so he said, well, it really bothered me when he would come in and he'd be working for me and all of a sudden he'd whip out his computer and he'd start taking calls from other clients. And he'd never say to me, I'm not charging you right now. So I was always under this feeling like, is he charging me for his time for them while he's here? And that really bothered him.

It really bothered him that he was paying him as a contractor to come in, but yet he was doing things with other clients. Is that not the same thing? We're bought with a price. If we accept that and truly see that, that God has paid something.

And what was the price that he paid? The blood of his own son. If we really see that, that's much more than any monetary value. And yet we want to come in and do our own thing, bring our own glory.

He says in this verse, don't glorify yourselves, but glorify God. The response to the price is to glorify God. The number three, so cover nakedness.

Number two was to, that he wants us to glorify him with our bodies, which this stuff here is on our body, right? It brings attention to our body. Number three, Christians are not to follow the fads and the fashions of this world in their appearance. As brother Roger showed, we try to do that and what happens? It all comes to us.

I'd like to look at Romans 12 this morning to look at that concept. Romans 12 verse two. Once again, verse one's talking about being a sacrifice that we have been bought.

And so therefore we're returning that by being a living sacrifice. And I like how some translations translate to which is your reasonable, it says in King James service, but in some translations says, which is your reasonable worship. You want to come here and say you're worshiping God each morning, Sunday morning.

You'll prove it if you're walking as a living sacrifice. If you've bowed your will to his, if you've said not my glory, but yours. Verse two says, and be not conformed.

So part of being this living sacrifice is to not be conformed, but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is a good and acceptable, perfect will of God. Don't be conformed. I think of confirmation.

I had the funniest word. I think of conforming like a piece of, you've got a shape, right? And you take this Play-Doh and you kind of press it down over the top of that shape. And you kind of create that same shape with the Play-Doh.

It kind of follows that pattern. And that's what we do when we try to conform to the world. We try to become like it and follow its patterns and shapes.

He says, don't be conformed to the world. But he says, the answer is to be transformed. I found it interesting that conformed, the Greek word, I won't even try to pronounce it, but we get our English word schematic.

Now a schematic is a diagram that any electrician or somebody that's working on a piece of equipment, he looks at this washing machine and he's all these boards and transformers and resistors. And he gets out his electric schematic and sees how it all works. So don't be conformed.

Don't do the schemes, the schematic, you know, of the world, how they do everything. But be you transformed. We get our English word metamorphosis from this.

What is it? What's a metamorphosis? Where do we get metamorphosis? We think of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, an ugly, hideous, fat caterpillar that sits there and eats and eats and eats and eats to this beautiful, elegant, flying butterfly. That's the difference, transformed. And he gives the way by the renewing of your mind.

Some translations put it, don't copy the behaviors and the customs of this world. That's that thing. The world has behaviors and it has customs.

It has fashions. It has ways of thinking and doing things. And if we're honest, we are all, every one of us in this room is pressured into that.

And I admitted it last week after Roger preached. I'm pressured sometimes into not wanting to tell the gospel to somebody because it's strange. You know, it's just strange to walk up to somebody out of the blue and say to them, hey, you know, have you heard of Jesus Christ? And that's that pressure from the world.

Why? Because nobody else is doing stuff like that. Nobody else is walking through the airport with strange signs saying, are you right with God? I don't want to do that. That's strange.

That's the pressure of the world on us. And we have to be honest with it. The world wants us to conform.

It wants us to follow its patterns. So the answer is, how do we not be conformed? We have to be transformed. How do we do that? By the renewing of our mind.

And let me say, that is a daily thing. There are older people here that I could tell you right now. My wife, she still struggles probably each day with being, wanting to conform to the world.

I remember when we first started asking her to wear what she wears now. She said, I feel like a clown. I go around outside thinking I'm Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

And it's, yeah, it's true. There's testimony and testimony of that. To conform is to act in accordance with expectations, to behave in the matter of others, the manner, and especially as a result of social pressure.

While transform is to change greatly the appearance of form. So conforming is becoming like everybody and transforming is changing greatly to something else. Now, we live in a day, this is the ironic thing, that the devil wants everybody to think, oh, I'm going to be my own person.

I'm going to be an individual. And we think of individualism, right? But what's funny about it is, they're an individualist within a culture. Oh, I want to be my own person, so I'm going to dress like all these people.

And I'm going to be my own person, so I'm going to dress like all those rappers over there. Whatever it is, they're still cultures. There's still groups of people that are doing it like each other, but they're individual, right? So you're going to choose one of these things.

