The sermon explores the meaning of clothing from a biblical perspective, focusing on the message to the Church in Laodicea and Jesus' desire for believers to be neither lukewarm nor cold. The sermon emphasizes the heart of Jesus' work toward sinners, which is to clothe them in robes of righteousness and cover their shame. It discusses the purpose of clothing in relation to the glory of God and highlights three areas: God's passion for purity, God's design for gender distinction, and God's favor for nonconformity to the world. The sermon also addresses the responsibility of women in dressing modestly and the role of fathers in teaching their daughters about modesty. It warns against the dangers of outward conformity and self-righteousness.

Revelation 3, verse 14, and this is Jesus Christ's message to the Church in Laodicea. These things, says the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God. I know your works, that you are neither hot nor cold. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth.

Because you say, I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing, and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked, I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich, and white garments that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed, and anoint your eyes with eye-sav that you may see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with me.

To him who overcomes, I will grant to sit with me on my throne, as I also overcame and sat down with my Father on His throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches." And this passage is a remarkable picture of someone who is wealthy and confident and actually proud. And the Lord comes to him and says, Buy from me gold refined by fire and by white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed." Now this is the heart of the work of Jesus Christ toward sinners. He clothes sinners. He gives them garments that are white that cover their shame.

And it's such a reason to rejoice. We're here tonight to rejoice in this act of God to send His Son, that His Son would die. His son would never steal one ounce of glory from his father, so that those who do steal glory from their father can be clothed, clothed with robes of righteousness. And so, as we come to this final message in this series of the Doctrine of Clothing, I hope it's become apparent to all of us, hopefully in a new way, of the depth and the beauty of this whole doctrine of clothing from Genesis to Revelation. We've tried to move through the scriptures to see what it says, and I've felt many times how kind God is to lead his children to living waters, and how tragic it is that we would ever eclipse the glory of God in any area of life, and that modesty really does have to do with the whole matter of the glory of God and eclipsing it or not.

And we've spoken of, first of all, God's zeal to cover shame as the first purpose of clothing. We went back to the book of Genesis and we traced that idea of the robes of righteousness all the way to the end of the Bible. Then we identified the fact that God has a zeal for beauty. He's given us a world of beauty. It's everywhere.

Did He give us that so that there would be no reaction to it? And at the same time, God does picture beauty for His people and their garments ought to be beautiful. And then we saw, thirdly, of God's blessing of humility, that the essence of modesty is humility. And then we saw of God's care for unfading adornment in 1 Peter 3, 3 through 6. These two didactic sections of Scripture in 1 Timothy 2 and 1 Peter 3 speak of really the heart of what we call modesty, but it really explains much about the doctrine of clothing.

And then this evening I'd like to cover three other areas, And the first is God's passion for purity in this matter of clothing, and then next, God's design for gender distinction, and then next, God's favor for nonconformity. In other words, that we be not conformed to this world as we consider our clothing. One of the things that I think we should say at the beginning here is that if we use the word modesty then we should conclude that modesty is not something that anyone can say I've arrived no one can say that And a person might be able to say, I think I'm dressing modestly, but let not that person think for a minute that they've arrived at the matter of modesty because of what they're putting on their bodies, because it's far deeper than that. And it goes across every area of life. And the only thing that you can say about modesty or clothing and say, I've arrived, are the things that Jesus has done because he has clothed you in rubs of righteousness.

That's what he did. The only way you can arrive at this is by an act of God. But we never arrive at it in terms of our own struggle with our own immodesty and our desire to glorify ourselves in our in our propensity to eclipse the glory of God in really every area of life. We asked this morning, is there an area in life where you're not eclipsing the glory of God in some way? Well, the answer to that is no.

We eclipse the glory of God in every area of our lives. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ that he never eclipsed the glory of God, and he did it for us, so that his obedience would be imputed to us so that we can stand before him. It's so clear that the gospel and the doctrine of clothing are very interrelated and God uses clothing to declare the gospel of Jesus Christ And we've said and I'll say it again that everything really rests upon Paul's command in First Corinthians 6 you are not your own, but you were bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God with your body. And so we come to this next area here that we will be tackling tonight, and that is that clothing was given to be a declaration of male and female.

