http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15913887/the-joy-of-marveling-glorifies-christ

Audio Transcript

Welcome back to the podcast. Well, how much jewelry is too much jewelry? It’s a question of concern on the podcast because you ask about it. More importantly, it’s a question of concern because it’s a topic of concern in the Bible, specifically in 1 Peter 3:3, a text that has provoked many emails to us over the years on how to limit adornments. Here’s a representative question I pulled out, from a husband and father. “Hello, Pastor John, and thank you for this podcast! My wife and I are trying to figure out if it’s good to allow our daughter to wear nail polish. She’s 2 and loves to play dress-up. I don’t want this to become a necessity, but I suppose it’s fine as an expression of her childlike creativity. It’s ultimately a question for my wife as well. She doesn’t wear makeup or jewelry often and I’m happy with that. She does, however, enjoy having her toes painted. Considering 1 Peter 3:3–4, I don’t know many people who argue that all feminine adornments are bad. But clearly some are wrong. Where do we draw that line today?”

Let me start with a general observation and analogy from the New Testament and then talk about some specifics. Consider an analogy between adornment of hair and stylish clothing and use of makeup, on the one hand, and riches and wealth, on the other hand. Here’s the analogy. The New Testament does not call riches and wealth evil in and of themselves, but almost the entire New Testament has a trajectory away from luxury, away from opulence, and toward simplicity, toward a kind of wartime lifestyle that is aware of the dangers of money and the appearance of loving this world more than we love God.

Now the comparison or the analogy is this: the Bible does not call fashion or makeup or hair styling evil in and of itself. But the trajectory of the New Testament is toward simplicity and modesty and inward beauty of character and what you might call undistracting personhood-revealing — as opposed to body-revealing — apparel. That’s my general observation. Now let’s talk a few specifics.

Two Texts on Beauty

It would be good to put in front of us two of the most straightforward texts about a woman’s clothing and adornment and how she presents herself. And there are, as you can see in these texts, clear implications for men as well, but they’re addressed to women.

So, 1 Peter 3:3–4. He’s saying this to wives who are married to unbelieving husbands, probably because of the temptation to use their sexual reality to somehow influence this unbelieving husband. And Peter’s saying,

Do not let your adorning be external — the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear — but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.

Now here’s 1 Timothy 2:9–10:

[I desire] that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness — with good works.

Now, from these two texts, we can say the following.

Three Principles for Modesty

First, don’t focus more on the external beauty than the internal beauty. “Do not let your adorning be external . . . but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart” (1 Peter 3:3–4). So there’s the great principle for women — and, I would say, obviously for men as well. It’s like bodily exercise. We like to quote this: “While bodily exercise is of some value, godliness is of value in every way” (1 Timothy 4:8). And so outward adornment, you could say, is of little value, and internal adornment is valuable in every way. That’s the first thing we can infer from those texts.

“Don’t focus more on the external beauty than the internal beauty.”

Second, Peter’s and Paul’s restrictions are not meant to be total. And the reason we know that is because right after saying, “Do not let your adorning be . . . the braiding of hair and jewelry,” he says, “Do not let your adorning be . . . the clothing that you wear” (1 Peter 3:3). That does not mean, “Don’t wear clothing.” It means, “Don’t devote your main efforts and concerns to your clothing but to inner beauty.” It doesn’t mean no jewelry or no hairstyles.

Third, the language of Paul in 1 Timothy 2:9–10 about clothing is almost entirely about what is “fitting” or “becoming” or “appropriate” (these are Greek phrases that I made sure I got right):

katastolē kosmiō: “becoming attire”
meta aidous: “with respect for convention or what’s fitting”
mē himatismō . . . polytelei: “not in costly attire, not lavish or gaudy”
prepei gynaixin epangellomenais theosebeian: “as is proper for women who profess godliness”

Now, the implication of these guidelines seems to be this: within an ever-changing, highly corrupt culture then and now, with fringe elements of grunge and gaudy and provocation, focus on what your clothing and adornment and makeup say about you as a person, not you as skin or you as shape. Paul calls this “what is proper for women who profess godliness” (1 Timothy 2:10).