You can choose to join one of these cultures out there, or you can choose to be transformed. And there's still a culture. There's a Christian culture.

There's a godly culture that God is wanting us to behave. And following a culture isn't necessarily wrong. If you follow your own desires, you will end up like the world.

This verse says that we have to be changed by the renewing of our mind. If we follow what our mind says, it's going to lead us to the world. But we have to, the answer is, it takes Christ to change our mind to another, His mind.

Put you on the Lord Jesus Christ. What is the difference between being conformed and being transformed? Both of them require change. Both of them require you to conform either, or to transform, require some kind of change.

Both of them require submission. You can submit to the world and its ideas, which ultimately, its leader is the devil, or you can submit to God and His ideas. And both of them require, get this, someone else that you measure against, right? If we're honest, when we look at that culture and we say, oh, I want to be like that, we are measuring ourselves with that culture.

We want to be like them. So both of them require someone that we are measuring against, whether it's them or it's God. Now, in this verse, we just read, Romans 12, be not conformed.

There's only two times that this Greek word, which would be the one for schematic, shows up in the New Testament. The second time is in the book of Peter. First Peter, chapter one.

And I'll just read it to you. But it says this, 1 Peter 1, verse 14. As obedient children, not, now, instead of conformed, it uses fashioning.

Not fashioning yourselves according to your former lusts in your ignorance. So there was a time before we knew Christ that we had a lust, a strong desire, and we wanted to fashion ourselves according to that. But Peter's command is not to do that.

Not to form, to fashion ourselves. It's the same word for conform for the world's schematic. Not fashioning ourselves according to those former lusts which we walked in in our ignorance.

So see where there's a change. Okay, so we looked at conformity, and as you might have heard it before, non-conformity, and that's where we get the idea. We believe in non-conformity.

Well, what does that mean? It means, with shoe leather, that we don't believe in conforming ourselves to the fashions, the trends of the world. But we believe in transformity, right? Being transformed. Okay, let's look at 2 Corinthians now.

2 Corinthians. Here's another command about this whole issue of the world. We're not of the world, but yet we're in the world.

2 Corinthians 6, verse 17. This isn't right. I'm in Galatians, that's why.

2 Corinthians 6. In context, he's talking about not being unequally yoked. We can't be married to Christ and then married to something else. And verse 17, that command is, wherefore, come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you.

So the second thing I want to think about here under the world and its fashions is separation. Let's think about the word separate for a minute. Separate refers to a clear-cut division.

A clear-cut division. If I separate myself from something, I am dividing away from that. But not just from something, and we need to remember this, right? I'm not just separating myself from the world and now I'm just out here in nether, ether.

But I'm separating from the world and I'm separating to God. When a husband leaves his wife, he's not just leaving, I mean, sorry, his husband, even worse. When a husband leaves, thank you, his parents, he cleaves to his wife.

He doesn't just leave his parents and now has a bachelor for the rest of his life, right? And just in no man's land. He has a joy, his wife. So when he does that, he's not looking, can you imagine the poor, can you imagine Peter and Hannah? We all saw them get, not all, but some of us saw them get married.

Can you imagine if Peter was just coming up that aisle and he's just like, oh, now I think of all the things I can't do. Think of all the don'ts I have to follow now that I, no, he's walking down that aisle with glee and excitement for the wife he's gonna marry, right? And it's the same thing that should be for us. The gospel is the good news of Jesus, not the bad news of what you can't do, but the good news of Jesus and how we can walk with him, how we can know him.

So it implies separating from the world, but it implies separating to God. God has always wanted a holy people. And that's what he did by bringing us the new covenant, to separate, to set apart.

That's what sanctify means, to set apart a holy people. That's what saints mean. All the books start out with, to the saints, which are in Ephesus.

It doesn't start out with to the sinners, which are in Ephesus. To the saints, which means we're set apart for him, right? And so we don't focus on the negative don'ts. If we do, if our whole concept is, well, I can't wear that, and I can't wear this, and I can't put that certain pattern, and I can't, if that's how we walk around, you know what's gonna happen inevitably? We're gonna mix the two.

It's gonna be a mixing. We're gonna mix in our carnal desires and our flesh, and we're gonna mix in God, you know? And you think of that statue in the Old Testament, when it was mixed, some iron and some clay. You know, something that's mixed isn't strong.