And we go to Deuteronomy chapter 22 verse 5 to see about that, and we read there that, a woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman's garment, for all who do so are an abomination to the Lord your God. So it's an abomination to God to blur the genders in this matter of clothing and we we need to we need to be very clear that the clothing was created by God to illustrate gender distinctions along with all the other things that we've spoken of. Clothing is one way that God establishes a prohibition for the blurring of the genders, And this is very important in our own time, that we recognize that Christianity contradicts the current gender ambivalence that people are experiencing today. God has actually given clothing as a sign that there is male and female and you can't choose your own gender. God chose that for you and your clothing should represent that.

The terminology that Moses uses here in Deuteronomy really that explains this is the phrase, what pertains to a man? And he's speaking of the apparatus of a man. And it's not exclusively about clothing. It also includes whatever a man needs to be a man and to fulfill his role. And the context seems to be military clothing as well.

John Calvin interprets these words like this, that it prohibits a new-fangled strange attire, coveting always a new shift, you know, all these changes, seeking every day a new fashion. They are desirous to renounce their own sex. So it's this sinful inclination in the heart of man to blur the genders, and clothing has been given to us so that that does not happen. This is, I believe, a commentary on Genesis 1, 26 and 27 where man was created, male and female, and it has deep meaning for all of us. Now If you think about this matter of male and female clothing, you'll recognize that what is male and female clothing seems to change through culture and through time.

You know, there was a time when the Lord Jesus Christ was walking that men were wearing robes. If men would wear robes today in America, they would be thought to be feminine, but it wasn't feminine at that time. So as you grow up in the culture that God puts you in, you have to recognize what is it that declares maleness and what is it that declares femaleness. The problem with that, it's a moving target. And while you may have men in Scotland who wear kilts, and it's a sign of manhood, in America you may see men wearing dresses and it's not.

So the cultural matter is very difficult to navigate. But here's what we know for sure. God has made man as male and female, and our clothing should declare that fact in the midst of this gender blender world that we live in. And here's the application. Women don't dress like men.

Men don't dress like women. Women lean into your femininity in your clothing. Push back on gender neutrality in your clothing. Men, lean into your masculinity and push back on gender neutrality. It's difficult to tease out all the different iterations of clothing and the crossover of male and female that exists today, but here's my advice.

Cry out to the Lord that he would help you to be distinctively male and distinctively female. And let the Lord teach you how to do that. The next area has to do with allurement and how clothing is used for allurement and for sexual temptation. And there are seven biblical texts I want to very briefly stop at to speak about this but the Bible gives us really graphic illustrations of this problem Jesus refers to it there are narratives There are didactic texts that speak to this problem of visual stimulation and how clothing causes it. And so we recognize when we come to the area of allurement that the eyes play a major role in a long history of mankind's failure to govern his eyes, to make a covenant with his eyes, and a long history of failure of women who would actually dress seductively in order to draw a man.

Those are the two problems. You have a woman and her desire to dress seductively, and you have a man with his eyes which are drawn to seductive form factors in female clothing and bodies. And then you also have the problem of women who aren't really very clued in on what is seductive. So those are the problems that we have. As we come to these biblical texts, I want to first declare the fact that the Bible teaches that men are responsible.

Men must learn to guard their eyes and their hearts, and they must teach their sons to do the same thing. It is a duty of men to guard their eyes and not fall victim to every possible manifestation of immodesty. It's a duty of men to do that. And at the same time, it's a duty of women to be careful not to lay stumbling blocks in front of their brothers. So men must take responsibility for the government of their eyes and their lusts, and women must also take responsibility for how they might cause their brothers to stumble." Those are two things that I think these passages of Scripture imply.

The first is Proverbs chapter 7 verses 10 through 12 and verses 21 to 27. And here what we find is the power of the visual in a woman's dress and how women must recognize they are responsible in one way for this matter. And here there's kind of an extreme example, but in verse 10 we read about a woman who meets a young man and with the attire of a harlot and a crafty heart. So those two things were resident in this woman. She had the attire of a harlot, in other words she was dressing seductively and she had a crafty heart.

