Bikinis and Modesty

00:00:00.000 | [Music]

00:00:05.000 | Summer has arrived and with it, renewed questions about modesty in the inbox.

00:00:10.000 | So, Pastor John, can you speak to the issue of modesty regarding clothing at the pool,

00:00:14.000 | especially bikinis, and speak to pastors and leaders?

00:00:19.000 | Should they take time in the spring to directly address the topic of modesty?

00:00:23.000 | And if so, how would you counsel such a brave pastor to best step through that minefield?

00:00:29.000 | Here's the most important thing to say.

00:00:33.000 | It is impossible to come into a church or a youth ministry or a school, say a Christian school,

00:00:42.000 | that is permeated with immodesty, immodesty, and fix it with rules about modesty.

00:00:53.000 | There is a place for rules, guidelines in families, in schools, in youth ministries, in churches.

00:01:02.000 | But if you try to turn that thing around, that institution, whatever,

00:01:10.000 | if you try to turn that around by starting with the rules or the guidelines,

00:01:16.000 | it will not accomplish a Christ-exalting, gospel-rooted, spirit-empowered, faith-sustained,

00:01:26.000 | Bible-informed, joyful, free culture of modesty. It won't.

00:01:33.000 | And yet that's the goal.

00:01:35.000 | So, my approach was never to start with the rules or the guidelines,

00:01:44.000 | but to start with God and the gospel and the Bible and the spirit and faith and joy.

00:01:52.000 | Deep things need to happen in a woman's and a man's soul

00:01:59.000 | before they have any chance of thinking and feeling about these things in a way that honors God.

00:02:07.000 | Until God has become your treasure, so I'll just say this to any woman, any man who dresses inappropriately,

00:02:17.000 | until God has become your treasure, until your own sin has become the thing you hate most,

00:02:26.000 | until the Word of God is your supreme authority, that you feel to be more precious than gold, sweeter than honey,

00:02:34.000 | until the gospel of Christ's death in your place is the most precious news in the world to you,

00:02:41.000 | until you have learned to deny yourself short-term pleasures for the sake of long-term joy and holiness,

00:02:49.000 | until you have grown to love the Holy Spirit and long for His fruit more than man's praise,

00:02:55.000 | until you count everything as loss compared to the supreme value of knowing Christ,

00:03:02.000 | your attitude towards your clothing and your appearance will be controlled by forces that don't honor Christ.

00:03:10.000 | So, every pastor can see we've got work to do. I mean, deep, soul work to do,

00:03:17.000 | which means for a pastor that 99% of his effort will be the establishment in the heart of these glorious supernatural works of God.

00:03:29.000 | He will preach and teach and worship and model in himself and in his family how the gospel changes everything.

00:03:38.000 | And he will realize that apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, through the Word and through faith,

00:03:47.000 | his church will be split between two kinds of carnal people.

00:03:53.000 | One group will bristle at every mention of modesty and say, "How dare you tell me or my children how to dress?"

00:04:02.000 | That's a bad attitude and it's carnal. But the other group will put all their emphasis on outward appearance

00:04:12.000 | with little sense of the heart and that it's supremely important. And these two groups can never know peace.

00:04:21.000 | They both have failed. They're not deeply transformed by the gospel.

00:04:28.000 | So, my counsel is teach your people these things year in and year out.

00:04:36.000 | Expose the pride of licentiousness and self-will and expose the pride of externalism and formalism that has no heart in it.

00:04:49.000 | It doesn't see the gospel as precious. You preach and you pray for a gospel culture where men and women have

00:04:57.000 | and I've got a little list here that really, once you hear it, you know it's going to change the way people dress.

00:05:06.000 | Whether it's in the swimming pool or in church. A sweet submission to Christ. A saturation with the Word of God.

00:05:14.000 | A humble attentiveness to the wisdom of others and a desire to grow and learn.

00:05:21.000 | A deep suspicion of the power of worldliness to control our habits and a loving consideration of others when we choose what we wear.

00:05:33.000 | And when the time is right, so here I'm trying to get more specific. When the time is right, yes, you take up the texts like 1 Timothy 2.8.

00:05:44.000 | I desire that men in every place should pray lifting holy hands without anger and quarreling and likewise that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel with modesty and self-control.

00:05:59.000 | And you work through it, making sure that everyone feels that the Bible really does care about how we dress.

00:06:07.000 | And it really does want us to dress in a way that's rooted in humble, joyful, Christ-exalting, other-serving gospel faith.

00:06:20.000 | Here's three closing practical tips from my experience.

00:06:26.000 | Number one, when it comes to guidelines that grow out of the gospel, start with your staff and the leaders of the ministries that are up front.

00:06:37.000 | Don't start with everybody. Start working from the inside out so that there emerges a culture and a modeling from your worship leaders, from your staff who are in front, and from the leaders of the youth ministry and so on.

00:06:54.000 | Work with your leaders. Number two, deal with parents quietly and work toward common expectations for the young people.

00:07:03.000 | It's not easy, but it is a wise priority instead of attacking things at the most painful point of the way the girls or boys are dressing.

00:07:13.000 | It's come on, let's get the parents on board here.

00:07:16.000 | And number three, cultivate the joyful sense that modesty is beautiful.

00:07:23.000 | Renounce, renounce any mindset that "modest" means "frumpy."

00:07:31.720 | From my own experience – I'm just testifying as a man now who's been a teenager, and a

00:07:35.880 | 20-year-old, and a 30-year-old, and a 40-year-old, and a 50-year-old, and a 60-year-old – I

00:07:41.280 | can testify without any doubt that at every age of my life, my masculine life, sexy dressing

00:07:53.120 | of women is less attractive than modest beauty.

00:07:58.400 | Of course it makes the eyes turn.

00:08:00.440 | It makes the eyes turn.

00:08:02.680 | But there is a world of difference between making men's eyes turn with sexy dressing

00:08:10.840 | and being attractive as a beautiful or a handsome person.

00:08:16.000 | That's an excellent and timely word.

00:08:18.640 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:08:19.960 | And this is the season for modesty discussions, and it's the season for vacations.

00:08:23.920 | And tomorrow I'll ask Pastor John to share a little theology of summer vacations and

00:08:27.560 | rest and why it's an important component in our lives.

00:08:31.980 | For more about this podcast, find us online at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:08:35.080 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke, and we will see you tomorrow.

00:08:41.200 | See you tomorrow.

00:08:41.760 | [END]

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Bikinis and Modesty

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