Why Did God Make Me Unattractive?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | Today's question is anonymous.
00:00:06.920 | Whether it's from a man or from a woman, I don't know.
00:00:09.440 | Here it is.
00:00:10.280 | Pastor John, why did God make some people ugly
00:00:12.960 | and unattractive?
00:00:14.280 | How can I accept the fact that God,
00:00:15.880 | though capable of making me beautiful,
00:00:18.320 | or at least average looking,
00:00:20.120 | chose to create me in an unattractive manner?
00:00:24.040 | As an unattractive person myself,
00:00:25.600 | I can say life is tough for us.
00:00:27.360 | Our opinions and ideas are most often sidelined.
00:00:30.320 | We have it tough in offices and schools and colleges.
00:00:33.420 | I can't express in words how difficult it is
00:00:35.680 | to be confident.
00:00:37.160 | This is straining my relationship with God.
00:00:39.900 | Clearly in the Bible, there are some features
00:00:41.640 | described as examples of beauty.
00:00:43.460 | I count dozens of verses in the Bible
00:00:45.360 | that speak of physical beauty.
00:00:47.600 | Moses was a fair and beautiful child.
00:00:49.960 | We see that in Exodus 2-2 and Hebrews 11-23.
00:00:53.120 | David was ruddy and handsome in appearance,
00:00:56.000 | 1 Samuel 17-42.
00:00:57.960 | Esther had a beautiful figure and was lovely to look at,
00:01:01.760 | Esther 2-7.
00:01:03.160 | Absalom had thick hair and from the sole of his foot
00:01:06.560 | to the crown of his head, there was no blemish in him,
00:01:09.540 | 2 Samuel 14-25.
00:01:11.860 | Now, I know God is concerned about what we do
00:01:13.800 | with our bodies and he cares about our bodies.
00:01:16.560 | So why does he make some of us so unattractive?
00:01:20.800 | When I hear a question like this, it makes me groan.
00:01:26.040 | Partly because I can count on three fingers,
00:01:29.720 | maybe less, the people who have ever called me ugly
00:01:34.720 | or handsome.
00:01:37.860 | In other words, I groan because I know I'm being asked
00:01:43.740 | to speak to a sorrow that I've never tasted.
00:01:48.160 | It would be so much easier for me to just ignore
00:01:52.300 | this question because I know that when I'm done,
00:01:56.360 | many people would have the right to say,
00:01:58.680 | but you've never experienced this.
00:02:01.600 | And that's true.
00:02:02.540 | Another reason it makes me groan to hear a question
00:02:06.700 | like this is that I know that what this person calls ugly
00:02:11.700 | is the tip of the iceberg of human suffering
00:02:16.440 | when it comes, for example, to horrific deformities.
00:02:21.800 | The kinds of dreadful disfigurements that in another age
00:02:26.800 | would be exploited in what were often advertised
00:02:31.340 | as freak, human freak shows.
00:02:34.860 | And then there are the kinds of diseases
00:02:38.260 | that produce hideous malformations and growths
00:02:43.260 | and cankerous, open, unhealable flesh.
00:02:46.900 | And then there are ghastly wounds that leave a person
00:02:51.280 | in pain the rest of their lives, disabled, unsightly.
00:02:56.240 | So as I try to say something biblical,
00:03:02.220 | which is all I have any claim to say
00:03:05.240 | as far as helpfulness or authority goes,
00:03:08.480 | I have all of that in mind.
00:03:11.160 | I see this question about ugliness as a species
00:03:16.720 | of a larger question about disfigurement and disease
00:03:21.320 | and deformity and injury.
00:03:25.060 | And if anyone thinks this is not relevant for them,
00:03:27.920 | keep in mind that you may not start life ugly,
00:03:33.320 | but you may well spend the last year curled up
00:03:37.140 | like in a fetal position,
00:03:39.600 | weighing 80 pounds and wearing a diaper.
00:03:42.800 | Very few people escape the relevance of this question
00:03:46.960 | at some point.
00:03:48.440 | I think the deepest answer to the question
00:03:51.080 | why there is so much ugliness and deformity
00:03:55.400 | and injury and disability and misery in the world
00:04:00.400 | is found in Romans 8, 18 to 23.
00:04:04.480 | I don't think it gets any more helpful or important,
00:04:08.520 | profound than these verses.
00:04:10.280 | So I want to read the whole thing,
00:04:12.800 | making comments as I go,
00:04:14.380 | because I think this paragraph is worth meditating
00:04:19.040 | on the rest of your life.
00:04:21.400 | Here's what he says.
00:04:22.240 | This is Paul in Romans 8, 18.
