I'd ask you to open your Bibles with me to Psalm 90. For over a year we've been going through the wonderful rainbow of God's attributes. And you will have noticed my pattern. I give a few words of introduction and then I summarize that attribute in one short sentence. And then we bring in various Bible verses and we explain them. We sometimes give examples of what this means. And then maybe we'll answer some objections that people will have to it, maybe some questions. And then we always bring in that attribute in Jesus. He's the focal point of God's revelation to us. And then we conclude week by week with practical lessons, both for believers and unbelievers. And this is how we learn about God, from the Bible. Not by guessing, but by going to God's Word and letting God teach us about Himself. Theology has to be biblical, and it has to be Christ-centered, and it has to be practical, and most of all, it has to lead us to worship God better. So it's my prayer that during these series and during this morning's message, we'll get glimpses of his glory that will assist us to see his glory better and move us to truly worship him. Today, we look at a lesser studied attribute of God, but oh, what a glorious one it is. Indeed, it's a very delightful one. Today we have the privilege of getting a glimpse of the beauty of God, and it's summarized like this. God is beautiful. He shows his beauty to us, and God is the ultimate essence of beauty itself. What is beauty? Dictionaries will define it as that which is pleasant and pleasing to behold, that which is lovely, Attractiveness. Beautiful means attractiveness. Something that is beautiful is handsome. It is attractive. It is pretty. The old timers would say it is something that is comely, fair, good looking. Back in Scotland, we would say something where someone is bonny. Or if you just want to get down to earth, you'd say, that is gorgeous. Well, these are all different words to describe beauty and beautiful. Beauty is that which produces a sense of delight and pleasure in us, especially the mind and the soul. The poet John Keats said, a thing of beauty is a joy forever. And it may describe anything that appeals to each of our five senses. For example, taste. We talk about delicious food or smell, a fragrant aroma like perfume, a touch like smooth velvet, or hearing a melodious song like something complicated and uplifting by Bach. But particularly we talk about beautiful something that we see, like great art, like something by Rembrandt, or a beautiful landscape, or a person. These are ways of saying that appeals to our five senses, but rather than there is a sixth sense, a spiritual sense that God calls upon us to use in seeing his spiritual beauty. There is such a thing as aesthetics, that's the philosophy of beauty and college courses offer that to try to discern what is beautiful and how does it operate. The ancient Greeks had books about this, and they would try to answer the question, what is beauty? And so, for centuries, people have suggested various qualities that help describe and define something that is beautiful and attractive. For example, it has to have proportion, balance, unity and diversity, color, shade, hue, perspective, harmony, ambience, correspondence with reality. Some have particularly said it has to have order. For example, some people will see great beauty in a very complicated mathematical formula or a very detailed computer program. Or sometimes men will watch a football game and they'll say, come and watch this. They're going to play it back. Look at how they did that. Every player was in perfect place. Oh, that was so beautiful because it had order and symmetry. Socrates, probably the first of the major Greek scholars, discussed this and he said, well, it's like climbing what he called the ladder of beauty. You can see beauty in inanimate things and then to plants, animals, and higher up, human beings. And he says you go higher and then you see higher beauty in things like moral beauty, goodness. intellectual beauty. And he said, you come to the very top, you find absolute beauty. And then his greatest student, Plato, said this, I affirm that the good is the beautiful. As we said last week, the good was his way of defining God. God is the beautiful. Unfortunately, the Greeks did not climb the ladder high enough because they didn't know God personally. They didn't know Jesus Christ. So they failed. Their ladder of beauty wasn't high enough. Others have tried to define beauty and say that it's subjective. Others say, no, it's not subjective. It's objective. Well, is it both of them or neither of them? Some say, well, it's all subjective. