All right. If you're all cold there, especially in the back, do feel free to close the door. Or if you're hot, turn the heater down. Amen? As long as our hearts are hot. Amen? For the Lord? Amen. All right. We got two revived people. Praise the Lord. Amen. Let's have our hearts hot for the Lord. As we are coming close to the conclusion of our discipleship series, with a few interruptions to be sure, we've taken a little bit of our time here. And I do want to encourage you, if you are able to, go back to our YouTube channel or Sermon Audio channel. and go back through all those lessons in our discipleship series to get the whole scope of the teaching there. But my desire, my prayer is that the Lord would bring us to spiritual maturity in Christ. Amen. That we be more and more conformed into His image. And as we seek to mature in Christ and move from being a baby Christian to becoming a mature saint of God that is equipped to serve the Lord in the different areas of their life, we want to lay out every part of our life and surrender to the Lord Jesus, to our precious Savior, and say, Lord, what will thou have me to do? Right? Lord, what instructions, what commandments, what guidance or principles in your word apply to this part of my life, to that part of my life, whether it be my finances, my relationships, all the different choices that we make, our schedules, every part of our life. In all things, Christ ought to have the preeminence. Amen? He ought to have the first place. And he ought to have the right to tell me what to do or not to do. as a believer imam and after all he's bought us with his precious blood and he loves us he knows what is best for us much better than we even do and so this morning i i want to address one of those areas of our life that uh ought to uh be included in our surrender to the Lord and in searching the Scriptures for principles and commandments that the Lord gives us, and we ought to apply them if we want to mature in our Christian walk with the Lord. Now having said that, I do want to give you a little bit of a heads up. Sometimes we may not like everything that the Word of God tells us. And not everyone may appreciate what we're going to be studying this morning, but that's okay, because the Bible says, Great peace have they which love thy law, and nothing shall offend them. Amen? And matter of fact, we're going to study 1 Corinthians 11 there in a little bit, and Paul makes it very clear there, hey, if you want to be contentious, we have no such custom in the churches of God. Amen? And the fact of the matter is, at the end of the day, your obedience to the Word of God is between you and your Savior. Amen? And as a teacher and preacher of the Word of God, just to let you know, the last desire that I would ever have is to try to tell you what to do around your life. But it is my calling from the Lord, though, to show you from the Word of God what the Scripture says. And what you do with that is going to be between you and your Lord. Amen? So having said that, we want to look into Genesis chapter 3 this morning, and right at the beginning of our Scripture here, and see what does God, what is God's Word speak on regards on our dress, our clothing. How does God want me to dress? Does He even care what I wear? Is that any concern, any matter to God at all? Does God care about my clothing? Well, the Bible, in the Bible God talks about clothing hundreds of times. I think it's over 600 times. And so, It is obviously something that is of some significance to him, if he refers to dress and clothing so many times. In fact, I believe we would have to be quite ignorant of a lot of what the Bible says, including in the New Testament, if we would claim, well, God couldn't care less about what you wear. that is just not the testimony of scripture. And we see that here beginning right in Genesis chapter 3 where we see God giving mankind their clothing. Interesting, isn't it? I mean, doesn't God have better things to do, like running the universe or saving souls and whatnot? And sure he does. And you know, some of those things are, of course, of much more impact and significance, alright, than your fashion choices, but As we want to surrender every part of our life as a maturing Christian to the Lord, we want to conform our life in every area, including where we communicate with our clothing into this world, to line up with the Word of God and God's desires. God gives mankind clothing here in Genesis 3 verse 21 as a covering. as a covering. Genesis 321, unto Adam also and to his wife that the Lord God make coats of skins and clothed them. Before that they had attempted to cover up themselves as they had recognized their nakedness after sin entered in and they chose sin and that was obviously insufficient and the Lord chose to give mankind clothing. The first thing that was affected by sin entering into the world was mankind's clothing. I find that very interesting, wouldn't you think? And of course, you know, we see all the different fallouts there with the relationship between man and woman, and work, and the sweat