It can't stand. And so we're gonna tend to wanna mix it. And if we neglect separation, we need to realize that it's not like you're gonna remain in neutral land.

If we neglect separation, we will slowly and steadily assimilate into the culture around us. Assimilate means become like, means conform. It becomes, they suck you in, and you become like them.

And so like 10 years ago, I was part of a bunch of house churches up in Washington, and we went up to visit for a wedding. And I was shocked how much had changed in 10 years among the very people that I had fellowshiped with. I was shocked.

And what's happening is there's an assimilation going on. They're being assimilated into the world. The devil likes to do it slowly, so we don't even necessarily see it, like you boil a frog in hot water.

So if we neglect this separation, it will lead subtly, but steadily, maybe slow, and subtly, deceptively, to assimilation. Look at the story of Ezra. If you remember the story of Ezra, if you went back to Ezra chapter nine, Ezra lamenting, and he says this, the people of Israel have not separated themselves.

And what does he say? They haven't separated themselves from the people of the land, the culture around them. They haven't. They were conforming into it.

They were being assimilated. They haven't separated from the people of the land, and what do they do? They're doing according to their abominations. That's what's happening around us.

We get sucked into the culture around us, as Roger had. All that stuff starts to get on us. We're no longer a clear testimony for Jesus because we're becoming like the world, and even the world will say, they shouldn't be doing that.

That's crazy when they have more sense than us. And so we get sucked in, and we see it right now going on. We see our leaders lying and all the atrocities, and yet they put it all under the Christian name, and the world's like, this is Christian? So Ezra, he says, they didn't separate themselves, and they did according to their abominations.

Intermarriages soon followed, and God's reproof, and the resulting was a very bitter grieving. Sometime go read that story of what happened there. Look at Lot.

Lot said, I want, he made some decisions for economical advantage. Remember when he stood there, and they were trying to decide which way to go, and Abraham said, I'll take this way. I'll take whatever way you don't wanna go.

Which way did he go? He went to the way that had some economical advantage, right? And what happened? It says he pitched his tent toward Sodom, a wicked, wicked town. Lot's choice had economical advantage, but Lot, instead of leaving an impact on that town, lost most of what was precious to him, barely escaping with his own life. This is what happens when we take lightly the culture around us, and we take lightly separation.

Now, we're in the world. We can't separate. We can't leave this world.

So somehow we have to do what Brother Roger said. We've gotta find a way to be in the world, but not of the world. I really was hoping, I thought maybe his illustration would be, a new heart would be, take the magnet out of there.

Maybe a little switch to turn it off or something. That'd been a neat illustration, because it could've gone right over the top of everything, and it wouldn't even have attracted him. And we're all working for that, right? That's what we really want.

1 John 2 says this. Let's look at that together, if you can, and can turn there, 1 John 2. and I'm gonna read it for you. It says, Love not the world.

I'm not even there, but I'm already starting to say it. Neither of the things that are in the world. 2.15. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.

If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world, If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

The world passes away, the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. What does it mean to love the world? What is the world referred to in these passages? How can you fulfill the injunction to be separate from the very world you live in? Notice this, it says, for all that is of the world, the lust of the flesh. Now the lust means a strong desire.

So let's put it this way, the strong desire of your body. What are some strong desires that our body has? Eat, that's a strong one. What's that? To be like those who are around.

Peer pressure. What are some other ones? To be liked by those who are around, okay? Yes. How about to do things that are prescribed for a marriage? You'll all have to fill in the blank there.

You know where I'm going. What about stimulation? Drugs, alcohol. The lust of the flesh, the strong desires of our flesh.

Entertainment. Okay, what about the lust of the eyes? What are some strong desires our eyes have? True. Anything we see and we want, right? Whether it be, you know, sometimes we think of the word lust and we think of, well that's the opposite sex.

Well, yeah, that could be it, but it also could be money. It could be status. Like you said, to be liked by somebody.

How I appear. The lust of the eyes can be looking at others and it can also be looking at ourself and wanting ourselves to look a certain way, right? To glorify. That's what we're fighting against.

And the pride of life. Think of some of the prides of life. Somebody just give me some areas where we might have pride in our life.

Fashion. Somebody else? Status. And you know, what's funny is we can find status in our job, right? Yeah, I'm a computer technician.

And so I'm gonna say all these really nice high-end terms to put you all in your place, right? Or we can go on the other. I'm a farmer. I would never think about computers, right? We can do it both ways.

