Posts
YOU ARE INVITED
TO MY BIRTHDAY PARTY
WHEN: THIS SUNDAY AT 11 AM
WHERE: THE TOWN MEETING HALL
COME JUST AS YOU ARE
ALL ARE WELCOME SO BRING A FRIEND
Imagine if you invited all of your friends to a birthday party. As the big day approached you got more and more excited about seeing old friends and introducing them to your new ones. Let’s say you rented a hall, hired a band and a caterer, and set up all of the tables and chairs. Finally the big day is here. You are anxiously waiting in the hall for the guests to arrive. Soon they begin to filter into the hall and come to wish you a happy birthday. You are so happy! After all, it is your birthday. However, you notice that only those who are wearing suits and ties or formal dresses are entering the hall. You see a few people stick their heads in the door and look around the room. They get disappointed looks on their faces as they duck out. This leads you to investigate. You walk out to the foyer and to the front door. There you see a group of your friends who are beautifully dressed talking together. Another friend, dressed in blue jeans, is walking toward the hall. He sees you and a smile comes across his face. Then he looks around at the group standing guard over the door. They are glaring at him as though he has no business being there. No one says a word to him. They do not have to. He gives you an apologetic look and returns to his car and drives off. How would you feel? You told them to come as they are but that was not good enough for some of your friends. How would you feel? In many of our churches we are doing the same thing to God and to the people He invites to worship Him.
We have an unwritten and unspoken rule in many of our churches today. It goes something like this: “In order to fit in here you must dress like we do. You must wear what is acceptable and appropriate.” This unwritten and unspoken rule applies whether you go to a church that is very causal or formal. I recently heard a sermon of a pastor who was called a “sell out” by a woman in his church because he dared to wear a dress shirt and tie to their Christmas Eve service. There are other churches that would be apoplectic if the pastor showed up in jeans or did not wear a tie. The problem with this unwritten and unspoken rule is that no one can tell you where to find out what is appropriate and acceptable. They also do not tell you who makes this important decision. This leaves many people feeling unwanted and out of place. It causes many others to turn around and never come back to our churches. All of this stems from the fact that we have a fundamental misunderstanding of worship and authority.
Worship is God’s “party” not ours. He commands us as his people to meet together (And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. - Hebrews 10:24-25). He invites us to come to Him and He will give us rest, fulfillment, purpose and peace (Matthew 11:28-30, John 10:10). When we come to worship, God is the focus. Pleasing and glorifying Him is our goal. That is why petty arguments over dress or music are so out of order. They miss the fundamental purpose of worship. The bottom line question we have to ask about our worship is: “Is it pleasing to God?” What if it is pleasing to God but not to us? Then we need to remember why we are present. We are not there to please ourselves. We are there to please God. What if it is pleasing to us but not to God? Do I really have to spell it out?
The next question naturally follows: “Who decides what is pleasing to God?” The answer is simple; God does. We must understand that He is the authority. He has shown us what is important to Him in His Word. So does God set a dress code for Christians? Well we have to start in the Old Testament and the Law. In all of the Law (over six hundred laws in the Old Testament) God does not show a preference about one style or fashion over another. In fact the prevailing passage on the subject is found is 1 Samuel 16:1-7. When Samuel is commanded to anoint another king to replace Saul, he goes to the house of Jesse and the son of Jesse that catches his eye is Eliab. He must have been the kind of guy who “looked” like a future king. God tells Samuel His heart concerning His treatment of men. (When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, "Surely the LORD’s anointed is before him." But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart," Verses 6-7). What is important to God? It is not the outward appearance. It is the heart of man. Where is our heart when we make judgments about others based on outward appearance? When we do we are not following God or His example. When David was caught in adultery and murder he wrote his prayer of repentance in Psalm 51. In that passage he states that God is not interested in our outward acts of religion but rather the state of our heart before Him (Verses 16-17). He will not reject us when our heart is honest and desirous of Him.
“That is all Old Testament law and it does not apply to me. I am a New Testament believer and Paul tells us in Galatians and Romans that we are not under the law but under grace,” one might reply. This may be true and a good point for further discussion at another time, but it is most definitely not a reason to become MORE legalistic. When we set up rules (written or unwritten) that are not found in the Word and we place them on the same level as the Word and make them a determining factor in fellowship and conduct within the church, we have become legalists (Real Christians don’t …). Jesus had very little positive to say to the legalists He encountered. Matthew 23 is a sobering example of this. In this passage, Jesus even criticizes them for their emphasis on their clothing. He calls them whitewashed tombs and children of hell. Are these really the examples that we want to follow? In fact, you cannot find a passage in the New Testament that embraces legalism. So then are there no standards or guidelines by which we can rule our conduct? Of course there are. They just have to be God’s standards and not ours. Remember, He is the authority.
In the New Testament, the ones who were probably the best dressed were rejected by God because they placed their trust and importance on the outward appearance (the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes). In doing so they rejected God and made a god of themselves. The one that Jesus said was greater than all others in His kingdom was John the Baptist. Did he worry about his outward appearance? No. He wore camel’s hair and a leather belt. He did not fit in with the legalism of his time. He did not look the part. In 1 Peter 3 and 1 Timothy 2 we find that God does have a standard for our apparel. We are not supposed to find our worth and standing before God by what we wear on the outside. We are to cloth ourselves with good works. You should “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,” Peter says to the women in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. Is this a principle that only applies to women? I do not think so. God desires to change us all from the inside out. When we provide an arbitrary and false regulation in order to determine “rightness,” we show that our hearts are not where they need to be in our own relationship with Him.
So what can we say about the issue to dress in the church today? There are a few biblical principles from which we can draw:
1. The condition of our heart is ALWAYS more important than our clothing.
2. 1 Peter 3 and 1 Timothy 2 both tell us that we should be modest in our apparel. This is so that we will not cause a weaker brother or sister to stumble. We do not want to draw the admiration or desire of those around us. Both of those belong to the Lord only. Does this mean that if a woman in a low cut blouse shows up at church we ask her to leave? By no means! We share the Gospel and the Truth of God’s Word with her in love and we trust the Lord to change her. The truths taught in these passages are intended to apply to what we wear all the time, which would include worship attendance.
3. We do not judge a person’s walk with God or acceptability within the church by what they wear. If a person is dressed immodestly out of ignorance, but their heart is right before God, then He will show them how to dress through the preaching and teaching of His Word.
4. We do not judge our own walk with God based on our outward appearance. It is just not biblical.
5. We must realize that if our legalism causes some to stumble in their faith or others not to come to faith at all, we will be held accountable by God for our heresy.
6. Worship is about God and not us.
7. Legalism is never a substitute for a proper relationship with God.
8. Love (1 Corinthians 13) is the bottom line in our relationship with God and with others.
We sing the song that says “Come just as you are. Hear the Spirit call. Come just as you are. Come and see. Christ the King. Come and live forever.” Do we really mean it or have we set a higher standard than God Himself has? I say, “Come just as you are!” I hope I see you in church.