of thy brow thou shalt work, and the pains of labor, and all these things. But clothing is one of the first things there. Now, if that is of interest and importance to God, I think we'd be ignorant to think that Satan wouldn't have an interest in controlling that in our life as well, wouldn't you think? Right? And God, though, gave clothing here for the purpose of covering. I think it's very important that we understand and acknowledge that clothing is a language. Clothing is a form of communication. It sends a social message into the world that we live in. It's a fashion statement, as it's so many times called. The dictionary defines fashion as a prevailing mode of expression. It says that every article of clothing carries a cultural or social meaning. And humans must know that code in their social and cultural context in order to recognize the message transmitted. I'll be honest with you, for a bigger part of my life, especially growing up as a teenager and young adult, I really didn't like the fact that I communicate things about myself, with my clothing and I almost rebelled against that. But you know what, I had to acknowledge the fact of the matter is how we carry ourselves, how we present ourselves sends messages, whether we like it or not. Whenever we look in the Bible on, Lord, what do you want me to do about this part or that part of my life? We first of all find that there's some broader general principles that the Bible gives us. Not every time do we find for every detail of our lives, thou shalt or thou shalt not. And we don't need to either. Spiritual maturity, part of that, means that we learn to identify and recognize the principles in Scripture and God's general guidelines, so to speak, and then through the wisdom of the Holy Spirit to apply them in our 21st century in the different eras of our life. Those who constantly seek to have it written black and white, thou shalt or thou shalt not, and otherwise I won't bother doing it, They're really not spiritually mature. They're really not seeking to apply the principles of Scripture and surrender to the Word of God in every year of their life. One example that we see is 1 Peter 1, verse 14. 1 Peter 1, verse 14 and 15. The New Testament believer there is instructed as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance. But as he which hath called you is holy, so be you holy in all manner of conversation. In other words, fashioning there is obviously referring much more to than just your clothing choices. But the fact of the matter is, it remains that we are to shape all the areas of our life, all manner of conversation, according to God's principles of holiness. Now that stands in 100% contrast to what the world wants us to do. We're being advertised each and every day online and all around us with a billion dollar industry. I think sometimes as believers we're blissfully ignorant of the realities we live in, and I have anyways for a long time. until I asked the Lord in search of scriptures, Lord, do you care about this? Lord, what do you want me to do about my clothing choices in life? Where I realized, well, the world sure thinks it's quite significant. They're spending billions and billions of dollars and making billions of dollars each year on what we wear. And so obviously they have a great influence and a great interest in that. And for some reason, many times we as believers, we just want to ignore that or we're not willing to acknowledge that. The world knows what they're doing. The world has morals, philosophies, spiritual agendas that they're openly and loudly propagate and communicate with the fashion they promote, they push. They're not denying that or hiding that in any way, shape or form. And so we need to be willing to not close our eyes to that reality. General principles such as Romans 12. To yield our bodies as a living sacrifice to the Lord. And many other verses as well that we have here we could list. But I want to just identify four main purposes for our clothing and things that we communicate in one way or another. Now, this is really just a really general overview here this morning, right, because of the time constraints that we have. And I might, Lord willing, maybe do a multiple serious, multiple messages serious on a Sunday night here sometime soon in regards to principles of biblical modesty for the main reason that most churches these days do not care enough about their church family about the truth of the Word of God and about how it affects us spiritually and the message we send in the world to teach and preach on that from the Word of God. And it's really sad. And that's why if we want to be Bible believers, we need to be willing to do it and preach the whole counsel of God's Word. Amen? And so, by no means will we be able to answer any and all questions and concerns or arguments this morning, alright? But I just want to give us a general overview, a general idea of what we find in the Scriptures about this. The first thing that we find is the purpose of clothing is identification, right? So, for example, you see the priests, and