Faithful Femininity

Now, back to the question about the little girl who wants to paint her nails. This brings up the issue — and it’s such a relevant issue — of male and female sexuality and what they are. What’s the difference between male and female? Twenty years ago, we might have felt like we didn’t need to talk about that. Everybody knew what that is. Well, now we need to be alert to the fact that our little girl should grow up with a happy, thoughtful awareness that God made her a girl and not a boy. And our son should grow up with a happy, thoughtful awareness that God made him a boy and not a girl.

So I will unashamedly say we should be happy when our daughter at 2 years old wants to paint her nails, and our son does not want to paint his nails. We should affirm her inclination toward this expression of femininity, and we should discourage our son’s dabbling in this expression of femininity (and there are sensitive ways to do that). And I use the term “expression of femininity” because I’m fully aware that nail polish is a cultural expression, not an innate one. It’s not in her genes that nail polish has to be on her fingernails. Girls aren’t born with painted nails.

But what is innate, God-given innate, is that healthy boys moving toward mature manhood are inclined by God-given nature to embrace culturally appropriate expressions of manhood. And we should help them with this. And healthy girls moving toward mature womanhood are inclined by God-given nature to embrace culturally appropriate expressions of womanhood. And I believe Paul teaches that very thing in 1 Corinthians 11:14. “Does not nature itself teach you?” he says. And he teaches the same in Romans 1, where he says people are acting against nature (Romans 1:21–28).

So I would be thankful that my daughter wants to paint her nails. And I would, along with my wife, train her up in how innocent and utterly insignificant nail polish is to her worth as a person and her influence in the world. We want her to have a worldview such that even if her fingers are all cut off in a machine accident, she would know she can be a beautiful, worthwhile, fruitful person as a believer in Jesus Christ and as the daughter of the King of the universe.

Drawing Eyes Upward

So besides getting our priorities right, besides embracing the goodness of maleness and femaleness, and dressing in ways that are becoming and fitting to our devotion to Christ, and dressing in ways that point to our personhood instead of our body, and besides avoiding the arrogance that seeks to defy convention in shocking ways — besides all that, I would add a special concern here that we raise our daughters and sons not to be sexually provocative.

“The eyes that are drawn to more skin are not drawn to more skin because it’s beautiful, but because it’s more skin.”

Now, that means exposing less skin, not more skin. And it means less tight-fitting leggings and shirts. And if a woman gets upset with me at this point and says, “I don’t need to calculate my clothing according to male sexual temptation” (which is such a common retort if you try to say anything about modesty these days), my response is, “Well, that’s true. You don’t have to calculate your clothing that way. But I would ask you this question (which I think women understand who want to embrace feminine beauty and feminine godliness): Do you believe that beautiful attractiveness is increased by the amount of skin you expose?”

Now, here’s my answer: the eyes that are drawn to more skin are not drawn to more skin because it’s beautiful, but because it’s more skin — period. More skin is not beauty; it’s a magnet. It has nothing to do with beauty. It has everything to do with pure, physical, magnetizing skin. The real test of whether one is beautifully attractive is not how sexy she can be or he can be, because sex and beauty are not at all the same. And a godly woman knows this. She does not want to be a skin magnet. She wants to say with her clothing, “I’m thankful I’m a woman, I love beautiful simplicity, and Christ is my greatest treasure.”

As I thought about tonight and our theme for tonight, I thought about this crazy thing we do in our family. Sometime after dinner and cleanup, after bathtime and PJs, we huddle up with our kids around the Bible, we read a story together, we pray for our family, our church, our neighbors, for the needs around us, and then we do this thing. It’s kind of like talking, but it’s not talking. It’s more beautiful than talking, and usually happier. You use your vocal cords, but you change the rhythm of your voice and the pitch (highness and lowness) to make a different kind of sound. We have a book with lots of lines and funny symbols that guides us.

My eight-year-old has the hang of it (with some tuning issues). My four-year-old really gives it her all, but she isn’t winning any competitions. My two-year-old loves to do this thing — it comes as naturally as eating or drinking or liking dump trucks. You probably know what I’m talking about. In fact, many of you are here tonight because you love to do this beautiful, inexplicable thing. It’s called singing.