00:04:25.440 | "I consider that the sufferings of this present time,"
00:04:30.440 | now I'm going to include in that
00:04:34.320 | every form of ugliness or disfigurement,
00:04:38.480 | and you'll see why I include it
00:04:41.020 | in this word sufferings as we go on.
00:04:44.280 | "I consider that the sufferings of this present time
00:04:47.160 | are not worth comparing with the glory
00:04:50.440 | that is to be revealed to us."
00:04:52.660 | So the fundamental hope of Christianity
00:04:55.560 | is suffering now, glory later.
00:04:58.560 | Suffering now, glory later.
00:05:01.140 | Now, what kind of suffering?
00:05:03.560 | Verse 19, "For the creation waits with eager longing
00:05:08.560 | for the revealing of the sons of God."
00:05:13.060 | Now, take note,
00:05:15.040 | this is not persecution suffering primarily here.
00:05:18.360 | This is creation-based suffering.
00:05:20.880 | "The creation waits with eager longing
00:05:23.320 | for the revealing of the sons of God,
00:05:25.000 | for the creation was subjected to futility,
00:05:28.720 | not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope."
00:05:33.120 | Now, who's that?
00:05:34.200 | That's God, because only God subjects the creation in hope.
00:05:38.680 | The devil doesn't do that, sinful man doesn't do that.
00:05:41.560 | Only God subjects the creation to futility in hope.
00:05:46.560 | So this is a reference to the fall, Genesis 3,
00:05:50.920 | the fall into sin and the consequent miseries
00:05:54.680 | that were brought into the world.
00:05:56.760 | All the horrific consequences of sin,
00:06:00.340 | including every disfigurement, every injury,
00:06:03.280 | every disability, every catastrophe.
00:06:06.240 | And so he says, "God subjected the creation to that in hope."
00:06:11.240 | What hope?
00:06:12.880 | Verse 21, "The hope that the creation itself
00:06:17.600 | will be set free from its bondage to corruption."
00:06:21.600 | Now, that's just another phrase for subjection to futility.
00:06:26.240 | So you get subjection to futility and bondage to corruption.
00:06:30.940 | Corruption, the word, decay, ruination, futility, horrors.
00:06:35.940 | And obtain, continuing now with the description of the hope,
00:06:40.180 | and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
00:06:44.420 | So the physical world, the creation, including our bodies,
00:06:49.420 | will share in the glory God has destined for his children.
00:06:54.340 | Verse 22, "For we know that the whole creation
00:06:58.400 | has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth
00:07:02.860 | until now."
00:07:04.460 | What an image.
00:07:06.100 | This is another way of saying subjected in hope.
00:07:10.220 | It's as if the creation is pregnant,
00:07:12.980 | and all the pain and misery and disfigurement
00:07:15.700 | are like cosmic birth pangs.
00:07:18.320 | A mother crying out in pain, a world in labor.
00:07:23.460 | Verse 23, "And not only the creation, but we ourselves."
00:07:28.460 | Now, here's where it gets really personal.
00:07:32.060 | "Not only the creation, but we ourselves,
00:07:35.660 | who have the first fruits of the Spirit."
00:07:37.740 | And you can hear Paul responding to people here who say,
00:07:40.540 | "Look, I'm saved, I'm redeemed, I'm forgiven.
00:07:43.660 | I'm a child of God, I have the Spirit of God in me.
00:07:46.000 | How can it be going so bad for me?"
00:07:48.540 | And he's drawing attention to that.
00:07:50.140 | Yes, you too, you too groan inwardly
00:07:53.260 | as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons.
00:07:57.940 | And here's the phrase, "The redemption of our bodies."
00:08:01.620 | That covers the whole waterfront of aging miseries,
00:08:06.140 | disease miseries, disability miseries, ugliness miseries.
00:08:11.140 | In other words, he makes explicit that the horrors
00:08:15.420 | of groaning and corruption and futility
00:08:18.020 | include Spirit-filled Christians.
00:08:22.300 | Our bodies, our bodies, John Piper's body,
00:08:26.300 | Tony Ranke's body, everybody's body desperately needs now
00:08:31.020 | or will need soon redemption.
00:08:34.980 | We feel it in disease, we feel it in aging,
00:08:38.340 | and we see it in the mirror, some early, some late.
00:08:42.980 | And that redemption is coming.
00:08:46.260 | I think that's the most important passage in the Bible
00:08:49.180 | for our friend to think about.
00:08:51.300 | Ugliness and disfigurement have their roots
00:08:55.260 | in the origin of human sin.
00:08:58.340 | Now, listen carefully,
00:08:59.500 | 'cause this could be so easily misunderstood.