specifically a high priest, having certain specific clothing that identifies them in their ministries. The kings wore certain things. A soldier or police officer or doctor today, you know, with the white coat, you know, those are things that identify them as a doctor or as a policeman, right, and so forth. So we use clothing for identification purposes. And again, we see that all throughout scripture. I could give you verses of examples for that. But secondly, we see clothing being used for protection as well. For example, when you put on a winter coat, right? You do that to keep warm. Or you may put on a hat to prevent sunburn, right? Or a A soldier would put on some kind of armor, right? To protect against injury or a welder would have a helmet or gloves or whatever, right? And so, that's for example where we see in Ephesians 6 the whole armor of God. That is a spiritual teaching there, a spiritual reference of the physical idea people were familiar with that, well, a soldier wears certain clothing for protection, right? Identification, protection, The third one is modesty, modesty. Now that word modesty is severely misunderstood these days, unfortunately, and we're going to look into this a little bit further. We see that mentioned specifically there in the New Testament of 1 Timothy chapter 2. There's other verses of Scripture as well, but again, we're just giving a general overview here this morning. I won't be able to go into all the details and all the many verses we could apply here. But in 1 Timothy chapter 2, the Apostle Paul here is writing to a New Testament church, and he has different instructions for the old men, the young men, and all the different parts of that New Testament church. And so here he says in 1 Timothy 2 verse 9, "...in like manner also that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety." not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array, but which become with women professing godliness with good works. And we're gonna define some of these things a little bit more yet, but let me just give a general definition here of what is being expressed in modest apparel, shamefacedness, sobriety, and so forth. And we could describe that as, especially when we cross-reference that with 1 Peter 3, verses 1 to 5 there. That's an important passage as well, 1 Peter 3, verses 1 to 5. We see there that modesty always starts in the heart. Right? That's super important. Modesty is first and foremost not just about how we present ourselves outwardly. It always starts in the heart. And so modesty then is a heart's desire to please God and not to promote self. Modesty refers to being covered or to have proper and appropriate clothing. It talks about being not indecent. And if we look into what shamefacedness is there, it's a really completely lost virtue these days in the world. And it's really given the idea of that we want to avoid any undue attention or sexual attraction to our body. We really want to emphasize and put the attention and the attraction of the inner man or inner woman, amen, and of a godly heart. So we have identification, we have protection, we have modesty, and the fourth one is distinction. Distinction. Now, that one is getting exceedingly more important, I think, as we go through these last days, these end times, and the confusions that come with it. I want us to first turn to Genesis 1, verse 27, please. Genesis 1, verse 27. where we see God making a distinction between the sexes right from the beginning. Genesis 1 verse 27. Now this should be simple enough to understand, but You know, sadly, this world has very rebellious hearts against God's creation order. Now, by the way, in the New Testament, the Lord Jesus Christ repeats that same timeless moral principle and creation order. For example, Mark 10, verse 6. He says, but from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female. Amen? Now, I find it interesting here how our Bible faithfully translates these words of the Lord Jesus Christ, and He's not just saying that God made them man and woman. but rather male and female. In other words, that a man has male characteristics that are distinct to being a man, and a woman has female characteristics that are distinct to being a woman, and that express themselves as a man being a man and a woman being a woman. Now we see then in the Old Testament, in the Law of Moses, a very interesting commandment there in Deuteronomy 22, verse 5. Deuteronomy 22, verse 5, and this is a statement that is often quite misunderstood. And Lord willing, we may go at another time into much more detail in this. But again, we just want to give a general overview here this morning, all right? So if I can't answer all of your questions, please don't fret about that, all right? And again, this is a matter of spiritual maturity, all right? I think I can absolutely honestly before the Lord say that I seriously couldn't care less what you wear. That's just not something on my mind at all. I don't look at those things. I honestly can say that before the Lord. It's just not something I personally care about. It's