It’s utterly ordinary to you now, but when you stop to think about it, it’s one of the strangest things human beings do — isn’t it? I mean, how would you describe singing to an alien who’s just landed on earth and never heard someone sing before? It’s hard, isn’t it? You hear it all throughout history and all over the world, but it’s not at all essential for life. You don’t need it to survive. You must eat and drink and breathe and walk, but you don’t have to sing. Someone could live a whole life, seventy or eighty years, and never sing. I’m sure those people are out there. They’re really, really sad, but they’re out there.

God Sings

So, why do we sing? Why would the infinitely creative, infinitely powerful God alter our brains and vocal cords to give us the capacity to make melodies and harmonies? I think it’s because some things in life are just too good to be said.

For example, I can say, “I love Jesus.” I can say, “I really love Jesus,” and I do. I can say, “Jesus is my greatest Treasure,” and he is. I can say, “Jesus is the greatest, most trustworthy, most satisfying, most glorious Treasure in the world.” Can I get an amen? Or I could sing, “Hallelujah! All I have is Christ!” I don’t even have to sing it well — and it still says more than words can.

God gave us singing because there’s a joy greater than words. And there’s a joy greater than words because that’s the kind of God we have. All the singing in the world is an echo of the song at the heart of the universe. He’s the Song of songs, the God who made lungs and mouths, whole notes and half notes, major keys and minor keys, symphonies and, yes, country music. Did you know our God is a singing God? Zephaniah 3:17:

The Lord your God is in your midst,     a mighty one who will save;he will rejoice over you with gladness;     he will quiet you by his love;he will exult over you with loud singing.

It’s not just singing, but loud, happy singing. You were made in the image of that God. So, I shouldn’t be surprised when my two-year-old sings nonsense in his crib in the middle of the night. He was made, knitted together in his mother’s womb, to remind me of God. Of course he sings. Of course we sing.

God gave us singing because he loves to sing, but he also gave us singing because we were made to worship — to glorify him by enjoying him forever. It’s not enough to know, study, or describe this God. To really know him is to enjoy him, to treasure him, to worship him. And that’s why I wanted us to begin this evening of seeing, savoring, and singing in a favorite psalm, Psalm 4. We’re going to look first at the melody, then at the minor key, and lastly the chorus.

The Melody

Psalm 4:7 has become one of my favorite verses in all the Bible. I read through the Bible several times over years before I ever noticed it, but once I saw it, these words lodged themselves in my soul, and I’ve come back to them again and again:

You have put more joy in my heart     than they have when their grain and wine abound.

More than the world has at its very best!

Notice, David doesn’t say, “You have given me great joy.” He could have said that, but he didn’t. He also didn’t say, “You have given me as much joy as those in the world have in their finest meals and fullest pleasures.” No, he says, “You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound.” If it’s a word that has grabbed me, it’s that word more.

As David weighs the joy he’s found in God against all the greatest joys on earth — the most expensive experiences, in the most exotic places, with the most famous people — he finds all those other offers wanting. He prefers what he’s tasted through faith over anything else he might see or do or buy, because he knows that God holds out more joy. I wonder if you believe that.

Do you believe that if you went all in with Jesus — if you had to give up everything else you have and love to have him — you’d be happier than you’d ever be without him? I know some of you do — that’s why you’re here. You can’t think of Christianity any other way. You don’t know Jesus only as Lord and Savior, but also as your greatest Treasure. You’re part of the “Fellowship of More Joy.”

“It’s not enough to know, study, or describe this God. To really know him is to enjoy him.”

Others of you, though, have never heard someone talk about Jesus like this. Savor Jesus? How do you savor a person, much less someone you can’t see? What does that even mean? I’m glad you asked, and I’m glad you’re here. I want you to hear that there really is something in life worth singing about — there’s someone worth singing about. There’s a joy too great for words. “You have put more joy in my heart.” For tonight, we’ll call this greater joy the melody. But I chose the psalm for a second reason.

