THE PAPAW ARGUMENT: You should wear your Sunday best to church because it honors God.
- Put on your tie. Throw on that suit.
- Find a nice dress. Put a bow in your hair.
- Many Christians argue that you should wear your best to church because it honors God. “God is worth of the best we have to offer.”
- This is an argument that I’ve heard Papaw make countless times.
THE PROBLEM WITH THAT IS: The only two New Testament passages on what to wear advice us not to dress up.
- 1 Timothy 2:9-10; 1 Peter 3:3-5.
- We have this tradition – and it’s a tradition that makes some sense. After all, it seems right to give your best to the Lord.
- The problem is passages like our one this evening: Paul instructs the women not to dress up. I’m going to presume this evening that he would say the same thing for the men.
- Marshall Shelley’s rain gauge story [you can find this on Preaching Today].
- The issue here is whether, no matter how well-intentioned, when we dress up for church we are giving God a present that He doesn’t want. Not only doesn’t want, but specifically said not to do.
- Are we giving God a “rain gauge” when we put on our Sunday best?
WHERE TO FOCUS INSTEAD: “Being good” versus “looking good.”
- What is the heart of the matter here? I think there’s a good argument to be made that the core idea in play here is that God is more interested in us being good than in us looking good. That He’s interested in what’s inside us far more than what we’re wearing on the outside.
- “Are you ready for church?” Is that answer to that a matter of having on the right clothes or having a ready heart?
- The Pharisees were doing things for an audience of people.
- Key phrase is Matthew 6:5a – “done for men to see”
- Three examples:
a. Phylacteries and tassels.
- These were things talked about in OT law. The problem wasn’t having them – it was making them bigger and more prominent.
b. Places and seats of honor.
- So everyone could see them looking important.
c. Greetings in the marketplace.
- Receiving honor from everyone in everyday life.
- We often do things for an audience of people.
- We have the desire to be popular and to be liked.
- We’ve come to believe in our society that “image = reality.”
- And so we act like the image and the reputation is the most important thing.
- After the Tiger Woods scandal, the media discussion was centered on the question: “How can he repair his image?” I didn’t hear any asking, “How can he change his life?”
- What are the things we do for public consumption when it comes to our spiritual life?
a. Big Bible for Sunday morning.
b. Suit for Sunday morning.
- Do we wear a suit to honor God or to fit in?
c. Bumper stickers.
d. Fish symbols.
e. Going to church.
- Do I go because I really want to, or because I know people will talk if I miss 2 weeks in a row?
f. Activities at church.
- Sometimes we are so busy with church activities that we don’t spend much time on internal work.
- My own life early at PBC when we were building a sanctuary and I struggled to do devotional time.
g. Church as a whole: bricks, budgets, and bodies.
- What are the things we don’t do that we should behind the scenes when it comes to our spiritual life?
a. Prayer life.
b. Bible reading.
c. Financial giving.
d. Compassion.
e. Mercy.
f. Peace.
g. Contentment.
- The path of least effort spiritually is just to do what people can see.
WHAT ARE THE THINGS I DO NEED TO BE READY FOR WORSHIP?
1. EXPECTATIONS AND FAITH.
- Do we come in anticipating a move of God? Do we come in expectant that God is going to touch lives? Do we come expectant that the Spirit is going to speak to us?
- Often, we come with no expectation and no thought. We don’t have any faith that God is going to do anything because we haven’t thought about what we want Him to do in worship.
- When you come through the doors, are you just fulfilling your duty? Are you just in a rut? Is that just your tradition for that time of the week?
- We need to come ready for worship and a move of God.
2. CONFESSINO AND REPENTANCE.
- We also need to come with a clean heart. For God to speak to us clearly, we need to have our sin taken care of. We cannot justify significant sin in our lives and still expect God to move within us.
- We need to specifically repent of the sins that we’re dealing with.
- God can move among His people more powerfully when we are more fully His people – given over to His love and truth.
3. EAGERNESS TO PRAISE.
- Good worship is not just about the preacher having a good message planned or the singer really nailing it; it’s also about each person walking in with a heart to praise God.
- When you come through the door, are you eager to:
a. Share a testimony?
b. Tell someone how good God has been to you?
c. Say, “Amen” to the song or sermon (whether you say it out loud or in your heart)?
d. Go to the altar to thank Him or draw closer?
[Maybe do invitation at this point and then do the last point after?]
A LINGERING DOUBT: Does this passage actually push farther to an outright ban and are we justifying our tradition?
- 1 Timothy 2:9-10.
- There is a lot to be said for the argument I’ve made this evening: it is important to have our hearts in the right place. What’s going inside us is more important than what we wear on the outside.
- And yet I have a gnawing feeling that that’s not enough. That that’s not as far as this verse goes.
- I wear a suit both services Sunday. Many in our church dress up in suits and nice dresses. It’s our tradition; it’s what we’re comfortable with. We don’t give it a second thought.
- Of course, the fact that we’re all comfortable with it doesn’t automatically make it right. The fact that we’re all used to it doesn’t automatically make it right. The fact that this is our long-held tradition doesn’t automatically make it right.
- This passage certainly supports the points I’ve made up to this point tonight, but I wonder if there isn’t more there.
- Is it too far to say that we shouldn’t be wearing fancy clothes to church at all?
- Is it too far to say that having the fancy clothes on is a sign in itself that our heart is not in the right place?
- Where exactly is the line? What’s acceptable and what’s not?
- Would the dress of people like Amish people have much stronger Biblical support than the way we dress based on this verse?
- All of those are uncomfortable questions. I don’t like where they lead. And yet there they are.
- And so I close this sermon tonight not only with the main point that I’ve made, but also with these questions – questions I freely admit that I do not have settled answers for.