She was trying to lure men and she did it, she pulled it off And there are various things that are said about this woman, but what I want us to grasp is there is such a thing as seductive attire. There is such a thing as the attire of a harlot. And Then the passage goes on and speaks about how she uses her flattering lips and she seduces him and he goes after her like an ox to the slaughter. And then everything falls apart after that. He loses everything.

And he's shamed in front of the congregation and he loses everything. So it's very dangerous to follow the eyes. And then the second passage of Scripture is in Matthew chapter 5, and we find Jesus instructing his disciples on the enticements of the eyes and what it is when men cave in to the visual. And he speaks about the true nature of lust and how a woman's clothing or a woman's body can draw men into sin. And in this passage the blame is not put on the women but on the man.

He saw and he lusted. And Jesus tells us that when men do such a thing they've already committed adultery in their heart. Jesus blames the man and his eyes for that. And that's why Jesus says in Matthew 5, if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. The responsibility is on the part of the man.

It is better for you to enter into life with one eye rather than having two eyes to be cast into the hell fire. And then you have the story of David and Bathsheba. In 2 Samuel 11 verse 2 we read these fateful words, David saw a woman washing herself and the woman was very beautiful to look upon. This is a narrative, this is an example of a man looking on a woman and God lays the blame on the man as well. He saw and he took and he committed disastrous and despicable sins as a result of it.

The fourth example is in 1 John chapter 2 verse 16 where the Apostle John describes the sinful, our sinful existence in this world, and he's not just talking about men, he's talking about mankind, and he says, he speaks of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Now all those things are related, but there is this matter of the lust of the eyes that we find as a challenge in this world. And then the fifth example is Amnon and Tamar, and in this case it seems that Amnon lusted even though Tamar seemed to be modest, it's a difficult one to dissect perfectly. And the sixth would be Joseph and Potiphar's wife. There's an account of a man here who resisted temptation.

Joseph resisted the advances of Potiphar's wife, and she was immodest, and Joseph was modest. And the victory was Joseph's victory, because he turned away and he went the other direction. And then we find seventh, the example of Job. And Job tells us that it was necessary for him to govern his eyes and he said, "'I've made a covenant with my eyes "'that I may not look upon a woman." And here Job is saying that men must create a way to deal with their eyes. I become weary of men who find themselves so desperately tempted by the littlest thing that they see.

The problem is they will not turn their eyes. Now that doesn't absolve a woman of responsibility for creating part of that problem. But men are supposed to look away and they have responsibility to do such a thing. If you don't have a procedure and a protocol for your eyes, they will go wherever the next magnet appears. And so a man needs to somehow, by cultivating his affections, to demagnetize his eyes.

The way he does that is by not feeding lust. He must starve the dragon. If he doesn't starve the dragon of lust, his eyes are going to be like magnets and he'll have eyes full of adultery, like the Bible says. So a man must demagnetize, and the only way to do that is really to kill the dragon by starving him to death, by giving him no food. That's the only way.

And you know, a man can actually reshape his affections. He will not escape lust completely, but he can do serious damage to his lust if he starves it. And I think the scriptures teach that. But then you turn to the duty of women. At the same time a woman must be aware that she has a duty to remove temptations from before her brothers.

And so a woman also should consider herself responsible for what she incites in men. And there should be a sense of shame for distracting someone from purity and to consider every part of her appearance as whether there's any possibility for that. And a woman who hates sin would have shame to tempt anyone in any way. And Jesus spoke about this as well in Matthew 18 in verses 6 through 10, But whoever causes one of the least of these little ones who believe in me to sin or stumble, It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he'd be drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of offenses or stumbling blocks, for offenses or stumbling blocks must come.

But woe to that man by whom the offense comes." And so a woman needs to recognize that she can either be a stumbling stone or an encouragement toward purity. And this is why we should counsel our Christian wives and our daughters to be very careful about that, to rid their wardrobes of things that are too tight, particularly, you know, modern bathing suits are really nothing but nakedness, and They expose the body rather than to understate its form. The writer of Hebrews in Hebrews 10 made it very clear, and let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. That's the responsibility of a woman. She must recognize that she has a responsibility to protect her brothers and to spur her brothers on to love and good deeds, and the way she dresses matters in that sense.