The Minor Key

I’ve loved verse 7 for years, but it’s taken on even more meaning the more time I’ve spent in the psalm. Now, experts wrestle over the specific circumstances, so we don’t know for sure what David was experiencing. We do know that he’s in trouble and that he’s been sinned against, because of how he begins the psalm:

Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness!     You have given me relief when I was in distress.     Be gracious to me and hear my prayer!How long, exalted men, will my honor be insulted?     How long will you love what is worthless and pursue a lie? (Psalm 4:1–2)

You could call this the minor key. We heard the melody: “You, O God, have given me more joy.” Now here’s the minor key: suffering. In David’s case, it was serious and prolonged pain. The king’s honor has been insulted, and people close to him have been lying about him. Who was it in this case, and how exactly did they wrong him? Again, we don’t know for sure. David had so many enemies and so many trials that it’s truly hard to know.

Many, however, read Psalms 3 and 4 together as morning and evening psalms and therefore believe they’re about the same event. And the superscription on Psalm 3 tells us that he wrote that psalm “when he fled from Absalom his son.” In 2 Samuel 15, when David was king, Absalom (his own son) led a conspiracy and tried to take his father’s throne by force.

Again, Psalm 4 may not be about Absalom (though I think it is), but it’s about some betrayal, and it’s helpful for me, anyway, to think about a particular betrayal. His third son really conspired against him, lied to him and about him, recruited an army of traitors, and then tried to kill him.
Again, my kids are eight, four, and two. I literally can’t imagine one of them hurting me like this. But they might.

All of this — the betrayal, the lying, the threats, the grief and sorrow and anger — really changes how you hear the joy in verse 7, doesn’t it?

You have put more joy in my heart     than they have when their grain and wine abound.

Really? You can say that in these circumstances? Could you say that if someone hurt you like this? Maybe someone has already hurt you. When he says, “when their grain and wine abound,” I can’t help but think he’s thinking about Absalom, who was sleeping in his father’s house, feasting on his father’s grain, and getting drunk on his father’s wine.

And yet David can say, “As happy as Absalom might be right now, I’m happier.” Even now. Even here. Even while he absolutely wrecks this father’s heart. This is a man who sees, savors, and sings, even in suffering.

His joy in God carries him through the valley — and it shines even brighter in the valley. How great and satisfying is this God that he can give joy — more joy — in pain like this! We hear how the dark minor key draws out and amplifies the melody.

Some of you are struggling to sing in this season. You have something heavy weighing on your mind right now, and you can barely focus in worship, much less sing. It might not be the betrayal of a child, but it stings like that — and like his, the sting might last for months or years or longer.
I think if David were here tonight, he might say, “If you know the God who is with me in my valley, you can still sing. Even now.” In fact, you have to sing. It’s the only way you’ll make it through.

And this psalm teaches us that it’s not just about getting ourselves through. Remember, David is singing to the people suffering with him — he’s singing them through their pain. And he wrote his song down so that God’s people could sing these lines again and again and again. That’s what the psalms are. And his song still sings today, doesn’t it? He’s singing us, all these thousands of years later, through our sufferings of various kinds.

“There is a joy in this world that is deeper and more intense than your pain, whatever your pain is.”

So, if you’re here tonight and going through something hard, who needs to hear you sing through this? Whose faith might be strengthened by hearing you, in all your pain, cry out, “You have put more joy in my heart, even now”? How could anyone feel joy in a situation like this? By finding a joy deeper and more intense than the pain. If you don’t hear anything else, know that there is a joy in this world that is deeper and more intense than your pain, whatever your pain is. That’s the kind of joy God holds out to you in Jesus, in the gospel, in his word.

The apostle Paul wrote a phrase for this kind of happiness: “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10). In a world like ours, with lives like ours and heartaches like ours, that’s the right kind of happy. Sorrowful — genuinely, even persistently, brokenhearted — and yet always, always rejoicing.

No matter how hard life gets, we always have more than enough reasons in Christ to rejoice. And that brings us to the chorus.

