What Makes A Man Look Good
Psalm 1:1-6 2 Timothy 3:1-5 6/17/2018
What makes a man look good? Although we like to talk about how women are always looking in the mirror to make sure they look good, the truth is that men have the same desire within them. Some of us have been known to have our own mirror with us in the car, and if we didn’t care about looking good, we would not be making so many trips to the barbershop. The last thing the barber does after cutting our hair is to give us a mirror, and ask us “how does it look.” Men like to take selfies as well.
I wanted to know for myself what makes a man look good. I wanted to know from a woman’s perspective, what makes a man attractive to them. Men for those of us who want to look better to women or to our wives, most of us can afford the things that make us look good. I sent out a text asking women in our church, what makes a man look good to them and they responded. I also asked some of them in person the same thing and they responded as well.
When it comes to looking good to women, not one of them responded the bulging muscles on their body. Not one of them said him standing by a BMW, and not one of them said the ability to give out orders to everyone. Here’s what makes a man look good from a woman’s perspective from the seven categories that I put their comments in.
God
• His Ability to follow God
• God has first place in his life-seen through his speech and actions
• His Love For God
• Living A Godly Life
• One Who Loves The Lord
• Believing in Jesus And Working As A Team
Family
• His being a great father and great grandfather to a fault
• Loves Kids
• Acts Like My Dad
Inner Strength
• His ability to see the good in even the bad situations.
• He can truly take a lemon and make lemonade
• Kindness, Thoughtful
• His Character
• Intelligence
• Honesty
• Emotional Strength
Man
• Manliness
• Gentleman-Politeness
• Willing To Take Charge Yet Gentle
• Creative
• Respectful
• Romantic
• Grace
• His Ambition
• Hard Working
• Interested in learning and acquiring knowledge makes him amazing
• Takes care of himself in all things.
Provider
• Strong, there when you need him
• Dependable
• Trustful
• Faithful
• Goals
• Hardworker
• Values her thoughts and her
• Speaking well of her to others
• Spending Time With Her
• Speaks his wife’s love language
Communicator
• Can Talk On Any Subject
• Good Listener
• Great Conversationalist
• He Talks To Me And Not At Me
Fun
• Loves movies and music
• Good Dancer
• Good Sense of Humor
• Funny
• The ability to make me laugh
• Matches my personality
These seven areas that make a man look good to a woman are not that much different from what makes a man look good to God. When God created man, he created a fantastic piece of machinery for more complex than any computer that has ever been designed. And yet our society wants to rob us of our immense complexity by saying we are nothing more than the result of evolution and that by chance and random events, we became what we are today. My friends we are far more than mere chance.
The word of God tells us this about us: Hebrews 2: “But there is a place where someone has testified: “What is humankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? 7 You made them a little[a] lower than the angels; you crowned them with glory and honor 8 and put everything under their feet.”[b “
I will choose to believe that I was wondrously and marvelously created a thousand times over before I believe that somehow I and a cow at one point had the same great, great great parents. Men ,God created us looking good because when he finished creating us as male and female, the scriptures tell us that “God saw all that he had made and it was very good.”
God created us in God’s image which meant we were created with far more potential than any of us could have ever dreamed possible. Can you imagine what it would have been like to have never lost our patience, to have never said something we regretted, to have never lusted after someone, and to have always been honest and open with God in every area of our lives? Can you imagine what it would have been like to talk with God and then have God talk back to you not in dreams and visions or signs and wonders but in a direct voice. That’s the power and potential we had, before Adam and Eve decided, they knew better than God as to what was best for them.
Do you know what happens, when we think we know better than God what’s best for us. Instead of looking good, we start to turn ugly. And our ugliness is contagious and it spreads on to others. And once we see their ugliness we in turn become selfish because our goal is now to protect ourselves from others. That’s how we have gotten where we are in the world today. Our scripture reading had this commentary for our society today.
But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.
Men this is the kind of world that God is asking us to be willing to look good so that others would want to leave the ugliness behind. Have any of you seen someone look really good in a dress or in a suit and you thought to yourself, ooh I would like to have one of those. Why, because you’re thinking, you are going to look good or at least better in that outfit, than what you usually wear.
The reason God became flesh in the form of Jesus Christ, and walked this world as a human being was so that we could see, what a body which is clothed in the Holy Spirit truly looks like. What is it about Jesus that made him look good to us when we got saved. One of the things has to be his love and concern for us. Why on earth did you come to a place knowing that you would be rejected, knowing that you would be beaten, knowing that you would be murdered on a cross for the very people that you came to save. Why would you pay such a price?
There is a line in a Star Trek movie in which the Captain and his first officer who have been friends for life come to the final chapter in their lives. The ship they are on is in great danger. The first officer realizes the only way to save the crew on the ship is to go in and repair a part, but in so doing, he has to absorb a lethal amount of radiation that will certainly kill him within minutes. He does this and saves the ship. The captain asks him why did you give up your life. He responded, “the needs of the many outweighed the need of the one.”
Jesus saw that we had a tremendous need for God and for salvation. Jesus also knew that without God, our ultimate destination after the judgment is hell. He saw that our need to be saved was greater than the need he had to escape the pain and agony of the cross. God’s word tells us, “greater love has no one than this, than that the person lay down his life for a friend.” Jesus died for us because he considered us his friends. Jesus told the disciples, “no one takes my life from me, I voluntarily lay it down.” My friend who has died for you for your spiritual future?