You know, in this booklet, Christian Modesty, The Public Undressing of America, Jeff Pollard writes these words, speaking very personally, Dear women, for a man of any age to stand behind you when you are giving an anatomy lesson with your pants or your tight top, you are not displaying holiness of heart and purity of life. Consider what Jesus said, Then he said unto his disciples, It is impossible that offenses will come, but woe to him through whom they come. Consider what Paul says, Let us not therefore judge one another any more, but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way." That's Romans 14 13. And then he continues, appealing to the women, Dear women of God, if you do not understand this, it unfortunately means that fathers, husbands, and pastors are failing to teach their wives and daughters important truths. Jesus Christ died and rose again to pardon our sins.

Jesus Christ died and rose again to make us holy. Jesus Christ died and rose again to gather us to His blessed worship and adoration. Immodest clothing militates against undistracted worship and puts a stumbling block in the path of some worshipers. And then in speaking to his very own congregation he says this, the elders are asking you to wear modest clothing when we gather to worship our holy, holy, holy God. And so he makes this appeal for women to be very careful with it.

And then finally the final area I wanted to cover in this series has to do with nonconformity or rather conforming to this world. And I'm sorry, Romans 12, one and two, First Thessalonians four, one through seven, First Corinthians six, 13 through 20, all speak to this matter. Paul says it, I think, very clearly when he says, Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. In other words, he's saying, Don't let the world squeeze you into its mold. Men, women, don't let the world squeeze you into its mold.

What is popular may not be lawful and this world is going in a direction, if you follow the fashion world it's going to take you right off the cliff. Following the world of fashion is a disaster. The truth is this, you're going to be following something. Make sure you're not following this world's fashion. The world is not our standard.

We're not children of this world. Christians do things differently. They use their time differently, they think differently, they conduct their marriages differently, they raise their children differently, they handle their money differently, they have a different message, and they should be dressing differently, particularly as it finds faithfulness to God as opposed to faithfulness to this world. And so We need to be sensitive to this world and the idolatry of it. And this impulse to fit in is idolatry.

This impulse to please the world is idolatry. And so we need to recognize exactly what it is. Here is the truth. If you dress like a Christian, you will stand out. People will be able to recognize that you don't dress like everyone else.

And the big question is, are you willing to suffer the consequences of that? The shame, the comments, the innuendo, the snarky, slanderous things that people will say about you if you dress like a Christian, because it will happen. I remember many occasions where my wife and my daughters would be walking in the mall and people would be snickering and staring at them because they didn't dress like the people in Abercrombie and Fitch. They didn't dress like Calvin Klein and the rest of the crowd. And so they were slandered.

Are you willing to take the shame of this world in order to obey God? Because everything is an expression of something. Clothing is a religious, putting on clothing is a religious act. It reflects the values of the heart and the moral compass of that person. Or it reflects the moral compass of the culture itself.

So those three areas I wanted us to be able to speak about in dealing with this matter of the doctrine of clothing, gender distinction, the matter of allurement, and then finally fitting into this world or being conformed to this world. So there you have seven categories that really speak about the doctrine of clothing. Now I want to turn to some applications and I'm going to try to give you five of them if I'm able to do that by time. And the first application is this. It's the category of questions a woman should ask, the questions a woman should ask about this area of modesty.

And in bringing these things before us, I'm assuming that you've heard everything that I've already said about it, about the doctrine of clothing and what is really at the heart of it. I think that you know women need to recognize that modesty isn't achieved by simply wearing a dress. Some might think well if I'm wearing a dress I'm modest. It's more than wearing understated clothing. And so here's some questions a woman can ask about her wardrobe.

Number one, is any part of my wardrobe seductive in its hemline, in its neckline, in its tightness? The second question, is my clothing drawing attention to my breasts, my buttocks, my crotch, my legs? Is it too tight, too low, too short, and does the fabric expose my form so that it is an eye magnet? Question number three, is my clothing decent from all angles and all lighting? You might test it out and see.

Lighting can matter with particular fabrics. Number four, is it causing godly men to turn their eyes away from me? Do the men who've made a covenant with their eyes have a struggle when they're talking with me? Are they having to keep their eyes fixed? This is a responsibility of men to do that.