00:09:03.180 | Not in a person's particular personal sin,
00:09:07.960 | but the origin of human sin in Adam and Eve,
00:09:10.560 | which infected the whole human race.
00:09:13.040 | In his wisdom, God decreed
00:09:16.020 | that there would be physical manifestations
00:09:19.540 | of the horrors and outrage of sin against God.
00:09:23.700 | This does not mean that everyone's disability
00:09:28.080 | or everyone's disease or everyone's disfigurement
00:09:31.660 | is because of their own sin.
00:09:33.720 | John 9:3 makes clear that's not the case.
00:09:38.240 | They asked Jesus, "Who sinned, this man or his parents,
00:09:42.740 | "that he was born blind?"
00:09:44.140 | And Jesus answered, "It was not that this man sinned
00:09:47.440 | "or his parents, but that the works of God
00:09:50.100 | "might be displayed in him."
00:09:53.060 | So the point is, Romans 8 gives a global explanation
00:09:58.060 | for why there is such a thing in the world as ugliness
00:10:04.180 | and every form of physical misery.
00:10:07.140 | God brought the physical world, the bodily world,
00:10:12.000 | into sync, into correspondence with the moral world.
00:10:17.000 | He made physical ugliness and misery correspond
00:10:22.980 | to moral ugliness and misery,
00:10:26.460 | even in some of the most godly people on the planet.
00:10:30.600 | Every bodily or material burden in the world
00:10:35.260 | should point us to the burden of sin.
00:10:39.500 | Every ugliness should point to the ugliness
00:10:43.240 | of sin and Satan.
00:10:45.040 | Satan is a real secondary cause under God.
00:10:49.820 | He is immediately responsible for many physical horrors.
00:10:54.820 | Jesus said that in Luke 13, 16.
00:10:59.460 | There was a woman bent over for 18 years,
00:11:02.080 | so picture her, she's probably walking at a 90-degree angle
00:11:05.840 | with a horrible scoliosis.
00:11:08.600 | And he says, "Ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham,
00:11:12.480 | "whom Satan bound for 18 years, be loosed?"
00:11:16.820 | So all physical ugliness and deformity and misery
00:11:20.560 | points to the moral ugliness and deformity of sin and Satan.
00:11:25.560 | And then, within that global sorrow
00:11:30.480 | and corruption and futility,
00:11:32.820 | God saves sinners and promises new bodies
00:11:38.440 | at the cost of his son's life.
00:11:41.680 | He sends Christ into the world, described like this.
00:11:46.680 | "He had no form or majesty that we should look at him
00:11:50.860 | "and no beauty that we should desire him," Isaiah 53, 2.
00:11:55.860 | He took it all on himself, all the ugliness, all the misery,
00:12:00.760 | and died to put an end to all ugliness and all misery
00:12:07.740 | for everyone who trusts him and treasures him
00:12:11.320 | more than we treasure human beauty.
00:12:13.120 | And then he makes all physical ugliness
00:12:19.360 | in his precious blood-bought people,
00:12:22.980 | he makes all physical ugliness serve to show his own worth
00:12:27.980 | because he satisfies the soul so completely
00:12:37.420 | and promises a future so glorious
00:12:40.860 | that he makes his homely family happy.
00:12:45.480 | And that happiness, in spite of all earthly rejection,
00:12:52.400 | bears witness to the all-satisfying moral beauty of Christ
00:12:57.680 | and the confidence we will share in it.
00:13:00.940 | Christ is most glorified in us
00:13:04.660 | when we are most satisfied in him,
00:13:07.340 | especially in our temporary ugliness.
00:13:12.340 | - Yeah, thank you, Pastor John, that's a good word,
00:13:13.940 | pointing us back to the satisfaction that we have in Christ
00:13:17.060 | and in the beauty of his cross,
00:13:20.040 | the beauty in the ugliness of the cross
00:13:22.060 | and in his crucifixion.
00:13:23.720 | Thank you for joining us today.
00:13:25.220 | You can ask a question of your own,
00:13:26.860 | you can search our Growing Archive
00:13:28.140 | or subscribe to the podcast,
00:13:29.300 | you can do all of that at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:13:35.100 | Well, speaking of delighting in God,
00:13:36.700 | that's the topic next time.
00:13:38.180 | How do we experience more joy in God,
00:13:40.980 | especially when we feel stuck?
00:13:43.260 | It's a part of Christian hedonism
00:13:44.500 | that really often goes unnoticed,
00:13:46.340 | and we're gonna talk about it next time.
00:13:48.300 | I'm your host Tony Rehnke,
00:13:49.140 | we'll see you back here on Wednesday.
00:13:51.360 | (upbeat music)
00:13:53.940 | (upbeat music)
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