We can play status, right? What other things could we do? How about your house? Right? I hope everybody sees, you know, we build our houses in such a way that everybody that drives by goes, whoa. Pickup trucks or the opposite end, electric cars, right? I would never be in a pickup. I'd be in an electric car.

Or the other way. The pride of life. Achievements, appearances, positions.

We'll do it. That's what our nature is. And even this, the devil even perverts it to another step, the very church you're in.

We're not like that church over there, right? We're not like them. And it's funny how we'll go both ways, right? Like we'll either take pride in our nice building or we could even take pride in our humble building. All those people who drive by, they'll see that we are really humble people.

It's crazy. It comes down to our heart. And that's why it says, don't judge anything before the time, because when Jesus returns, He will bring to light the hidden things of darkness.

He will bring to light those things in our heart that we're like, yeah, we're just a little better than hallsy men tonight, because look at our building, right? Or the other one, right? We're just a little better than them because we're this. Just fill in the blank. It's all pride and He will bring it to light, the hidden things of darkness, and He will make manifest the counsels of the heart.

You know, there's a little judgment going on. There's like a little council meeting in your heart and it's making decisions and it's leading you. Okay, so I'm gonna write these down so far.

The four principles so far was nakedness, cover nakedness, right? What was the second one? I Still can't hear you. Oh, right. I couldn't remember my own notes.

That's why I need to write it up here. Okay, what was the third? Fashions, right? Fads and fashions. We talked about being not conformed and being separate.

Okay, the last one is it should promote modesty. That's funny when we hear this, we all think of girls, right? We think of the two verses, oh, do not adorn yourselves with gold and pearls and and apparel and all of us guys all relax in our seats, right? This isn't our point. But I'm gonna bring in Menno Simons, never fear, because he said in a tract, I'll read you the whole tract.

Well, not the whole tract, but a portion of the tract. He says, They say they believe and yet, alas, there are no limits or their bounds to their accursed haughtiness, foolish pride, pomp, they parade in silks and velvet, costly clothes, gold rings, chains, silver belts, pins, buttons, curiously adorned shirts, shawls, collars, veils, aprons, velvet shoes, slippers, and such like finery. And they never regard that the exalted apostles Peter and Paul have in plain and express words forbiddenness all to Christian women.

And if forbidden to women, how much more to men who are the leaders and heads of their wives? Well, Menno Simons. This was an issue in their day, interestingly enough. In fact, in 1568, some Anabaptist group came up with the Strasbourg Discipline, and I think there were 26 line items on there, and two of them said this, Tailors and seamstresses shall hold to the plain and simple style and shall make nothing at all for pride's sake.

You know, sometimes we think of nonconformity and we think like, one of the downsides of nonconformity is we think, well, as long as I don't dress like them, then I'm fine. So I can wear my whatever it is that's different than them, and I'm fine. But notice their heart.

It was for pride's sake. And that could be done over here, too. Right? We could be sewing these dresses or doing all that and still have pride, and that in God's eyes is no different.

So I like how the early Anabaptists focused more on pride, and it came about the 20th century. It started changing to more on the word nonconformity. But the early guys talked a lot more about the pride of it.

Not sewing things for pride's sake. The second thing was brothers and sisters shall stay by the present form of regulation concerning apparel and make nothing for pride's sake. Two line items, one after the other, and both of them hit the heart of pride.

So what was I going with this? Promote modesty. So three words in this verse we just read. Did I read it? Sorry, I've lost myself.

Oh, it's up here. First Timothy, and like men are also that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, adorn modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety, and then it goes on with not with broided hair, gold pearls, costly array. So adorn shamefacedness, sobriety.

Soberness, shamefacedness, which is a kind of a bashfulness, not just an all-out there and just, you know, you meet somebody that's just super confident and boisterous. That's the opposite of shamefacedness. And adorn, decorating.

So when you ask these three words, adorn, shamefaced, and sobriety, and you cause everything you wear, pants, shirts, dresses, patterns of dresses, what you put on the dresses, hats, and yay, even, hairstyles, facial hairstyles. What else? There's got to be more. Okay, pass those three things to that little filter right there.

Is it, are you adorning? Are you decorating? Like you adorn a Christmas tree? Are you decorating with it? Are you, is it shamefaced? Is it sober? Ask yourself, do these three words describe your clothes, your hats, your hairstyles, and so on? Our nakedness is to be covered and concealed. Adornment, makeup, jewelry, draws attention. That violates the glory of God instead of bringing attention to myself.