But are you forcing a man to have to work really hard to even talk to you? Every man knows if you're talking to a woman who's showing too much skin or too much of her form, it can be actually hard to talk to her because you're conscious of that and you want to look away. But you don't want to look away because it's...because they're problems. You find yourself in a no-win situation. Number five, is my clothing drawing attention to me?

Number six, With whom do I identify with my clothing? Number seven, is my time and money too focused on fashion? You know, it takes time, right? You know, It's easy to be so wrapped up in fashion that you spend an enormous amount of time changing clothes, getting ready, and dealing with all kinds of details. And it just consumes your time, all kinds of changes and things like that.

Number eight, where do I want to err? If I want my clothing to err, where do I want it to err? Do I want my clothing to be on the side of immodesty or do I want to err on the side of modesty? I'm here to just encourage you, if you're going to err, err, err on the conservative side. You know, the apostle Paul, nor anywhere else in the Bible, do we find commands about your hemline or your neckline.

None of those details appear in the Bible and as we've worked through scripture I think you can see why. Because God is calling for worshipers to worship Him in spirit and truth and to apply it in their own culture with the fabrics and the styles and the clothing that they exist in at that time. And it can be a real challenge. And, you know, if we don't have explicit hemlines in the Bible to guide us, then do we appoint someone to bring those guidelines? Do we create a modesty police to tell women how low is too low, how short is too short?

Do we want a pope to decide? Is that what we want? And I think the reason you don't find these explicit commands is because God desires these things to bubble up from the heart. And so He fills women with His Holy Spirit, and those who are truly humble and honest before Him, God will help them. He'll help them figure it out.

They might need their fathers, they might need their husbands to help them understand that they might be clueless in some areas. But the truth is, God does primarily focus on the meaning and the purpose of it and the dangers of it, and he does not establish these fences around the Torah that deal with every single micro detail of clothing. He just doesn't do it. And I think, you know, we've studied enough of the passages of Scripture to make that really plain, that God isn't dealing with those kinds of lists. So questions for women.

Here's the second application I'm stealing from someone who some of you may be familiar with, Greg Nichols. He calls this the Christian freedom fashion guide. Are you ready? I'll shoot them to you one at a time. The Christian freedom fashion guide.

Better a size too big than a size too small. Better too loose than too tight. On hemline. Better a bit too long than a bit too short. Neckline.

Better an inch too high than too low. Better a little opaque than a little too sheer. Better a little concealing than revealing. Better a little chicken than a little too daring. I thought that was helpful.

When he spoke these things, he says this, this is not legalism. It's simply a matter of Christian responsibility. Next, the next application, number three, fathers and husbands. Fathers and husbands need to recognize that any girl can dress modestly and have an unconverted, immodest heart. She can clothe her body and be unclothed with her wedding garments.

Her wedding garments for the kingdom of heaven are the most important garments, and a father really needs to understand that. You know, a girl who's resisting her earthly father, it's just an indication that she's resisting her heavenly father in that matter. For a father, it's in God's design that he would collaborate with his daughter in such a way that she understands the gospel, she understands adultery, she understands the lust of the eyes, she understands that her clothing is not a matter of personal expression. It's rather a matter of declaring the glory of the gospel and that it pictures Christ's righteous robes. And a father needs to communicate those things.

A father is not just telling his daughter to wear and just shape up. It's far, far deeper than that. And fathers need to explain the meaning of clothing. You know, I've given you probably 10 or 20 passages of Scripture over the last two weeks. I pray that you would teach your daughters these texts, that they would know where to go.

If they're dressing modestly, they can at least explain it from the Bible, so they can go to those passages of Scripture. Send them to Genesis 3. Send them to Isaiah 61. Send them to 1 Timothy 2. Send them to 1 Peter 3.

Send them to Proverbs 7. Send them to Deuteronomy 22 verse 5. Send them to the scriptures so they understand what it really means. Don't just give them a law, explain to them why and give them the Word of God so that they understand you're not just making this up. Fathers have that responsibility.