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. You make your own beauty. What is beautiful to you may not be beautiful to me. Others will say, no, no, no, it's not subjective and relative. It's absolute. It is something like Plato said, this ideal that's out there. There's this ideal beauty somehow, the good, but he never claimed to know it personally. According to the Bible, true and ultimate beauty is in God himself. It is not something relative. It's in God, but it's not some absolute abstract. It's personal in God. himself. And it is to be subjectively received by us when we behold the beauty of God, it does affect us in our hearts. You know, it's been said that you can tell a lot about a person by what he or she considers beautiful. Someone said that to a man, the most beautiful thing is a woman. But to a woman, the most beautiful thing is a baby. And there's truth in that. But what's the most beautiful thing to a Christian? God. Every Christian will say he surpasses men, women, babies, the landscape. God is the ultimate beauty. Now look with me at Psalm 90 for our first verse this morning, verse 17. Oh, let the beauty of the Lord, our God, be upon us. The beauty of God. Now, just as the verse God is love means more than simply God is loving the phrase, the beauty of God means more than simply God is beautiful or shows his beauty. It means that God himself is beauty, ultimate beauty, beauty itself. He defines beauty in terms of himself. So back to the question, what is beauty? True beauty is defined in terms of God, who is the source of all beauty. Augustine said God is beauty at once, so ancient and so new. And he said God is all beauty and beyond all beauty. God is perfect beauty without any imperfections. We've never seen such beauty. We have imperfections. God is perfect beauty without imperfection. A beautiful woman might have a scar or a wart on her otherwise lovely face. Not so with God. He has no imperfections that mar his exquisite beauty. He is true beauty. He is full beauty without imperfections. God is the very essence and epitome of true beauty. Let's look at this. He is most beautiful. He is the ultimate in beauty. He is the zenith and peak of beauty. Occasionally you hear about beauty contests, usually for women. But God far excels all Miss America, Miss Universe, Miss World. He is most beautiful. He surpasses them all. Not only that, brethren, the beauty of God far excels our greatest imagination. as well as experiences of beauty. Not only that, His beauty is related to His goodness. We took a look at His goodness last week. In goodness, God has goodwill toward us. He wishes us well. And in His beauty, He, as it were, gives us that which truly brings spiritual pleasure. In His beauty, God wishes to give us true spiritual pleasure by beholding His beauty. The Bible also would say that God has permanent beauty. It never increases, it never decreases, it never fades. Unlike our beauty. I remember a song back, oh, I guess it was around 1975, and the woman had a line in there, and she was a beautiful woman, and she said, young and beautiful, someday your looks will be gone. I wonder what she looks like today, 36 years later. But she's right. Our beauty fades. The Bible often describes human beauty like a flower that grows up and it's so beautiful and then it begins to wilt. Not so with God. His beauty never increases or decreases. It's always maximum beauty. And God is the source of all beauty. He is the matrix of beauty. He gives birth to beauty. Jonathan Edwards said God is primary beauty. A medieval theologian defined God as first beauty. And since God is infinite, He has infinite beauty within Himself. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit beheld each other's beauty for all eternity. And because God is infinite beauty, He decides to show His beauty. and to share his beauty to us. And that's why he created the universe. God reveals his beauty. And one way he does it is in creation. One of the hymns we like to sing is for the beauty of the world. Beauty shows the beauty of its creator. Ecclesiastes 311 says he has made everything beautiful in his time. Augustine said beauty and creation cries out to us and says, I didn't make myself. He did. Creation points up to God and says he is a beautiful one. He has given us the beauty we are showing to you. We are simply mirrors of his beauty. God reveals his beauty in nature for various reasons. One is to glorify himself. But has it occurred to you that the glory and beauty that God has put into nature is, as it were, Allurements, it's as it were, God shows his beauty to draw us to see perfect beauty in himself. Like he says, oh, you love to see a beautiful sunset. You love to see beauty in a drop of rain. Just wait till you see the source, as it were, he's saying, come, he's beckoning to us to see true beauty in himself. He is enticing us to himself and drawing us to himself as if he says, come and behold my beauty. And he gives a small glimpses of his majestic beauty in nature as it were just little hints and glimpses of his glory and beauty. And it's all around us, and if we don't see it, the problem is in us, not in nature and certainly not in God. We misuse the beauty that he reveals. For example, some people see beauty in nature. But it doesn't draw them to nature's God. They steal that beauty, as it were. And if they don't use the beauty God has put in His creation to worship the beautiful Creator, they are guilty of idolatry. And they misuse it. It's like a man that lusts for a woman's body and doesn't love her soul. So we sinful creatures steal God's beauty. We want to be the beautiful ones. Instead of seeing God as the beautiful one, God is the great artist. You know, you've heard about the argument from design. You've probably heard that in recent discussions that we can prove God's existence by the complexity of the design. If there's design, there must be a