not something that's on my mind. And I have never and never will, before the Lord, I have never and never will think about anyone differently in any which way because of what they wear or not wear. But, having said that, at the same time, we ought to ask ourselves, what does the Lord want? What does He think? And I want to learn, if I'm not lining up in some area of my life with the Word of God and with His principles and desires, hey, that's okay. We can learn. We can change, even. We can grow. God forbid that we would ever be a Christian or ever be a church that thinks, well, we got it all figured out. We have all the answers. We're not going anymore. That'd be terrible. That'd be spiritual death. So then Deuteronomy 22 verse 5, we see this interesting commandment there given by Moses when he says, "...the woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment. For all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God." Now that last phrase is quite a strong statement that we need to understand in its context. Abomination unto the Lord refers to a timeless moral principle that expresses God's great dislike or disgust or sometimes even distation in regards to a specific sin. When you see that specific phrase, abomination unto the Lord, you need to take notice because that always refers in scripture to some of God's moral laws that stand forever, all right? There's other things such as breaking the Sabbath or many other things that God may call an abomination unto you, speaking to Israel, That's a different context, alright? That's within the ritual laws of Moses to Israel, alright? We're not under the law of Moses anymore, praise the Lord, alright? Jesus Christ took care of that for us. But we still have timeless moral principles that the Lord has given us all throughout Scripture. And that we see from the Old Testament go into the New Testament, and we'll see this here in a minute. And so examples of those abomination unto the Lord, those moral principles would be idolatry, witchcraft, fornication. and confusion regarding the distinction of the male and female, hypocrisy, pride, all these things refer to those abominations unto God. We see here in Deuteronomy 22 verse 5 then, and we'll see how this connects to the New Testament here in a minute, we see how God obviously infers that there is clothing that belongs to a woman and that there's garments that belong to a man and that those two things can somehow be separated. They can be identified and they are distinct. Now thankfully, God doesn't specifically list these things here. Because otherwise, you know, we may have to consider wearing fashion from thousands of years ago. But that's the beauty of God's principles. God doesn't need to go around and have a whole truckload of thou shalt's and thou shalt not's of laws. If we want to be spiritually mature, we're led by the Spirit of God, we're going to ask the Lord, Lord, what is your principle, your guideline? And then I want to follow that as much as I can, not as little as I have to. See, that's the difference between keeping the law of Moses and between spiritual maturity in the New Testament. And so when we look at this distinction in garments, between women's garments and that which pertains to men, men's garments, we need to ask ourselves, what is the Lord's intention here of this principle? Is it to be as much distinct as possible? Or is it as little distinct as necessary? What's the Lord's intention here? I think it's quite obvious that the Lord wants to make a clear distinction, a clear separation between that which is belonging to a woman and which is female characteristics and that which belongs to man and which is male, the characteristic of male. Now, then of course we need to apply that within our specific cultural context. And, you know, whichever culture or timeline in history we may live on, we need to apply this distinction in clothing as well. And if that doesn't exist in our culture, well, then we need to make it. But the fact of the matter is, God wants men to look like men, and he wants women to look like women. And so there is, there must be some kind of way that he wants that to be distinct. So, then we need to ask ourselves, would it be strange, for example, if, let's say, I, as a man, would come up here to preach in a dress or a skirt? Would anybody find that weird? Well, I sure hope so. Well, why? Well, is it maybe because that is something that is characteristic that would be distinctly female? What would that then bring us in regards to concluding what the Lord's intention may be in regards to doing the opposite for a woman to put on the clothing of men and in particular in regards to pants. How can we please the Lord in this? How can we be as clearly distinct in regards to men wearing men's garments that are modest and women wearing women garments that are modest? Now, let me hasten to say here, I don't think for one second that there's a single God-fearing Christian, man or woman for that matter, that goes around and say, oh, how can I be somehow rebelling against God's moral laws here? I