What makes a man look good is the willingness to lay down his life for others. It is in yielding to the Holy Spirit that God is able to put on us the kinds of things that make us attractive by shaping and building our character. God is more interested in what’s happening with our character than he is with our gifts, our sacrifices, or our commitments.
Our character determines whether or not we are faithful. It determines how honest we are going to be with other people. It determines whether or not people can trust us, put confidence in us, or know whether or not we will be there for them in their time of need.
Character isn’t something we can work up inside of ourselves, because when we start with ourselves, we start with a flawed character. A man without God, can do some wonderful things in life and in the lives of others, yet he may be giving them a message that he did not intend. You may be a good father or grandfather, but you’re telling you kids or grandkids that God is not all that important by your actions. They look to you to see if the church is important or if trying to live godly is important. You may be setting that person who adores you, up for disaster spiritually.
So many of us look up to our dads, and we want to be so proud of us. The truth of the matter is, we want our kids and our grandkids to love us and to be proud of us. We want our kids to grow up to be wise, but sometimes we have missed the foundation for life.
The scriptures teach us, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. This is the basis upon which a godly character is built. A character built without God has no solid foundation, because the values and opinions of the world are constantly changing.
We as men we are tempted to have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof. We are the ones to speak of God as the man upstairs or the good Lord above, but we deny the power of God to be at work convicting our hearts of sin and seeking to have total control of our lives. We want to look good by giving God a passing acknowledgment as though he was a good competitor in an athletic conquest. We acknowledge, he’s a good player and give him respect as such, but that’s where it stops.
God’s looking for more than an acknowledgement of respect. He’s the one who will ultimately determine where we spend all eternity. His goal is to make us look so good in this life, so that our lives will also influence the lives of others for all eternity. Jesus left us here to be his witnesses. Men, we can’t be content just being a good man, a good husband, a good father or a good grandfather. We want to look good enough to have whoever is following us, wants to follow us right into eternity.
What makes a man look good may also have to do with what it is he’s wearing. God tells us what we should seek to put on when we get up in the morning. Colossians 3:12-14 (NIV2011)
12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
Men the more we can put on these, the better life gets for those around us. Think of how Jesus has shown us what each of these things look like in every day life. Jesus was full of compassion. When he saw people suffering, he stopped what he was doing to try to ease their pain. We might not be able to heal the sick but we can help that person whose broken down on the side of the road. We can help that neighbor whose lost their job and needs some help.
We can be compassionate to our child who has really messed up and feels terrible about it by doing their own thing and yet we still reaching out to them in love when we feel like yelling and screaming.13 How many of you appreciate it when compassion comes your way.
Think of how Jesus wore kindness. He touched the leper that nobody else would touch. He accepted a woman that everybody was ready to stone. He gave a little girl who had been demon possessed back to her mother completely well. None of the people did anything to deserve his time. Jesus simply chose to express kindness to others.
Several women mentioned how good a man looks when he demonstrates kindness to them. Doing the simple things to make somebody’s else life easier expecting nothing in return. If somebody asked you, what was the last kind thing that you did, how far back into time would you have to go or have you already made kindness a part of your character.
Think of how Jesus wore humility. He never walked around saying, “I’m The Son Of God and I’m in charge here. You better do what I say or else.” No he walked around giving people choices as to whether or not they would follow him. When Satan tempted him to do something spectacular to prove who he was, Jesus simply replied it is written. Many times when he healed people, he told them not to tell anyone. When they tried to force him to become a king, he simply slipped away into the crowd.
Jesus was a take charge person in a gentle kind of way. He took over the situation with the woman caught in adultery, yet was gentle in the way he reached out to the woman. Jesus made it his business to serve other people. Are you a server or somebody usually waiting to be served?
Think of how Jesus wore patience. From age 12 to 30, he was the still the Son of God, but to the world he was a nobody. You would not have been able to pick him out of a police lineup and say, that’s the one that’s the Son of God. He just fit in the crowd . He waited until God the Father said, now the time is ripe, before doing any miracles or preaching any messages.
Jesus had to wait 30 years before starting on the job God sent him to do. He patiently taught the disciples about humility, acceptance, compassion and loving each other, only have to hear them arguing over which of them was the greatest. Have you said to your kids or employees, “how many times am I going to have to teach you this before you get it.”
“Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”
Nobody has worn bearing with us better than Jesus. We’ve made promises after promises of what we’re going to do and broken many of them, and yet Jesus still bears with us. If anyone should have any grievances against us, it should be Jesus. Yet he constantly forgives. Men you look great when you practice the art of forgiving. In some ways, that’s when you’re looking most like Jesus. No longer counting people’s sins against them.
You let go of the anger you feel they deserve to get, and allow the Holy Spirit to work in you in such a way that you move beyond the hurt and allow you to have love and compassion. Just think how different our lives could be, if we put on these simple qualities. How many of you know, we would all start to look better. We’d be far more attractive as a church. If we ever chose to truly love each other, we’d be as beautiful and as handsome as them come.
The bad news is that we can’t put these items on by ourselves. The good news is the Holy Spirit will work these things into our lives simply by helping us to say no to ourselves and yes to the Spirit of God. When Jesus Christ rose from the dead, he rose with the power to give to us the power to allow the Spirit of God work a change in our lives. Are you open to receive that kind of power by inviting Jesus Christ into your life?