designer. Ah, I would go a step further, and some theologians have seen this also. They've said there's the argument from beauty. If there's beauty, there must be an artist behind it, because beauty cannot self-create itself. You look at a beautiful painting, you say it didn't paint itself. Ah, same thing with nature. There is beauty in nature that tells us there is an artist, God, that painted it. He paints the autumn leaves. He splashes color all across creation. He is the great sculptor that gives form to things. He is also the great musician that composes the music that every bird sings. You know that there have been composers, I'll ask Gene Gurman, he'll probably name you five or ten, that have actually composed great pieces of music by listening to the birds. I think Tchaikovsky did that, he would take it, take, take notation and say, yes, that's a C, D, yeah, that's a minor. And then he had composed some great work from the birds. Where'd the birds get it? From God. And then there's that mysterious music in the energy waves. Oh, we've just barely begun to plumb the depths of the music God has put into creation. He is the great composer. He is the great artist. Now, before I was a Christian, I was, I like to thought that I was an amateur artist. You know, you hear about starving artists. Well, I would have starved immediately. I wasn't too good, but I tried to paint a few pictures and I tried to paint light pictures with light shows. God displays his beauty in light. In fact, there would be no beauty or color without light. And it gives shape and form and depth and perspective and all this. It says the word God turns on the light to his masterpiece. in creation, but there is beauty in light. There's hidden beauties of photomicrography. I bet you've never heard of that. What they do is they have special cameras that can look inside the molecules and see the way that energy provides a display of beauty. I don't know if you've ever seen this. It's called fractal color. And I've got books and you can turn on websites and see. I've never imagined such beauty. in the molecules, and in the atoms, and in the energy, and in the light. One thing that I learned when I was an amateur artist is that every artist likes to put his little signature at the bottom. You've seen it. They scribble some little something there. If you were curious, my little mark was, I'd take my initials, C.D., and put them together. It was a circle with a little line through it. And someone said, yeah, it's pretty C.D. painting. But every artist says something about himself and his art. That's a signature. God puts his signature in the beauty of nature, and it says it where he says, I made that. And it says something about my beauty. Now, the beauty of God is also synonymous with his glory. The terms glory and beauty are often linked in the Bible. Job 40.10, array thyself with glory and beauty. Isaiah 28.5, a crown of glory and a diadem of glory, of beauty. And we're going to look at that a little bit more next week, the glory of God. But today, we're going to concentrate on the beauty of God. If the reflection of God's beauty in nature is so awesome, how much more is the full, direct revelation of the beauty of God himself. It far surpasses all the beauty you've ever seen or can imagine. What am I saying? God is beautiful. He is full of beauty. Full of beauty means beauty full. And there is, as it were, an effervescence in God where it exudes and radiates beauty. The Father, the Son and the Spirit have always seen each other as beauty, but they want to now reveal it to creatures. Such as us. God is beautiful in all that he is. Now, let me show you a wonderful verse on this. I'll give you a moment to find it. Turn back to Second Chronicles, Chapter 20. We've seen this study that all the attributes of God coincide with each other. God, therefore, is beauty in all that he is. He's not only wise, he's got a beautiful wisdom because there is beauty in order. And in wisdom, he's got beautiful, true, beautiful power and all these other things. All of his attributes are beautiful qualities in God. But in the Bible, there is one in particular that is singled out for being beautiful. Do you know what it is? It's his holiness. He has a beautiful holiness and it's a holy beauty. Now, look at Second Chronicles 20. Verse 21. And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed that those who should sing to the Lord and who should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army and were saying, praise the Lord for his mercy endures forever. There's a phrase that's found at least three times in the Bible, and it's this. Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. There's actually a verse that calls it the beauties of holiness. In the plural, as if there are many aspects to it. That's Psalm 110, verse 3. Many aspects of God's very nature, and they're all beautiful. How many aspects? Well, we've done something like 53 attributes of God in this series. There are far more aspects of God. All of them exquisitely beautiful. But God calls our attention particularly to His holiness. And we are to worship him, the Bible says, in the beauty of holiness. Now, that's not what some liberal scholars say. They say, yeah, the beauty of holiness meant that you put on good clothes when you go to church. No, what it means is we are to be clothed in the holiness of God when we come to worship him. Holy worship is what pleases God. Now, we sometimes see someone that has attractive garments. We see a woman and say, that's a beautiful gown or a man. You say, hey, nice suit, buddy. God is clothed in the beauty of holiness. What is the beauty of God? It's his holiness, not just the clothes of nature. That's just, as it were, a few threads. God is clothed in the beauty of holiness. God is holy. This is his beauty. It's a holy beauty and a beautiful holiness. Have you seen the beauty in God's holiness? If you've never seen that, you don't appreciate his beauty. Let me read you a few words that I shared in our bulletin a few weeks ago about the beauty of holiness by Mr. Jonathan Edwards, and he said this. Holiness is a most beautiful and lovely thing. We drink in strange notions of holiness from our childhood as if it were a melancholy, morose, sour and unpleasant thing. But there is nothing in it but what is sweet and ravishingly lovely. Tis the highest beauty and amiableness, vastly above all other beauties. Tis the divine beauty makes the soul heavenly and far purer than anything here on earth. This world is like mire and filth and defilement in that soul which is To that soul which is sanctified, tis of a sweet, pleasant, charming, lovely, amiable, delightful, serene, calm, and still nature. Talking about holiness. Tis almost too high a beauty for any creatures to be adorned with. It makes the soul a little sweet and delightful image of the blessed Jehovah. In fact, in one place, Edwards said beauty The beauty of His holiness is the chief attribute of God. Many people like to talk about beauty, even Christians. Some even ponder the beauty of God. But many of them will quarrel from the holiness of God, and that tells you immediately they don't understand the beauty of God, because the beauty of God is the holiness of God. To truly appreciate the beauty of God, you have to begin to appreciate His holiness. Do you appreciate His holiness? Do you meditate upon His holiness and read about it here and say, this is the most beautiful thing I can imagine or experience? Or do you require from it? Do you delight in the holiness of God? Now, if true beauty consists in holiness, it necessarily follows, therefore, that unholiness is the very essence of ugliness. Ezekiel 28.12 says that Satan was once, quote, beautiful, perfect in beauty. But then he's sinned and now he's ugly. The Bible says he has to disguise himself as an angel of light. If we saw Satan as he really is, we would want to puke. We'd be revolted by it. The devil vandalizes God's beauty and creation, so God created it beautiful. But we see ugliness in there. Have you ever seen something so beautiful, but it's marred by some ugliness? Years ago, I was walking through a forest down in Texas, and it was just so beautiful. There's a sky, and then there's greenery everywhere. And I stumbled across a deer that had been dead for about 10 days, and it was putrefying. There is ugliness in the beauty. All of that can be traced back to Satan, who has as it were, the great veil that throws the mud of sin upon God's beautiful creation. Satan is ugly. But let's look in the mirror. We resemble Satan more than we resemble God. We are sons and daughters of the devil. We are spiritually ugly. Oh, we fool ourselves. Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all? Not you. God! Look at yourself in the mirror of God's Word and you see very little resemblance between you and God, but a lot of resemblance with the ugliness of Satan. See yourself as God sees you. And if we could, we would be revolted. But God, as it were, kind of shields that from us because we couldn't take it. But he does say, now, take a good look at yourself as he sees you. Much of modern art is actually becoming very ugly, not beautiful. And it shows the decadence of their artists. Now, I learned that in art classes, that a person's art says a lot about that artist. So when you see ugly art, that's saying that's a bad artist. But he's only painting on behalf of mankind. Now, think of something in your mind that is very ugly, okay? I mean something really ugly that turns your stomach. Something that's putrefying. You have never imagined or seen anything nearly as ugly as your own soul. Look deep within your own heart and you will see ugliness. not beauty. And God sees us as we are, and he's disgusted by us, and he sees our ugliness, and he's disgusted by it, and he's angry with that. A 16th century theologian said, the beauty, the grace, and the attractiveness of creatures, when compared in their entirety with the beauty of God, are utterly ugly and horrible. Deep down, we are ugly. Even a beautiful woman deep down is a hag. Even a handsome man deep down is just some ogre compared to true beauty. True beauty is defined by God. Fallen man is blind to true beauty. We see some beauty in nature, but we don't see the beauty of its creation, of its creator. We don't see true beauty. True beauty is spiritual beauty, and it takes spiritual eyes to see it. Fallen man is not only ugly, he's blind. The Bible says he calls good evil and evil good, and he calls beauty ugliness and ugliness beauty. He's got it all