Food, Beauty, and Control: Three Snares Women Face

Bob Lepine: Here’s what I want us to do this afternoon: I want us to spend some time thinking about a subject that I want us to think through together. I’ll tell you a little bit about what prompted my interest in this particular topic, and then I’ll tell you why I think it’s important that we boldly go where no man I know has ever gone before. Okay?

Here’s what I want us to think through together in this time: I want us to think about three areas that, through my observation and through my interaction with women, I have found these three areas can be a particular trap or a particular snare in the lives of women. The three areas we’re going to talk about are food, beauty, and control.

Now, let me quickly say that men can have traps in these areas as well. I’m not suggesting to you that these are not issues for men. Men have issues related to food. They have issues related to a desire for control. I don’t know if beauty is one of men’s issues or not, but we have our issues. The thing is, I’m not talking to a room full of men today. I’m talking to a room full of women.

Here’s the other thing: I also want to suggest to us that it is not wrong, it’s not sinful, it’s not inappropriate for women to pay attention to what you eat, or to have a desire to look good, or to exercise some degree of control over your surroundings. In fact, the Bible teaches that it is wise and prudent to exercise some wisdom in these areas.

But it’s my observation that these areas are areas that can take on an unhealthy and idolatrous proportion in the lives of a lot of women. That’s what I want us to examine together in our time this afternoon.

Here’s what got me started thinking about this subject: I was looking at those early chapters in the book of Genesis. I was reading through them again. You know, Genesis 1, 2, and 3 are really foundational to everything that’s in the Bible. In fact, they just got me thinking about this subject that I want us to unpack, and the verse is Genesis 3:6.

What we’re going to do in this time together, let me just be clear . . . I’m not going to exegete this verse. I’m not going to go word by word and try to pull it together. I’m not suggesting that all of the principles I have for you come out of this verse, but it just got me thinking. As I read,

When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it.

When she saw that it was good for food, it was pretty, beautiful, a delight to the eyes, and it was desirable to make one wise, control—food, beauty, control—it just popped up at me. I’ll talk more about that in a minute. But quickly, I want you to know that my motive in talking about these three issues—food, beauty, and control—as traps for women, my motive is, number one, not to make you mad at me, although that could happen.

I don’t think I’m trying to push a particular agenda of my own or my own opinions on these subjects. As best as I can tell, my motivation in trying to unpack this subject is to help you examine your own heart, your own life, to determine if you have an unhealthy or unhelpful preoccupation with beauty or food or control; to examine if any of these three things, any of these issues, are interfering with God’s priorities for your life, your love for Him, your love for others.

In other words, my goal is to try to be helpful, as you seek to serve God, to say food, beauty, and control, are they good things in your life in terms of the mission God has called you to? Or are they pulling you away from the mission that God has called you to?

With that thought in mind, we jump into Genesis 3. As I’ve said, it’s so pivotal. I trust many of you have read Nancy Leigh DeMoss’s book Lies Women Believe and the Truth that Sets Them Free. If you’ve not read that book, it starts in Genesis 3 with the father of lies coming to the woman and lying to her, and she believes the lie. So many of the issues that Nancy addresses in the book are founded on that one principle: believing a lie and moving away from God’s truth.

But let me set up Genesis 3. In Genesis 1 and 2, it says God created everything. At the end of each day of creation, what did God say? “It’s good.” First day: “It’s good.” Second day: “It’s good.” When He gets done with all six days, He looks at all He has created, and He says, “It’s very good.” “It’s good; it’s good; it’s good. I’m done. It’s very good.”

The next time you see the word good is when Eve is looking at the fruit. You see, it’s God who has been calling things good up until now, and a part of this temptation with the woman is that she’s beginning to want to decide for herself what’s good.

But here’s the picture: God had created everything. He had not only created everything, but He’d come to the man and the woman, and He had said, “My assignment for you is that you will subdue the earth; you will rule over it. Adam, you’re going to be the co-regent. You’re going to name the animals. You’re going to be fruitful and multiply and subdue the earth. Eve, you’re going to be co-regent in this. You’re going to be helper to the man, and the two of you will rule and reign with Me over My creation.” Right?

