It's a privilege to be back here this evening. Let's turn to Psalm chapter 27 together. Psalm 27, we'll read the first six verses. The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell. Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident. One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion, in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me, he shall set me up upon a rock. And now shall my head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me. Therefore will I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy. I will sing. Yea, I will sing praises unto the Lord. Let's pray. Gracious God, thank you for your word. Thank you for its truth. Thank you for preserving it for us under this hour. That it was breathed out by you through holy men. and it has been preserved by you until this time. We pray that the same spirit that inspired this, Lord, would move upon us this evening to trust in you, to desire you, to hunger and thirst after you as the heart does for the water brooks. So our desires would be. to you. Thank you for your faithfulness to us. Keep us now and move upon us for Christ's sake and in His name. Amen. We'll be focusing this evening on beholding the beauty of the Lord out of verse 4. Gazing at the beauty of the Lord a longing look after His glory, after His excellency. People think a lot of beauty. A lot of attention is put in beauty. If you'll look up how much Americans and the world spends on cosmetics, tens and tens and probably hundreds of billions of dollars a year spent on cosmetics. It's a big deal. Beauty is a big deal. Beauty moves people. To buy things, go places, Maybe even marry someone that's not that likable because they're pretty. Beauty moves people. You'll pay hundreds and thousands of dollars to drive to the airport and board a plane and fly across the world to see the Swiss Alps. or drive halfway across our country to see the Grand Canyon or the Niagara Falls or the Royal Gorge or some other beautiful sight. Beauty moves people. But there is a beauty that the psalmist knew about. The psalmist had had a glimpse of, and it was a beauty that caught his attention. And even as the king of Israel, it was this beauty alone that became his sole passion to gaze into more and more, so that he could say, one thing have I desired of the Lord, and that's what I'm going to pursue. That's what I'm going to invest in. That's what I'm going to pour my affection and life into, learning more and inquiring more and finding out more of this beauty. You see, all the beauty that is in the world, the eyes cannot be satisfied with. You can go to all the spectacular wonders of the world and see them and come away empty on the inside. But the beauty of the Lord is not so. It would be like what the Lord Jesus said to the woman at the well, that if you drink of the water that I give you, if you gaze into the beauty of Christ, That is a beauty that satisfies our deepest longings. It is a beauty that we want more and more of. We don't need to go anywhere else than to gaze into the face of Jesus Christ. He is altogether beautiful, altogether attractive. There is no spot in Him, nothing undesirable. In the book of Song of Solomon, the maiden is asked why she is so in love with this person. She is asked, why is he so much better than anyone else? And she gives this response. The maiden says, they ask the maiden, What is thy beloved more than any other beloved, that thou, that O thou fairest among women? What is thy beloved more than another beloved, that thou dost so charge us? And she responds, my beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand. His head is as the most fine gold, his locks are bushy and black as a raven. His eyes are as the dove's, eyes of doves, by the rivers of water, washed with milk and fitly set. And she goes on and on, gushing about the beauty of her beloved. And so it was with the psalmist David. He had got a glimpse of the glory of God. And He wanted more and more to see more of this great wonder and beauty. You see, it's not as so much a beauty that we see with our eyes. It is a beauty of the excellent character of God in Jesus Christ. All those perfections, His holy love, but also His justice, His truth, and His mercy, His steadfast faithfulness. And you can list all the attributes, all the characteristics, all the makeup of the character of our God. And they all fit together in such perfection and such beauty, as the psalmist says that mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other. They all dovetail together with such intricate beauty. that there is such a wonder at the beauty of the holiness, the beauty of the righteousness of our great God. As the Apostle John would say about the person of Christ, we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. As it says in Psalm 45, Speaking of Christ, that thou art fairer than the children of men. Grace is poured into thy lips. Therefore God hath blessed thee forever. You see, beauty moves people. And if you ever get a glimpse of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, it will move you to want to know more about this wondrous person. to see more of his glory. As the song says, more of Jesus would I know, more of his love to others show, more of his saving fullness see, more of his love who died for me. When we behold the beauty of Jesus Christ, it wets an appetite that we know that he alone can fill. But as beautiful as Christ was, we know that His beauty was not physical and external that was so much catching and beautiful to people. He was not a bodybuilder. He did not have a extra special physical appearance. We learned that from Isaiah 53, that he didn't necessarily catch your eye when he walked by because of his physical posture. but it was His character, the excellency of His person. And we heard a few weeks ago on the Mount of Transfiguration, His real beauty burst forth before the eyes of the three men there on the Mount of Transfiguration, where the glory of Christ, His inward beauty, shone forth with such splendor that it was above the brightness, or as the brightness of the sun. Remember, the first words of Peter were correct. He said, Lord, it's good for us to be here. He got that right. It's good for us to be here. And if you ever get a glimpse of the person of Jesus Christ, you'll agree with Peter. It's good for us to be here. He agrees with Psalm 73. The psalmist said, it is good for me to draw near to God. It's good for me. It's so purifying. It's so cleansing. It's such a wholesome, wholesome place to be. Such a safe place