B is for Beauty-Psalm 27:4

Old Testament, Psalms, Sermons

Psalm 27:4 (Gen 27:27-28; 29:17-20)

“One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.” (Ps 90:17 says, “And let the beauty {favor} of the Lord our God be upon us…” [KJV])

A happy man is a man of one thing. The psalmist had one thing to ask God, only one thing he sought: To dwell in the presense of God all his days—which was synonomous to gazing on “the beauty of the Lord.” To gaze is to look steadily and intently with awe, amiration, affection and astonishment. The apostle Paul is a man of one thing, which was to testify to the gospel of God’s grace (Ac 20:24). Thomas Aquinas coined the phrase “homo unius libri”–a man of one book. Such a man will not be easily defeated. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook and the youngest billionaire, is famous for saying, “Find that thing you are super passionate about. That’s the guiding principle for me. On hard days, I really just step back, and that’s the thing that keeps me going.”

Theme/thesis: Love, beauty and happiness are invariably always linked together. Therefore, we can never resist desiring and loving what we find most beautiful to our eyes and emotion.

Key Questions: What is most beautiful to you? Are you attracted to “the beauty of the Lord”?

Accountability in action. Last week’s sermon and theme was “A” is for Accountability. Three questions asked were, “Do you have a Nathan? Are you a Nathan?” Most importantly, “Do you know your ultimate Nathan, who did not confront you with your sins, but died for your sins?” After the sermon last week, we thank God for a dear brother and friend who–moved by the Spirit–shared before the whole church about a dark episode of his life from three decades ago that now reveals the marvellous grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

Accountability is not enforcing the law but revealing the grace of Jesus. I used to practically and primarily think of accontability (or shepherding) as helping others to repent of sin and overcome their sins. Though all of life is repentance (Luther), yet Christianity is not less but far more than repentance. Today I recognize that a life of managing sin is rather sub-optimal and easily leads to legalism. But when we studied Galatians a few years ago, it set me free from legalism–28 years after becoming a Christian. I would say that accountability is primarily and practically to help others to recognize and experience the marvellous grace of Jesus that is greater (and more beautiful) than any of our besetting sins.

What is beauty? “I used to ask my friends, ‘Do we love anything but the beautiful? What then is the beautiful? And what is beauty? What is it that allures and unites us to the things we love?For unless there were a grace and beauty in them, they could not possibly attract us to them‘” St. Augustine,Confessions, Bk. IV, ch. 13.

How beautiful you are, my darling! In the Song of Songs, Solomon expressed just how beautfiful his bride was 13 times in 8 short chapters (Song 1:8, 15, 16; 2:10, 13; 4:1, 7; 5:9; 6:1, 4, 10)! He says, “How beautiful you are, my darling! Oh, how beautiful!” (Song 1:15; 4:1ff). “You are altogether beautiful, my darling; there is no flaw in you” (Song 4:7). Can any person ever resist or not be drawn toward what they find most beautiful?

A personal experiencial reflection. This is not a comprehensive exhaustive theological review of beauty, but a limited personal experiencial reflection, which I hope may have some usefulness and practical applicability to you. Like love and happiness which we all seek, beauty is closely and intimately intertwined. No one will ever experience love and happiness if they do not experience beauty in our hearts and lives. Using the word “beauty” loosely, the three parts of this sermon are:

  1. Wired for beauty
  2. Deceived by beauty
  3. Restored through beauty

I. Wired For Beauty

Gen 1:31; 2:8-9: “God saw all that he had made and it was very good. “The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground–trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food.”

Ps 19:1-4: “The heavens declare the glory of God. the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. 3 They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. 4 Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”

Eccl 3:11: “He has made everything beautiful in its time.”

Rom 1:20: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”

II. Deceived By Beauty

Gen 3:6: “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.”

Gen 27:26-28: Then his father Isaac said to him, “Come here, my son, and kiss me.” 27 So he went to him and kissed him. When Isaac caught the smell of his clothes, he blessed him and said, “Ah, the smell of my sonis like the smell of a fieldthat the Lord has blessed. 28 May God give you heaven’s dew and earth’s richness—an abundance of grain and new wine.”

Gen 29:17-20: Leah had weak eyes, but Rachel had a lovely figure and was beautiful. 18 Jacob was in love with Rachel and said, “I’ll work for you seven years in return for your younger daughter Rachel.” 19 Laban said, “It’s better that I give her to you than to some other man. Stay here with me.” 20 So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her.

III. Restored Through Beauty

Phil 2:6-8: “Who, being in very nature God,did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant,being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man,he humbled himselfby becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!”

2 Cor 5:21: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Gal 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

How I become a Christian. I was captured by the beauty of my redemption through unconditional love, mercy, forgivness, acceptance and the sheer beauty of God that was experienced as a transcendently bright and radiant light.

“Too late have I loved you, O you Beauty of ancient days, yet ever new! Too late I loved you! You were within me, and I was in the world outside myself. I searched for you outside myself and, disfigured as I was, I fell upon the lovely things of your creation. You were with me, but I was not with you. The beautiful things of this world kept me far from you… You called me; you cried aloud to me; you broke the barrier of my deafness. You shone upon me; your radience enveloped me; you put my blindness to flight. You shed your fragrance about me; I drew breath and now I gasp for your sweet odor. I tasted you, and now I hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am inflamed with love of your peace.” St. Augustine, Confessions, Bk. 10, ch. 27.

 

Questions for Reflection:

  1. Are you wired for beauty? Why (Gen 1:31; 2:8-9; Ps 19:1; Eccl 3:11; Rom 1:20)?
  2. Is your life always attracted to beauty? In your experience has this been good or bad?
  3. When you became a Christian, was it “beauty” (and love) that touched and transformed your heart and life?
  4. How might beauty deceive you (Gen 3:6)?
  5. Consider Isaac and his son Jacob. What did they each find beautiful (Gen 27:27-28; 29:17-20)? How did it affect them? What were the consequences?
  6. Consider the beauty of God in:
  7. Creation (See #1).
  8. Fall (Gen 3:15; Rom 5:8).
  9. Incarnation (Jn 1:14; Phil 2:6-8; Col 1:15; Heb 1:3).
  10. Redemption (Mk 10:45; Lk 23:34; 2 Cor 5:21; Gal 2:20; See #7).
  11. Holy Spirit (Gal 5:22-23).
  12. Christ (Mt 11:28-30).
  13. The Trinity (Jn 3:16; whole Bible).
  14. Consummation (Jn 14:3; 17:24; Rev 21:1; 22:4).
  15. How can beauty redeem us (Ps 27:4; Isa 33:17; 1 Pet 3:3-4)?
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