Here are four things a father should communicate. Number one, the heart of modesty is a Godward heart. A father can easily produce a proud daughter who thinks wrongly about it. If she thinks she can become modest by putting on clothing that's right, she's really misunderstood what the scriptures say. That immodesty is eclipsing the glory of God, and that happens in a lot of places, not just with clothing.

It's easy to kind of fix the clothing thing, but it's not quite as easy to go deep into the heart. The second thing a father should communicate is the meaning of clothing and the heart of the gospel that covers shame and replaces with beauty. A father should communicate those things, that God has covered shame and he really is creating a beautiful bride. Number three, that biblical modesty is governed by laws of love that are found in Scripture. They are laws of love, and a father should recognize that and communicate that to his daughter.

Number four, modesty must be understood by considering history and culture and the various cultures of immodesty and modesty that exist. A woman needs to be wise. She needs to recognize that this culture is largely shaped by immodesty and by this world. And there are there are churches who have a particular modest modesty culture and it may be shaped by this world. And a girl needs to understand that, and a father needs to help his daughter to understand that.

And the culture of our hearts is really the beginning of it. We should be asking the question, how am I am honest, rather than trying to micro-pick everyone in the world. If you took the outward appearances of our lives together and asked, well, is that pride that caused him to say that or him to buy that or to live where he lives or do what he does, is it pride or not? We would be hopelessly lost because the heart of immodesty goes through everything in life. We should be concerned about the culture of our own hearts and to cry out to God that he would reveal to us any immodesty, any stolen glory that we're involved in in our lives.

We steal a lot of glory from God all our life long. Let's talk about relationships, the fourth application. And I want to speak about relating to one another where there's a sensitivity to modesty. And I think in our church, we do have a sensitivity to modesty. And that is a good thing.

And I think we should be very careful if you have a sensitivity to modesty and you're in a church that does so, that it's very dangerous to distance yourself from those who have a different history and a different standard. And it can create favoritism, it can create lack of love and an obsession about one thing, and it's harmful. And it can create lack of compassion for another person, for their background, their history, maybe their father, maybe their pastor, Maybe they're completely obedient to their Father and their pastor, but it doesn't look like it to you. And you should be very, very careful to raise yourself above them and judge them, and not be able to see anything but the difference that exists in your clothing, which is just skin deep. Number five, outward conformity.

There are there are liabilities in in focusing on outward conformity because modesty is external. There are there dangers that that exist because you can just create outward conformity. But when you do that with rules, you can create a self-righteous culture where there's lack of compassion for other people. And so I tried to communicate some of this last Sunday night, but we must acknowledge there are different church cultures and faithful women who have embraced the instruction of their pastors. At the same time, it's not the same thing as saying that church culture is untainted from the world.

That's not what...because we're all tainted with the world in some fashion. And there are church cultures that are patterned after the world, and it's sinful to do such a thing. But we just have to recognize the dangers there are in creating a culture of outward conformity. Here's a six-step process. First of all, receive with meekness the implanted word.

Second of all, examine your own heart. Next, go to your closet in the spirit of humility. Next, ask your husband or your parents or your spiritual leaders. Next, evaluate your body language and next, deal with your pride. And recognize that this matter of modesty is not something that you arrive at.

It's something that you're always in process, and you're in process in every single area of your life, including your clothing. The nice thing about clothing is you can just put it on, but most of the other areas in our lives aren't like that, are they? And our immodesty is seen in lots of different areas. Well, so there it is. Several passages of scripture to help us to sort of re-calibrate our minds on the whole doctrine of clothing and to recognize the significance of clothing.

It's not insignificant at all. And It's not enough to say that only your heart matters. That's not true. It matters how you dress, and it matters what kind of heart created that dress. And both of them matter, and they're very, very significant.

And so I pray that God would give us such a sense in our church that we are not our own, that we were bought with a price, and that we ought to glorify God with our bodies. Would you pray with me? Lord, we thank you that you have provided so many ways to show us your glory, and you've given clothing to remind us of the greatness of your kingdom. Lord, I pray that you would help us as a church to find any ways that we are eclipsing your glory, any ways that we are causing brothers or sisters to stumble, any ways that we have departed from your ways, any ways that we've desired the favor of this world, and that you would help us, Father, as a church, not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Oh Lord, may it be so.

Amen.