Clothing Communicates

Series: Modesty: Does God Really Care What I Wear?

Leslie Basham: We can say so much without ever speaking a single word. Here's Nancy Leigh DeMoss.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Now our clothing and our appearance, women, is one of the most powerful and important means we have as women of communicating, sending a message about our hearts, our values and what we believe.

Here's the question. What do your clothes, your appearance communicate about you?

Leslie Basham: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss. It's Tuesday, June 17. Clothing communicates. It's why manufacturers splash their brand names all over their designs.

It's why gang members wear certain symbols or colors. It's why popular music groups sell thousands of T-shirts when they go on tour.

Do you know that your clothing communicates as well? Here's Nancy speaking before a group of women to help us evaluate what we're saying by the clothes we wear.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: If I tell you that there's a woman coming down this church aisle in a long, white, formal dress, what would you say is probably the occasion? It's a wedding; she's a bride. How did you know? Because clothing communicates.

If I tell you there's a teenager bundled up in a snowsuit, mittens, a wool hat and a scarf would you agree with me that the teenager is probably not on his way to a picnic.

Clothing and appearance send a message. They can communicate our occupation or the kind of occasion we're involved in. There are some religions in the world that, if you saw a woman dressed in a certain way, you would say that woman is from this particular religion or from this particular nationality.

Clothing can communicate something about our socio-economic status. You can look at some people and think, She looks like a wealthy woman or you might look at another woman and say, "She doesn't look like she comes from a real wealthy background" maybe just on the basis of clothing.

We have a number of illustrations in the Scripture of somebody who was dressed like a soldier or like a king or like a priest. There are different descriptions.

For example, in Luke 16 we're told that there was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and he fared sumptuously everyday. His clothing communicated something about his socio-economic status.

Now clothing also communicates a message, sends a message, about our values, our character, our attitudes. For example, you look at some people and you can tell, this person is not a "neatnic."

I mean, neatness doesn't really matter to this person. And you may come to that conclusion, not because you've seen her room or her office but just because you've seen the way that she dresses.

The Bible talks about times when people would wear sackcloth. Now, for those of you who may not be familiar with that, sackcloth is clothing made out of crude, rough fabric of camel or goat-hair and it covers the body from the neck down to the ankles and people would wear this.

They would put this on as a sign of mourning or repentance. So, if someone was wearing sackcloth, they were signifying, communicating, sending a message, about what was going on in their heart.

Now we also have illustrations in Scripture about how our clothing can send a message about our morals or lack thereof. For example, in Proverbs 7 we read this phrase, it's talking about a seductive woman and she's married and she's trying to lure a man who is not her husband into her bedroom.

And it said that she had on the attire of a harlot. Now, it doesn't describe in that passage what that clothing looked like; but when I say that, is there an image that comes to your mind.

The woman is dressed in a way that you can look at her and see that her motives are not pure toward this man. There's another passage in Genesis 38 that talks about a woman named Tamar, who was a widow and she wanted to seduce a man that she was not married to.

And the Scripture says in Genesis 38 that she took off her widow's garments. There was a specific type of clothing that would have communicated that she was a widow and she changed her clothes and she put on the clothing of a prostitute.

The man she was trying to seduce knew her. In fact, he was her father-in-law. But when she changed her clothes, he didn't recognize who she was.

He just looked at her clothes; he believed she was a prostitute and he went in and was sexually intimate with her. Now, I say that not at all to justify him; but just to say that clothing sends a message.

And women today are sending a message with their clothing. And many of them know exactly what message they're sending.

But some are naive. They don't realize what they're sending. They've been so influenced by this culture that they don't know any other way to think about clothing.

I've put together a poster here and when we hold up this poster, which has about a dozen pictures of women from some popular women's magazines (that I just pulled out this morning), just looking at the way that they're dressed, what message would you say they're sending?

Just one at a time, but speak into the mic if you would.

Audience participant: "Look at my body."

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Okay, look at my body. Someone else.

Audience participant: "I'm available."

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: They're saying, "I'm available." Okay. Someone else.

Audience participant: "Look, but don't touch."

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Okay, how about another one.

Audience participant: "Either I don't care what God thinks or I haven't thought about what God thinks."

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Okay. Anybody else on this side of the room?

Audience participant: "That female beauty is defined by sexuality."

Audience participant: "When I see that it reeks of pride."

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: What is it that you're looking at that makes you think of pride?

Audience participant: "A lot in their body language, even, the way they're so exposed and proud of it and so revealing. Nothing is left to the imagination."

