>> Andrea, a podcast listener, writes in to ask this, "Pastor John, I struggle a lot with having a negative body image based on an internalized cultural ideal that I've had ever since I can remember. What does inner beauty really mean from a Christian perspective?" >> She's so right to represent thousands of women who I think are hurt and infected by what they see on endless advertisements, endless TV shows where women are presented with amazingly consistent expectations that external savvy, external strength, external cool, external beauty, external sexiness are the norm, and oh, how we need to help these women fight the fight of letting God speak to them as powerfully as the world speaks to them.

So the Bible really, really does address this question, cares a lot about it. And let me just take one passage and answer her question, "What is inner beauty?" from it. This is 1 Peter 3, 3 through 6. Pretty clear answer, I think, in these four verses. So let me just start reading and make some comments.

"Do not let your adorning be external." Talking to the wives here. "Do not let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair, the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear." Now, stop right there and notice this is really crucial. He's not talking about particular kinds of hairdos or particular kinds of jewelry being the problem.

We know that because he says, "Don't let clothing be your outer beauty." Well, he doesn't mean don't wear clothing. You've got to wear clothing. So when he says, "Don't let your adorning be the clothing you wear," he doesn't mean stop wearing it, like you'd stop wearing a certain hairdo or certain jewelry or clothing.

He means, "Don't let your clothing be your focus here. Don't put your main energy there on the clothing. Put your main energy inside." So I would love to free women from this. It seems to me that some put so much energy and so much time into their hair and their eyes and their clothes, and it seems very sad to me.

And I think I can say with a pretty high degree of certainty, it isn't worth the effort. Simple hair, simple makeup or none, and simple clothing are generally more attractive than heavily made-up faces and hair. But let's go right to the heart of the matter. Verse 4, "Let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable beauty of a quiet and gentle spirit, which is in God's sight very precious." Now notice, let me just draw out four things from that amazing sentence.

Verse 4, 1 Peter 3, "Let your adorning be the hidden person." So this means hidden from men, but open and clear to God. This means that your concern should be with, it should be how you appear to God, not to people. Excessive concern with outward beauty means that we're enthralled with the wrong audience.

Hidden. It's supposed to be hidden, only seen by God. Now it's going to bear external fruit. Behavior will be affected by these inner qualities, but that's not the focus. It will bear fruit, but right now it's hidden. That's number one. Notice number two, "Let your adorning be the hidden person." What you want to pursue, what we all want to pursue is being a kind of person, not presenting a kind of persona.

What a tragedy to give our lives to painting a mask, a persona, and neglect the person that's inside and real. The persona is just, it's artificial. It's only what people see on the outside. The real you is not your face. The real you is the hidden person. It's being a person.

It's an awesome thing to be a person, person in the image of God, a person, not a mannequin, a person, not a model, a person, not a doll. We shouldn't treat ourselves like dolls and mannequins. It's a glorious thing to be a person. That's where our energy should go.

That's number two. Number three, "Let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart." What's the heart? The heart is the seed of the affections and the will. That's who you are most deeply. The body is always a presentation of the heart, never the other way around. God has a heart that is affections and will from all eternity.

God never had a body until the incarnation. He was glorious because he had a heart that was perfect and beautiful. So when we have a heart and we cultivate a heart, we're akin to ultimate reality. Bodies came later. They're not the essence. They display the essence. So the heart is the essence.

That's number three. Here's number four. "Let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty." One of the reasons God prizes this beauty so highly is that it lasts forever. It's called imperishable. The body, it gets old. All the makeup we work on, it's just not going to work eventually.

Our beauty is going to fade away, whereas the heart can get more and more beautiful. God delights in it because it lasts forever. And I guess I said there were four. Here's one more. "The imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit," which in God's sight is very precious.

Now, why is gentleness, meekness, tranquility, quietness, why is that so precious to God? And I think the text tells us why. I mean, if I could just think of it out of myself, I would say, well, it's because it reveals that we're restfully trusting in God. We're hoping in God, not in man.

We're trusting in God, and that's why we have peace and we can be meek and tranquil and quiet and not troubled, not anxious, not fretful or frantic. So it's beautiful to God because when a woman has a peaceful soul, not fretting about how she looks, it shows that God is her portion and she's banking on God.

And that's right there in verse five. It says this, "For this is how the holy women of old hoped in God and used to adorn themselves." So hoping in God produces this quality, and that's why God finds it so beautiful and so precious. And that's the audience we really, really want to please.

And here's one more word from the text. The reason meekness and quietness and serenity and these hope-filled attributes of inner beauty count so with God is because they make a woman fearless. See, I don't want to close, Tony, in leaving the impression that these words meekness and quietness and tranquility somehow produce a pansy.

These women are lionhearted because this is what it says. You are Sarah's children if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening. I mean, that's the kind of woman you want, right? A kind of woman who's quiet, peaceful, serene, meek, fearless, bold, not frightened in anything.

My guess is the woman who gets up in the morning, spends endless hours on her face and worries about her figure is frightened all the time. She's very insecure. But we want mighty women of the Word, mighty women of God who are fearless. And that comes from hoping in God, and that comes from cultivating this inner beauty.

And so I just would love to be a means of rescuing people from, I mean, women from a lot of wasted time and wasted effort. Excellent. Thank you, Pastor John. And while we're on this topic, we have two Ask Pastor John episodes from last spring that are both worth noting here.

Episode 65 is titled "What is Strong Feminine Womanhood?" And episode 66 is titled "Wimpy Theology Makes Wimpy Women." Both episodes celebrate strong, godly women who fear God. And in both episodes, we relive a couple of classic John Piper sermon moments. So be sure to check out episodes 65 and 66 in the Ask Pastor John podcast archive and listen all the way to the end of those episodes for the good stuff.

Those episodes and 268 others can be found in the free Ask Pastor John apps for the iPhone and Android, and be sure you've updated your app in the last month to get all the new features that make it really easy to search and browse those episodes. I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

Have a wonderful weekend. 1. What is Strong Feminine Womanhood? 2. What is Strong Feminine Womanhood? 3. What is Strong Feminine Womanhood? 4. What is Strong Feminine Womanhood? 5. What is Strong Feminine Womanhood? 6. What is Strong Feminine Womanhood? 7. What is Strong Feminine Womanhood? 8. What is Strong Feminine Womanhood?

9. What is Strong Feminine Womanhood?