to be. As David goes on to say, now shall I be lifted up above mine enemies. When you're in the presence of God, when you're beholding the glory of God as He has revealed Himself, When you're beholding His glory as you meditate upon the truth, it's such a safe place to be. Safe from your flesh and the wiles of the devil and the traps that are in the world. It's such a safe place to be. Now, as beautiful as Christ was, The majority, the leaders of the day, saw no beauty to be required of Him, to be desired of Him. They saw no beauty. Because of their own fallenness, because of their own ugliness, they rejected this beautiful One. He is altogether beautiful, altogether lovely. But man has fallen to such an ugly condition that they would choose ugliness rather than beauty because their deeds are dirty, their deeds are dark, their deeds are evil, their deeds are ugly, and so they don't want the beauty of Jesus Christ. The beauty of Christ condemned and made It put a mirror and a light upon the ugliness of humanity. You see, if we turn the lights out, all of us would look the same. You see, we're all on the equal playing field when we're in the dark. But if you turn the lights on, that exposes our ugliness. It exposes those who are pretty, those who don't have it. And so when Christ Jesus came into the world, He turned the lights on our ugliness. His beauty reflected and shone forth our natural ugliness, so that without the grace of God transforming us, we didn't want that. We don't want His beauty. We don't want His glory. Man in his natural state is so ugly, he would rather have Barabbas Ugly Barabbas than beautiful Jesus. We just came through Halloween and you know how some of those costumes look. Pretty demonic. But if you want to put a face on human depravity, some of those accurately depict it. We are very ugly by nature. Very ugly. We're so ugly we can't appreciate the beauty of Christ. We look solely upon the outward appearance and don't appreciate the inward glory and selflessness and love and compassion and holiness and purity of the person of Christ. You see, we are so ugly that Christ came to do a complete makeover of us. He's not gonna put makeup on us and try to make us look better. He's gonna put us in the tomb where we belong and raise us anew, a new creature in Christ Jesus. Mary Kay can't help our lost condition. She can't fix us up. Jesus Christ is going to take us into the tomb with him and raise us anew, a whole new creature in Christ Jesus. The psalmist there says, one thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after. that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple. Apostle Peter tells ladies, but it also applies to men, that we should not be so much caught up with the external decorations and things to beautify our bodies, but to put the main emphasis of our lives upon the hidden man of the heart, which in the sight of God is of great price. should not we see like God sees, and not focus upon the outward, but to focus upon the inward character. When we see selfishness and evil of every color, shape, and size, Should we not root that out and tear that down and not try to fix up the external while the internal is full of dead men's bones and all kinds of uncleanness? Should we not endeavor by God's grace to be beautiful on the inside? One of my favorite verses in the book of Psalms is Psalm 90 verse 17. The Psalm of Moses. Moses had seen a lot of ugliness in the people of Israel throughout his life. He had seen a lot of ugly reactions, a lot of ugliness, a lot of evil. And Moses says, Psalm 90, 17, it says, Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us. and establish thou the work of our hands upon us, yea, the work of our hands, establish thou it. You see, among men, beauty is non-transferable. I have two brothers, and they both have a good head of hair, and no matter how much I hang out with them, I don't get any of it. I'm not gaining. You have a beautiful lady and a more plain looking lady that no matter how good friends, how much time they spend together, the good looks are not going to rub off. Non-transferable. But you want to know how beautiful the person of Jesus Christ is. That if you will gaze upon Him, that if you will look in the face of Jesus Christ, that if you will behold His glory, His glory cannot help but be manifested in your life. Even the enemies of Jesus beheld His apostles and they took knowledge. These guys have been with that guy. It could not be helped that those men who had been with Christ acted like Christ, responded like Christ, were bold like Christ, loved like Christ. Isn't that beautiful? that His beauty is so powerful, so pervading, that if we gaze at Him, if we look to Him, if we, through the eyes of faith, through the gaze of the soul, the mind's eye, if we will look to this wondrous Savior, this light of the world, if we will look to Him, we will be changed by Him from glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord. working in us. But we all, with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory. That's hope for me. If the Lord is your light, He's shown up your ugliness. But not only did He shine His light upon you to expose your ugliness, He also has come that you might gaze upon Him and He might be your beauty and your glory. So may the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us. May He decorate us with His glory. clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and adorned with the fruits of the Spirit, the love, the joy, the peace, the gentleness, the goodness, the long-suffering. We tell our children, when they're ugly, when they are selfish, when they're hateful, we tell them, that was ugly. And when you and I see in ourselves evil, let's tell ourselves, that is ugly. That is detestable. That is ugly. And let's turn our eyes to Christ in repentance and faith that His beauty might be our beauty. that His love might be ours, His grace and His truth and His righteousness might be ours. Let's pray. Gracious Father, thank You for such a Savior, that He is our light and He is our salvation. Thank You, O God, for revealing Yourself through the Word of the Lord and helping us understand that word by your Holy Spirit. Thank you for opening the eyes of our heart, Lord, that we might see you. Thank you for causing our affections to run out to you. Thank you, O God, for the great things you have done for us. And we look to you to continue your work of sanctification in our lives as we look into your glorious face. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.