don't think that for a second. I think many times we just do whatever's comfortable, whatever we're used to, whatever we've been taught in the world, right? And we may have never even thought about it much, but the Lord thinks about it. But, having said that, we can grow beyond that. Amen? And, you know, we love Psalm 23. That's in the Old Testament, right? And we love so many other verses in the Old Testament, you know, or the Ten Commandments. And we'd say, well, the Ten Commandments are irrelevant for us because they're in the Old Testament. No, no, of course they are. And so then why would we want to discount other verses that are clearly set as timeless moral principles, not just specific ritual laws to Israel, when we consider that all scriptures give my inspiration of God and is profitable for the New Testament believer. And so I think it would help us if we're willing as Christians to say, you know what? God has taught us to be different from this world. Why would I not want to be different from the world? Why would I want to be afraid of that? After all, am I not seeking to please God and not man? So at the end of the day, I need to ask myself, who do I want to please most? the expectations and fashion dictates of the world around me, or the principles of modesty and distinction for men and women in regards to what I communicate about myself and about the Lord through my clothing. Because here's the thing, even though you or I, if we're If we haven't learned about this distinction yet, if you or I would go out and dress in non-distinct ways, I don't think for one second, again, that we're trying to disobey the Lord there in any way and break this principle here. But the fact of the matter is the world does that very, very purposefully and very, very distinctly. The world has invented and has broken down the walls of distinction between men's fashion and women's fashion more and more, loudly and expressly, and I could give you many, many quotes, with the intention of making men into women and women into men. Historically, there can be no doubt about that. The world is very clear about that. They've never tried to hide that. It's just somehow as believers, many times we just want to ignore that fact. And so I think as a godly man and as a godly woman, We'd rather want to be identified by following Christ's principles, amen? And rather to be as distinct as possible, not as little. And when we look at the last 50 or so to 100 years of the introduction of specifically pans for women, We can't deny the fact that that has gone hand-in-hand with a shocking decline in modesty in women clothing as well, and has gone hand-in-hand with the rejection of biblical femininity in general and rebellion against God-ordained roles for men and women. And so here's just an idea I want to give you, and I don't mean that in any in any way is an offensive statement in any way. But here's just an idea. You know, so many times believers ask me, Pastor, what can we do? What can we do against the rainbow movement? And you know what I'm talking about. Well, here's one thing we can do as believers, I believe. We can rebel against those dictates and fashions of the world in as loud and clear way as possible and make sure that we really dress as manly as possible for men and that we really dress as female and modestly as possible for women. and send a loud and clear message there that, no, we will not be part of the world's agenda. And we don't mean to unintentionally support that, be part of it, or follow that deception in any way whatsoever. And we will take a stand against any kind of unisex fashion. I want to close by going to the New Testament here. There's much more I have, but we're almost out of time. In 1 Corinthians chapter 11, we've already mentioned how the Lord Jesus Christ continued the distinction between male and female into the New Testament. But then in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, really the whole first part of the chapter would be interesting to study in regards to the New Testament view of God's creation order between male and female. But just verse 14 there, 1 Corinthians 11, verse 14. Verse 15. for her hair is given her for a covering. But if any men seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God. Amen. And so we see there that we see that principle continued in the New Testament that God does actually care about what we communicate through our outward appearance, even about something as seemingly insignificant like my haircut. I mean, why would God care about that? Well, it appears that he does, at least to some degree. And why? Well, because he knows that the agenda of the world is to break down the wonderful, the beautiful things that God has created. The things that are precious, that are worth protecting. And the beauty in the distinction between men being men and looking and dressing and acting like men and godly women being women and being female and being distinct and modest and godly in their hearts The world and the enemy of God wants to undermine that. And so that's why the Lord gives us these different examples and these different principles. And it starts all the way from creation throughout the Old Testament, all the way carries without question, I believe, into the New Testament where you and I live as well. And we could, of course, read there as well 1 Timothy 2, verses 9 and 10, as we did already, as well as 1 Peter 3, verses 2 to 5. 