perverted and twisted because he doesn't see the beauty of God. He's repelled by God. Why is fallen man repelled by the beauty of God? Because he is repelled by the holiness of God. He hates God's holiness. And so he just doesn't see it. He always sees the beauty in nature sometimes, but he's blind to true beauty. As it were, someone left the front door open in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a dog wandered in. The dog wanders up and down the aisles and, you know, looks at all the beautiful paintings. Doesn't mean anything to a dog. I mean, a dog didn't sit there folded its legs and says, oh, isn't that a beautiful painting? Dogs don't appreciate art. That's how we are with spiritual beauty. It's all around us. But we don't appreciate it because we're blind to true beauty. But then we imitate the devil and we vandalize God's art. We vandalize ourselves. We bring ourselves down into decadence and depravity. How does God respond to this? It's as if God says, you love your sin, you hate holiness. Oh, it's like he says, you love ugliness. I will show you ugliness. And he gives us a glimpse of ourself. And he says, you want ugliness and you want to live in an ugly world? then to an ugly eternity you will go. And hell is a place of eternal ugliness. There is no beauty in hell. And in hell, everybody sees themselves and everyone else as truly ugly. For there is only sin in hell and no beauty of holiness. We need a complete makeover. And it can't be done by ourself. You know, women sometimes say, you know, I'm going to get a makeover, a new hairdo, I think I'm going to change my appearance. Sometimes it helps. Sometimes they try to do it themselves and it doesn't work. Have you ever seen someone with a really bad makeover? I have. I know a man that was, oh, I guess about six and he said, you know, I'm going to get one of those liposuction, all this stuff and new hair thing. And he ended up looking worse than before. And now people would look at him and say, are you the same person? And they didn't want to look at him. What am I saying? We need a makeover. We try to do it by ourself. It's going to get worse. Only God can change us from being spiritually ugly to being spiritually beautiful. That resembles his beauty. What does God call upon us to do? Well, it's not easy. Just like that person says, I need a makeover, you have to admit it. But we don't want to admit that. God says, take a good look at yourself as he sees us. In fact, we need to see ourself as God sees us, not as beautiful, but as ugly. And it says it where God holds up the mirror of his word and says, look at yourself. He says, no, look at yourself as I see you. And as you read his holy law, you will say, I fail there, I fail there, I fail there. And now you begin to see a grotesque picture in the mirror. Yourself. Ask God to show you as you really are and then respond to yourself as God does and respond to your own image of yourself as you would to something that is ugly and downright revolting. And that produces repentance. One of the Puritans said repentance is the vomit of the soul. And if you ever get a good look at your own ugly soul, that's what you will do. You will be revolted and you will repent. And then look to Jesus Christ, the beautiful one, and believe in him. How do we have this spiritual makeover where we begin to resemble God? The Bible says God beautifies us. How? Listen to this verse, Psalm 149. He will beautify the humble with salvation. He does it in justification by taking the beauty, beautiful holiness of Jesus and puts it on our account and washes our sins away. And then God gradually transforms us in sanctification. That simply means making us holy and making us holy. He sanctifies us and makes us spiritually beautiful. You say it could never happen with me. I'm beyond that. It could never happen. You say it's a dream. Years ago, someone made a movie. And they took an actress and they made her look really ugly. And then she went to a beautician, had a complete makeover. Now she's the most beautiful woman in school. And so I wish something like that could happen to me. I'm so spiritually ugly. It can happen. Only God can work the miracle of beautifying a human soul. Do you want a true spiritual makeover? Do you want to be holy or do you want to be spiritually ugly? Come to God, he is the great artist. Now the Bible gives us several interesting examples of human beauty. I've jotted down a few. Several women are called beautiful. Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Abigail, Bathsheba, Tamar, Abishag, Esther, and the daughters of Job were all called the most beautiful in the land. Several men were called very handsome. Saul, David, Absalom, And Joseph in Genesis 39, how about Adam and Eve before they said, boy, don't you know, Eve was beautiful. Don't you know, Adam was very handsome. They didn't have the ugly effects of sin in their countenances yet. They must have been very beautiful and handsome. And then throughout history they talk about, oh, Helen of Troy had such beauty, she could launch a thousand ships by her beauty. And there's Miss America, Miss Universe, Hollywood stars, models, supermodels. And then there are imaginary people. A lot of artists will not use a model, he'll use his imagination and paint a beautiful