Welcome back to Aspastor John. This summer Pastor John is out of the studio preaching in Belfast in Scotland before returning to the States for a 40-day writing leave to finish up a book on Providence on the sovereignty of God a book he started last summer and hopes to finish this summer I cannot wait to see it and all of it the travel the book writing in this very podcast is all made possible by you. We are supported by the prayers and the funding of God's people.

So thank you for generously investing in this important and eternal work.

So with Pastor John Busy we're diving into our archive of 1500 episodes and this summer we're pulling out some of your favorites.

About once every 50 episodes we release one that touches a nerve and touches the 300,000 play mark.

These are the elite episodes in our six and a half year history. We only have about 30 of them and here's one of them.

Summer has arrived and with it renewed questions about modesty in the inbox. So Pastor John can you speak to the issue of modesty regarding clothing at the pool especially bikinis and speak to pastors and leaders.

Should they take time in the spring to directly address the topic of modesty and if so how would you counsel such a brave pastor to best step through that minefield.

Here's the most important thing to say it is impossible to come into a church or a youth ministry or a school say a Christian school that is permeated with a modesty in modesty and fix it with rules about modesty.

There is a place for rules guidelines in families in schools in youth ministries in churches but if you try to turn that thing around that institution or whatever if you try to turn that around by starting with the rules or the guidelines it will not accomplish.

A Christ exalting gospel rooted spirit empowered faith sustain Bible informed joyful free culture of modesty it won't and yet that's the goal.

So my approach was never to start with the rules or the guidelines but to start with God and the gospel and the Bible and the spirit and faith enjoy deep things need to happen in a woman's and a man's soul.

Before they have any chance of thinking and feeling about these things in a way that honors God until God has become your treasure so just say this to any woman any man who dresses inappropriately until God has become your treasure until your own sin has become the thing you hate most.

Until the word of God is your supreme authority that you feel to be more precious than gold sweeter than honey until the gospel of Christ death in your place is the most precious news in the world to you until you have learned to deny yourself short term pleasures for the sake of long term joy and holiness until you have grown to love the Holy Spirit and long for his fruit more than man's praise.

Until you count everything as loss compared to the supreme value of knowing Christ your attitude towards your clothing and your appearance will be controlled by forces that don't honor Christ.

So every pass can see we can't work to do I mean deep soul work to do which means for a pastor that 99% of his effort will be the establishment in the heart of these glorious supernatural works of God.

He will preach and teach and worship and model in himself and in his family how the gospel changes everything and he will realize that apart from the work of the Holy Spirit through the word and through faith his church will be split between two kinds of carnal people.

One group will bristle at every mention of modesty and say how dare you tell me or my children how to dress that's that's a bad attitude and it's carnal but the other group will put all their emphasis on outward appearance with little sense of the heart and that it's supremely important and these two groups can never know peace.

They both have failed they're not deeply transformed by the gospel so my council is teach your people these things year in and year out expose the pride of licentiousness and self will and expose the pride of externalism and formalism that has no heart in it it doesn't see the gospel as precious.

You preach and you pray for a gospel culture where men and women have and I've got a little list here that really means once you hear it you know it's going to change the way people dress.

Weathers in this women pool or in church a sweet submission to Christ a saturation with the word of God a humble attentiveness to the wisdom of others and it is how to grow and learn a deep suspicion of the power of worldlyness to control our habits and a loving consideration of others when we choose what we what we wear.

And when the time is right so here I'm trying to get more specific when when the time is right yes you take up the texts like first Timothy to eight I desire that men in every place should pray lifting holy hands without anger and quarreling and likewise that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel with modesty and self control.

And you work through it making sure that everyone feels that the Bible really does care about how we dress and it really does want us to dress in a way that's rooted in humble joyful Christ exalting other serving gospel faith.

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