Hairstyles fall in the same, similar category. Fashions of this world is part of enemy territory. It is our old man that is intrigued with its glitz.

Sensuality and immodesty are major issues in the area of dress, and so is gender distinction. Okay, so the last one was promote modesty. Does it promote modesty? Men and women, like Menno Simon said, how much more than men who lead their wives? The last thing I want to talk about before we close here is culture.

We talked about this at the beginning. There are cultures out there to choose, and I'll show you some pictures. I got some pictures of culture.

You ready? What do you think of when you, now let me ask this question. Do clothes communicate something? Do fashions and styles and hats and chains and all of that communicate something? Okay, I need some, I need some help. What does this communicate? Punk, okay, and what does that all communicate to you after that? What does punk communicate? Cool, okay.

Timothy doesn't think it's cool, at least in his culture. Rebellion, okay. Anti-authority.

By the way, do you see the sign he's making? I see this, I was looking for rap pictures this morning, which I don't recommend you do, but I had my wife sitting with me. But I just kept seeing this sign, and you know what's funny? As I see this sign among Anabaptists, they're taking pictures like this, and yet look what the world's doing. You know the hippies, they used to do this.

Peace, man. What did that, what did that all represent? Drugs, free love, no authority, rebellion, right? Peace. Wasn't this it, Mike? This was peace, right? I wasn't a hippie.

I was born after, but maybe this was more my generation. Look how he's got his hat, look at his sunglasses, his chain around, where he's grabbing his belt, his pants. Everything communicates something.

It communicates a culture. So does this guy. Does he, I mean, look at him.

He communicates something. Now, we don't need to judge him and say like he's for sure going to hell, you know, but we can learn from our own selves. Is this communicating a message of God's glory? Of I've bought with a price, I'm not bringing glory to myself? And look, everything, the way he even cuts his beard is communicating a message.

His hat, the way he wears it, the chain, everything is communicating a message. The signs he's doing, his body action, what's that? His posture, yeah, his posture. You're not gonna tell me what to do, right? Here's another one.

Right? I mean, does it communicate something? What about this guy? This is a little more acceptable, right? What is he communicating? Yeah, he's in control. Nobody, yeah, get her done. Nobody's gonna tell me what to do.

I got a ranch. Or this guy. Right, he used to have a marvelous little man, right? Maybe that's not accepted anymore, but.

So we can't say that clothes and culture doesn't communicate something because it does. I remember the very first time I was in a park up in Washington, and I'd been raised, you know, we've been raised with wearing skirts, and that it was a good thing, and I kind of rejected it, and we started, Stephanie and I, well, Stephanie started wearing pants, and I was up at the park, and I had the little boys, it would have been Timothy, the little boy and the little girl, that one, and they were playing around, and there was a woman, and she was dressed in a skirt. I mean, she just looked like a homeschooling mom.

I think it was a skirt and a shirt she had on. I don't remember exactly, but all I, she didn't even have a head covering on, but all I remember was, I think she's a Christian. There's something about this woman.

I think she's a Christian, and so I went up and talked to her, and sure enough, she was a Christian, and she might have homeschooled. I can't remember, and so I went home, and I said, that was so shocking to me, that her clothes communicated to me that she was a Christian, and she was set apart, and I went home to Stephanie. It was so mind-boggling that that was when I decided, let's start wearing that, because it communicates a message to people.

I remember when we, in a little home group, the lady started first wearing head coverings, and they'd go in a good will, and people would come up to them and say, would you pray for me? This, this, and that. Why are you asking me? Well, because it's communicating something. Okay, so, I got to finish this up.

So, dress communicates something. Now, I'm gonna let a Mennonite man say this, because I don't want to be stoned. You can go stone him, if you can find him, but part of this confusion we have in our settings, is because of the inconsistency of evidence, where they mix a traditionalism, or even spiritual reasons, with worldliness.

How about that look? Here's some shoe leather for you. This guy said, you might find a young man wearing a plain, long-sleeve, button-down shirt, under expensive Nike jacket. Now, what, see how that's mixing and sending confusing signals? Like, I'm playing.

I'm not gonna go spend a lot of money. I'm going to, I'm not gonna get caught up in the fads. I mean, even, even a better cause is to give that money I would have spent to the poor, but then I put on a Nike jacket at the top.

This is what he said, okay? Or how about this? Lady wearing a modest cape dress, while sporting a Hollywood hairstyle, on the part of the head that is not covered. So I was reading this article by a guy that was posted on Wikipedia about plain people, and this Mennonite man was bringing these things up. This is where confusion comes in.