painting. So there are various examples of beauty. There is one person that surpasses every single one of them by a million miles. Jesus Christ. We see the beauty of God, especially through the Lord Jesus Christ, because Jesus is the epitome of beauty. You see, he is God who is beautiful. He is also sinless man who had no mars upon him to marry his beauty being God man. He therefore shows his true beauty. Ah, but when he came to earth, he veiled that beauty. Isaiah 53 to says when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He didn't stand out in the crowd. You ever seen a really handsome man? And, you know, other men would say, man, that is some handsome dude. Jesus wasn't like that, he veiled him. For example, when they came to arrest him in the Garden of Gethsemane, they needed Judas to point him out. Otherwise, Judas could have said, oh, you'll know him, he's the handsomest man out there, most gorgeous guy you'll have ever seen. No, Jesus veiled his beauty. Now we see something else about him. Jesus, who is truly beautiful, not only veiled that beauty, but in a mysterious way, in becoming our Savior at the cross, His beauty was transformed. Not only was his beauty veiled, but as it were, an ugly rag of sin was covering him now. He was transmogrified for us. That means he was made ugly for us. The Bible says he was made to be sin on our behalf. Our sins were put upon him. And when God looked upon him with sin upon him, God didn't say, this is my beloved son in whom I am pleased. Instead, God was disgusted by him because our sins were put upon him. And he was ugly to the witnesses at the cross and to God. But brethren, here is what I call the mystery of beauty. And it takes spiritual eyes to see it. And that's why people couldn't see it then and people can't see it today. Why don't people believe in this Jesus? It's because they're blind to his spiritual beauty. And we described the cross and what Jesus did. And they say, I don't see anything this beauty. In fact, I want to turn away from that. Who wants to contemplate a dead man on a cross bleeding? Have you ever seen a dead body? I've seen human bodies that are dead and it's not attractive to look at. And so when we invite people come and look at the beauty of Christ on the cross and they say, what beauty in that? It takes spiritual eyes to see the mystery of beauty, because in the atonement, when Jesus died for our sins, suffering, writhing on the cross, bleeding, he showed another luster of spiritual beauty beyond what you can imagine, beyond what you can see in nature. It's as it were, if we see Jesus as he was on the cross, we would look at him and with tears we would say, you were never more beautiful than that. You have never showed us more beauty than that. The cross is the true ladder of beauty where God comes down, as it were, to our level. True beauty is a matter of the heart. And on the cross, Christ opened his heart to us and we see true beauty. And then the Holy Spirit opens the eyes of our hearts and he transforms our hearts. And then we see true beauty in Jesus that we never saw before. If you're a lost unbeliever and have never looked at Jesus as he really is, you cannot imagine the beauty that is in Jesus Christ. Later, we will sing. A great hymn entitled Fairest Lord Jesus, but usually it omits this verse. Earth's fairest beauty, heaven's brightest splendor, in Jesus Christ unfolded see. All that here shineth quickly declineth before his spotless purity. And that beautiful hymn closes by calling him beautiful Savior. Isaiah 42 calls him the branch of the Lord and says the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious. I could rhapsodize about the beauty of art or of music, but if I lived a billion years, I could never describe the beauty that is in the Lord Jesus Christ. Words fail me. The Bible describes him. But if you've experienced it, if you've seen it, you will echo that and say he is beautiful. He is the very essence of beauty. In the Song of Solomon, the bride of the king, this is a picture of the bride of Christ, says to him, he is altogether lovely. That's Jesus. Altogether lovely. Everything about him, he is the essence of beauty, the epitome of beauty, the zenith of it. Everything about him, his body, his mind, his thoughts, his words, his deeds, everything about him is altogether lovely and beautiful. Do you see it? And what is it done to you when you behold the beautiful Savior whose name is Jesus? Let's end with two practical applications. Number one, strive to cultivate true spiritual beauty. Turn with me to 1 Peter chapter 3. I think all of us would like to look beautiful or handsome. Most women and some men desire great beauty and some overdo it and they waste time, money, and they become proud. Or as it says in Ezekiel 16, 15, you trusted in your own beauty. We go overboard with wanting to look beautiful. We want everybody to look at us and say, Oh, aren't you beautiful? Aren't you handsome? So we say, look at me. Look at first Peter chapter three. Now this is addressing women but it also applies to men. Do not let your adornment or beauty be merely outward, arranging the hair, wearing gold, putting on fine apparel, but rather let it be the hidden person of the heart with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit