Internal Adornment (Part 1)

What we wear can be an important matter to God, but the adornment God is more concerned about is not belts or shoes or shirt. God is far more concerned about what we wear inside. Peter says, “Do not let your adorning be external – the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear – but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious” (I Peter 3:3-4).

God told Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (I Samuel 16:7).

God isn’t concerned about pleated or un-pleated pants or ties or suits.

The question of what God wants us to wear is not primarily external; it is an issue of the heart, and there is no better place to examine that internal adornment than the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7).

The main theme of this sermon is the issue of internal righteousness. Jesus told his audience in Matthew 5:20, “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” In other words, the pseudo righteousness of the religious elite is not the standard for the believer, for their pseudo-righteousness was external.

God looks at the heart, which then produces an outward righteousness. The hearts of the religious elite produced nothing but hypocrisy. The citizens of God’s kingdom are to be adorned with internal righteousness, and then the right behavior will naturally flow from that.

The Sermon on the Mount is a “reality check” for every man and woman to measure their position before God. The Sermon on the Mount also is a motivator for every professing Christian to only see Jesus Christ as the hope for meeting any of God’s standards.

This was the greatest sermon ever preached by the greater Preacher who ever lived, and in the next 8 weeks on Wednesdays, we will be looking at the opening verses of this Sermon (vs. 1-12), which serve as a heading for the entire sermon. As a “preview of coming attractions,” the internal adornment God is seeking in each of us is

• repentance (5:4)

• humility (5:5)

• righteousness (5:6)

• mercy (5:7)

• purity (5:8)

• peace (5:9)

• willingness for persecution (5:10-12)