So she's got a modest cape dress. She's got a covering on, and, but she's got some sporty Hollywood hairstyle coming out of the covering, like, right? Can you understand how the world would be like, huh? Or how about a preacher wearing a plain suit, is also wearing a stylish Western boots. He's in a plain coat and a plain suit.

I'm separate from the world, but yeah, I have Western boots on. Okay, so you stone him. So I want to talk a little bit, lastly, before, before we go into the conclusion that we have a culture here, and we're trying, we're probably making a lot of mistakes, but we're trying to to follow these injunctions, to be separate, to not conform to the world.

We're trying to be in the world, but not of the world. We're trying to reject the fashions, and just like when I married my wife, I said yes to her. I was saying no to a lot of things.

We're trying to say the same thing here as brothers. We're saying yes to the gospel, and so therefore we're saying no to some fashions, and fads, and individualistic looks, because we want to keep it just like a school would do. There's a reason that almost all the schools in Belize, and schools used to here, have dress codes.

People would come, and wear all the same thing. Why? So they wouldn't have this problem with one-upping each other, one-upping each other, right? Dress codes help us to just get along, and not try to compare each other. Of course, it's always about the heart behind there.

The military has a dress code for a reason. I'm not suggesting that we need to get all now coming with plain, no patterns, and you know, everybody better have white shirts on next week, and you better bring a plain coat. That's not what I'm suggesting, but what I'm trying to say is every brotherhood has a realm of what we're trying to practice, an acceptable realm, and I remember when I was up at Eastern for a year there, and one of the ministers, I was still trying to get and understand why they all dress the same way, and he said, if you look out from my back behind, everybody has, at Eastern, they allow pattern.

Some churches don't allow pattern, but they allow pattern dresses. He said, if you look out among them, nobody's pattern is especially one way, or especially the other. They just kind of blend in, and I, though I'm not saying we need to become strict like that, but what I'm saying is there's a heart of just blending in, just being content when we come here to just be like each other, and not need to one-up each other, not need to, oh, when you're picking that fabric, oh, I'd stick out with this.

My wife had a dress for a while that was, she never thought twice about it, and I liked it. I thought it was a pretty dress, and one day she realized that it kind of stuck out compared to all the other ladies in our church, just kind of was a little bit on the edge, and she just thought, you know, why, you know, I don't need to be the edge runner, the border pusher. You know, that's what we need.

We just need content. Let's just be content to be in the center. Why do we need to be on the edges, pushing, pushing the edges, you know, trying to always push, because you know what happens when you push, then now you're not happy with this line, and you push, now you're not happy with this line, and pretty soon, where does the line go? So, so in conclusion, what I'm trying to get at here is that we have a temptation to stand out.

Let's just be honest. We have a temptation to want to wear a certain kind of clothes to stand out, to pick a certain kind of fabric, to cut my beard in such a way, or to cut it and leave portions of it, long sideburns, for example, or certain stylish mustaches, or we have a way that we want to, we want to stand out, and we want to join, instead of just being content not to do those things. So fashions are a lure to the Christian.

They're an ever-present danger that wants to distract us from God. This is conclusion, and I hope we saw that, that it is not just a little thing. It's an iceberg.

Maybe it looks a little on the top. Oh, clothes, you know, fake deal. It's an iceberg underneath.

There's a reason it's a billion-dollar, trillion-dollar business, because the world knows that fashion is a way to get our hearts. Number two, it starts in our hearts. It comes down to our pride and desiring of wanting to be known as somebody, and we can do that even in plain settings, and that's sad, but that's our hearts.

Number three, ask yourself this, are your clothes and your styles representing the God you serve, or are they representing your desires? Number three, the solution is not, or fourth, is not to see do's and don'ts, but to see God like Peter saw his wife, right? He was enamored. He's excited. See God, that he paid the price, and that he desires worship, and he desires fellowship, and the way to get there is to be transformed by the renewing of our mind.

The more we read, the more we pray, the more we seek the Lord. He'll show us, just like he showed my wife. You know, maybe that's just not the best one there.

And number five is having a culture and a church can be a good thing. Are you content in that culture, or are you what I would consider a border pusher? Are you out on the edges trying to constantly push the newest thing? So I hope I got the point across that it's, please don't see it as a list of do's and don'ts, but more a list of giving God the glory with our lives. Thank you, and God bless you.