which is very precious in the sight of God. For in this manner in former times the holy women, notice holy, who trust in God also adorn themselves being submissive to their own husbands. What he says here is true beauty starts on the inside in the heart, not the outside. You don't go outside and work in. God says start on the inside and then work out. And he says this is incorruptible. Ladies and gentlemen, you can lose your beauty in a moment. In a car accident or other things, you can lose it and one day it will fade. Strive to get true beauty that will never fade away. But if you follow the path of holiness, it will only increase in you. Proverbs 31, 30 says, charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised. Now, some people have physical beauty, but not spiritual beauty. And it takes eyes of faith to know the difference. Proverbs 11, 22, almost tongue in cheeks. She talks about a beautiful woman like this. It's very beautiful, but she doesn't have inner beauty, and he compares it to a beautiful gold ring hanging in the nose of an ugly pig. Think of that next time you see a beautiful woman that doesn't have holiness. On the other hand, There are some people who lack physical beauty, but they have an inner, true spiritual beauty that comes out. Now, let me ask you as your pastor, which of these are you striving for? Ladies, would you rather have the physical beauty or the spiritual beauty? Men, what are you attracted by? Physical beauty or spiritual beauty? Which is more important? We should strive after this by salvation, sanctification, the Holy Spirit that transforms us into the image of Christ who is the beauty of holiness. Remember, you strive for beauty by striving for holiness because true beauty is the beauty of holiness. And then one day the makeover will be complete. Isaiah 28 5 says in that day the Lord of hosts will be a crown of glory and a diadem of beauty to the remnant of his people. God will bestow his own beauty upon us. Zechariah 9 9 17 says on that day people will explain how attractive and beautiful they will be to each other. And lo and behold to God, we are now ugly before God, but when God is finished with us, we will be beautiful to Him. We will have His beauty and He will take delight in beholding the beauty He has put in us. Psalm 45, 11 says the King will greatly desire your beauty. So brethren, strive to cultivate true beauty, the beauty of holiness. And secondly, Be delighted in the beauty of God. Walk through God's museum of beauty and creation and walk with the artist and compliment him. Take pleasure in God himself who is the source of true beauty. And then walk through the library of His beauty by reading the Bible. Ponder the beauty of all God's lovely attributes. And especially, brethren, I plead with you, be overwhelmed by that means of beauty in the face of Jesus Christ. Keep coming back to Him and being transformed by His beauty. And worship God. Like applause at a concert. Psalm 33, one says praise from the upright is beautiful and that pleases God and it helps us to be pleased with God. And again, there's that verse three times says, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. And then one day, as I said, it will be completed. In heaven, heaven is the place of ultimate beauty on display, far greater than creation. There will be no imperfections of ugly sin up there. Heaven is a place of glory, holiness and beauty. Angels will be beautiful. Saints in heaven are beautiful. But brethren, we get to see more than that. We get to see the source of it himself. God, we get to see God in all of his beauty and radiance. Psalm 96, 6, we read earlier. Honor and majesty are before him. Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. Psalm 27, verse 4 says, One thing, that is the most important thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord, heaven, all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord. What do you long to see in heaven? Other people? Angels? How about God? We will gaze upon God in all of his glory. We will be transformed into the likeness of Jesus Christ and we will spend eternity gazing upon the beauty of God. And then will we fulfill that great promise, Isaiah 33, 17, your eyes shall see the king in his beauty. Isn't that wonderful? And that's the promise that God gives to all of His children, that He will beautify them and take them into the very portals of heaven. And He'll say, not only will I beautify you and show you greater beauty that's been reflected in nature, but as it were, He opens the curtains and says, behold, me and my beauty. That's what heaven will be all about, brethren. Let us pray. Father, thank you for the glimpses of your beauty that you've shown to us in nature. And in the countenance of a beautiful Christian that is loving and holy. Thank you that we get to see it in the face of Jesus, who is the very radiance of your glory and beauty, for he is the beautiful savior. Transform us, O Father, and help us to show this beauty to others. Give us more glimpses of your beauty, O Lord, so that in seeing it by faith we will be transformed into the likeness of Jesus and that we will also be moved to worship you in the beauty of holiness as we see the beauty of your holiness. In the beautiful name of Jesus we pray, Amen.