The Chorus

We’ve heard the melody: this greater joy God gives. We’ve felt the minor key: his terrible suffering. And we’ve seen how his joy shines through that suffering. But what is the joy he experiences? Does David tell us any more about the “more joy” that God gives? Let’s look at verse 6:

There are many who say, “Who will show us some good?”

I think David’s talking about the faithful people around him, people who are suffering with him (perhaps hiding with him from Absalom), and they’re asking, “Who can show us anything good?” Is God going to let us have anything good? We’re doing the right thing here, and yet we’re the ones suffering. We’re the ones being driven out of the kingdom and running for our lives. And the ones doing evil are getting all the good. They’re safe. They’re well-fed. They’re on their third bottle of good wine. What’s up with that, God? Why am I doing the right thing if I just keep getting beat up by life? And why wouldn’t I do the wrong thing when those people seem to be doing so great?

You’ve probably been tempted this way at some point. You’ve wondered why your Christian life is so hard at times, and why people diving headlong into sin seem to have it easier or better.

How does David shepherd the pain and confusion of these hurting friends? He lifts their eyes to remind them where to find that more joy. Here’s the end of verse 6 into verse 7:

“Lift up the light of your face upon us, O Lord!”You have put more joy in my heart     than they have when their grain and wine abound.

The people around him were looking for safety and justice and some comfort; he was looking for something better than all of that — far better. He wouldn’t settle for getting his things back. A throne with all that power wasn’t big enough for him anymore. No, he wanted the Good that’s better than all those other goods. The reason his joy is strong enough to endure betrayal is because God is his joy. This is the chorus. “Lift up the light of your face upon us, O Lord!” The joy’s in his face — it’s in him.

He makes the same point in verse 3: “Know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself.” I think that for means “for relationship.” In the gospel, God is not just trying to prove his grace and mercy when he forgives us — he doesn’t save us from a distance — no, he wants to know us. And he wants us to know and enjoy him.

This is the same joy as Psalm 16:11:

You make known to me the path of life;     in your presence there is fullness of joy;     at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

And now, in Christ, we say with the apostle Paul,

I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ. (Philippians 3:8)

David’s chorus in the valley was his greater joy in God himself. That joy kept him from bitterness. That joy kept him from being paralyzed with despair. That joy freed him to love those around him and encourage them not to return sin for sin. That joy allowed him to lie down and get some rest: Verse 8 says, “In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.” Because God is his joy, he can have joy, real joy, more joy, even when his life falls apart. He can sing in his deepest, darkest valleys.

This man is a miracle. He’s an emotionally miraculous man. Who responds to suffering like this? He’s the kind of man I want to be. No one sees, savors, and sings through this kind of suffering — unless God does this kind of miracle in them. And that brings me back to singing.

Prophet, Priest, and Song

I started by saying that singing isn’t necessary to human life — like eating, drinking, and breathing — but the longer I think about it, and the longer I spend in verses like these, and the longer I sing, the more I wonder if it’s not the most human thing we do.

Remember that Jesus — the greatest human who ever lived, the Son of God in the flesh — sings. In a couple precious places, we actually hear him sing. He suffered more than David, far more, and yet with more joy, far more. Hebrews 2:10–12 says,

It was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation [Jesus] perfect through suffering [the cross]. For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying [this is Jesus speaking, quoting Psalm 22], “I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.”

And he actually sang. Remember that night of the Lord’s Supper, after the bread had been broken and eaten, after the wine had been poured and consumed, after he had given his last words to his disciples, how did they end the night together? Matthew 26:30 says, “And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.” Can you imagine? On the night he was betrayed, hours before he bore the sins of the world, in his deepest, darkest moment, he sang.

For the joy set before him, he endured the cross. David bore the awful betrayal of a son, but the Father sent his beloved Son to bear the betrayal of the whole world — to bear your betrayal against him, your sin. And Hebrews 12:2 tells us that it was joy that sustained him — more joy than the world has ever known, even when their grain and wine abound. He knew that joy, before the foundation of the world — between the Father, Son, and Spirit — and he’s now become that joy for us, our Treasure in the field, our Pearl of great price.