1 Peter 3, verses 2 to 5. And as I mentioned, we may do a whole study series on that, maybe on a Sunday night or something here in the near future, Lord willing. But let me just read to you here real quick some of the principles, and I would love to study this out more in detail, but we'll do it some other time, Lord willing. Some biblical principles we can find in the scriptures regarding Christian apparel in public. By the way, what you wear in your bedroom or in the privacy of your home, of your own four walls, and what a husband and a wife wear in their privacy, that's, you know, that's nobody's business. But we're talking about the message we're giving out here into the world publicly. Number one, again, we've already seen God intended clothing to cover our naked body. Our clothing needs to be loose-fitting and cover us from the neck and the shoulders down. And we have the example there in Exodus 28, for example, in how God ordained for the high priest to be clothed. Number two, our clothing should be clearly gender specific. Women are not to wear men's clothing, such as pants, and men are not to wear women's clothing, such as dresses and skirts. God desires ladies to look feminine and men to look like men. Amen? We've already mentioned that. Number three, our clothing should be clearly modest. Just because it's a skirt or a dress doesn't necessarily make it modest. The same for the men, by the way. Men need to learn modesty as well. We need to get a new sense of shamefacedness as well, men, by the way. That we don't want to just take our shirt off in public in front of other people or such things. Clothing should not display or advertise the body in any way. And I have a whole study on that. But number four, modest apparel should not expose the thigh or higher. In other words, it covers, the clothing ought to cover us at least down to our knees, whether it's standing or running or sitting. And we see that there in an example that the prophet mentions in Isaiah 47, as well as, again, in Exodus chapter 28, just to give you some examples. And so let me mention this again. Modesty is first and foremost a matter of the heart that then gets expressed and reveals itself in my clothing choices. Clothing number five should be clearly pleasing to God. That's what ultimately matters. And it ought to come out of a heart that seeks to be pure, that seeks to be submissive and meek, and loves the Lord. As Christians, we should not be afraid to be different than the unbelieving world around us. Now, listen to this. Modest clothing, whether it be for men or women, does not necessarily mean doughty or ugly. Modest does not mean we have to run around like the 1500s. That's not what the Word of God says. We can apply those principles even in the 21st century fashion. But modest does mean decent covering and well-arranged or nice. And lastly, number six, a godly lady specifically, and by the way, this phrase modest apparel and shamefacedness is mentioned specifically only in the context of woman's apparel. refers to that clothing should not draw attention of men to the physical appearance in an unduly way, whether that be tight-fitted clothing or low-cut or transparent, and clothing that would accent the figure in a way that would be would be revealing. We could give examples of that. We have several scripture verses about that as well. Now, by the way, just let me be sure about that. That does not excuse men sinning in their eyes and their heart. That's up to them to decide and to obey the Lord in that. So let me be very clear there. The men carry the responsibility for their own decisions, but so do the godly women in wanting to please the Lord and honor Him in how all of us give ourselves in public. So I think that's all we can look for this morning because we're out of time. There's so much more I could have covered, but we'll maybe do that some other time. And feel free to talk to me. Give me a call throughout the week or so if you do have questions about your clothing. But let's just close in prayer. I want to ask you, Lord, you'd help us. Lord, you'd help me, Father, to please you in every era of my life. Lord, truly, you're worthy. Lord, truly, you do deserve it. Lord, it's a reasonable service, to be sure, to yield our bodies as a living sacrifice to your control. And dear Father in heaven, I pray that most of all we will walk with you, Lord. Lord, that our hearts will be submitted and tended towards you. And Lord, that we would be willing to be different from this world, and Lord, we would be willing to be this holy people in an unholy world, Lord, that You've called us to be a testimony and to glorify You. We pray You bless this service to come, Father, and we ask this in Jesus' name.