Audience participant: "I think it also reveals insecurity because they don't have the right kind of self-confidence to not dress that way."

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Very interesting point.

Audience participant: "And I also think it puts across the image this is what you have to be to live in this world and to be popular and to be part of it. You have to be able to show off your body and strut your stuff."

Audience participant: "I think they're very much issuing an invitation to men. There's a message that indicates to them that this is the sum total of who I am. I think many women who display their bodies that way don't have a really good self-image of who they are and their self-worth."

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: In spite of the fact that they look so confident, but you're saying that maybe they're not really as confident as they look. Okay, Julie.

Audience participant: "I guess having been in the print industry, I wonder how much of what we're seeing is real, how much of it has been brushed through computer technology and things like that.

And it's very fleeting. The ages of the women, I would guess, are much younger than they look. And that whole industry is just very, "eat 'em up, and spit 'em out and get another one."

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: And for sure, these women won't look that way when they're sixty. No matter what. When I showed these pictures to a friend last night, she said that it reminded her of a song she had heard in the eighties that said, "If you want my body, and you think I'm sexy, come on baby, let me know."

Kim Alexis was super-model in the eighties. Her picture was on over 500 magazines covers including Vogue and Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition.

She's had a change of heart about many things and today she realizes that she made a lot of mistakes and she's challenging women to think about the message they are sending when they dress sensually.

Here's what she has to say, "Many women are playing with fire in the way they dress. Dressing like a floozy tells the world, sends a message, "Look at me, want me, lust after me. I'm easy and you can have me. Displaying intimate parts of the body," she says," is a form of advertising for sex."

Now, our clothing and our appearance, women, is one of the most powerful important means we have as women of communicating, sending a message, about our hearts, our values and what we believe.

So here's the question. What do your clothes, your appearance communicate about you. What message are you sending?

Now there's not a woman in this room who looks like one of the women on that poster. Outwardly. Those are extreme illustrations. But they're not the ones we're talking to today.

We're talking to us as Christian women and asking ourselves, "Is the message you're sending consistent with what you really believe or are you sending a mixed message? Are you thinking one thing and having one sort of heart but then sending--with your body, your clothing, your outward appearance--a message that maybe you don't intend to send?

You know, I find today that there are a lot of women who really do have a heart for the Lord. And they may be sitting in church and lifting up their hands during the praise time and enjoying the Lord and active in ministry; but be totally oblivious, unaware, of the message that they are sending with their body, with their clothing.

Their clothing is communicating something that's different than what's in their hearts.

Revive Our Hearts as a ministry is committed to a counter-revolution among women, to a whole new way of thinking, to challenge women to think differently than the world does in every area of our lives.

The way we think, the way we act, the choices we make, the way we relate to others and, yes, even the way we look because clothing communicates, it sends a message.

It's an area where largely we as Christian women have accepted the secular world's way of thinking, but just not to the same extremes.

And that's why through this series we want to go back to the Word of God and say, "What is God's way of thinking about all this? What message should we be sending? And how can we send that message with our clothing and with our outer appearance?"

Leslie Basham: Nancy Leigh DeMoss will be right back. Maybe you're ready to make some changes based on what you've just heard, but you don't know where to start.

We're making a number of resources available to help you learn more about modesty with a special place on our Web site devoted to the topic.

Just visit ReviveOurHearts.com/modesty . While you're there you may want to order our modesty package. It includes a booklet called The Look to help you apply the principles we've heard today.

You'll also receive a booklet called Becoming A Woman of Discretion and you'll get a beautiful decorative magnet. The package is available for a suggested donation of $15 and for more information you can visit ReviveOurHearts.com/modesty or call 1-800-569-5959.

And to order by mail write to Revive Our Hearts.

Does God really want to be involved in our clothing selection?

Well, He's done it for others, why not for you too. We'll talk more about it tomorrow. Now here's Nancy.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Thank you, Father, for the reminder today that clothing really does communicate, that it sends a message. And I pray that the message we send would be one that would be acceptable to You, one that reflects the heart that we have as Your children, our love for You, our commitment to You.

I pray that everything about us would draw them to Jesus and would communicate a message that is holy and wholesome and feminine and pure and above reproach.

Oh, Lord, I just think of that little chorus that I've sung many times since I was a little girl. "May the beauty of Jesus be seen in me." Lord, You're the One we want to communicate; You're the message we want to send.

So help us to do that, even in matters of clothing. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Leslie Basham: Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss is a ministry partnership of Life Action Ministries.

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