So there was one thing that God said after He’d created it all. He said, “Now, there’s one thing that I want you not to do, just this one thing. That tree . . . you see it? The one in the middle of the garden. Don’t eat that fruit. It’s the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Don’t eat that fruit. Everything else is yours. Everything else is yours to enjoy, to exercise control over, but don’t do that one thing.”

In the midst of that, here comes the enemy of God. Now this enemy of God is a rebellious angel. You know the account, right? You know how the serpent got to be the serpent? Actually, the serpent is the embodiment of Satan who was originally called Lucifer, and you know what the Bible teaches us? Lucifer was originally one of God’s angels. He was talented; he was beautiful, and he was a little too full of himself.

One day Lucifer was in the angel lunch room . . . you’ll have to do my paraphrase with me. He was in the angel lunch room with a bunch of other angels, and this idea pops into his head, and he says it to the other angels. He says, “You know, I sometimes think I would make a better god than God.”

Some of the angels there said, “You know, we think that you might make a better god than God, too.”

Lucifer says, “Well, what do you think if we . . . maybe we could pull this off. Maybe we could overthrow God. Maybe we could get a little coup going, and we could depose God, and then I can be god.”

So as they’re sitting in the angel lunch room trying to hatch their plot of rebellion, what they’d forgotten is that God is omniscient; they’re not. He knew what they were thinking before they thought it. So to try to launch a rebellion against an omniscient God is a fool’s errand. But so swelled up with pride was Lucifer that he went out, and he attacked God and tried to pull off this coup.

Of course, God cast him down to the earth along with a third of the angels, according to Isaiah. It was in that environment where He said, “You have some level of dominion over the earth, but you still have to do it under my control.”

So here comes this serpent. His one assignment or his one job, his one mission, now that God has created the heavens and the earth, created the man and the woman, he wants to see if he can incite rebellion in the heart of the man and the woman. He still wants the coup. He still wants to take over. If it didn’t work with a third of the angels, maybe if he can get the man and the woman on his side . . . I don’t know if that’s what he’s thinking or not, but his design is to pull the man and the woman down.

So he shows up in Genesis 3 and look at what he has to do. He comes to a perfect environment, the Garden of Eden, where the man and the woman had been created. They daily fellowshipped with God. They walked with God in the day. They have everything they need, and they’ve been told, “There’s only one thing that’s off limits for you.”

So if you’re going to incite rebellion, then what you have to do is get them to do the one thing that they’ve been told not to do. God’s given them free reign all over the place, and they walk with God every day.

Well, we know the account of what happens, right? He’s successful.

I just have to stop here a minute and exhort you ladies. You have to recognize that this was no small accomplishment on his part. I think we can sometimes think, “Well, that could happen to anybody.” No, this was the father of lies using every diabolical trick and tool at his command.

Martin Luther says in his hymn,

The prince of darkness grim,
We tremble not at him.
His craft and power are great,
And armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.

("A Mighty Fortress Is Our God")

We must not forget that the enemy of our souls is crafty, devilish, diabolical, and he’s shrewd. Here’s a man and a woman, walking with God every day, and he tempts them to rebellion. So the progression comes . . . you know the progression.

“The serpent, craftier than all the beasts of the field,” Genesis 3, “comes to the woman” (see verse 1). The first thing he does is he says, “Can I ask you a question, ma’am? Did God say you’re not to eat of all of this food?”

What he starts off with is by saying to the woman, “Is there anything off limits for you? Did God say you can’t eat of all of this food?”

She says, “No. God said we can have it all. It’s just that one tree. He said we’re not to eat it.” Then she goes on, and she says, “In fact, He said we’re not even to touch it, or we’ll die” (see verse 3). Now had God said not to touch it? No. Eve becomes the first pouty legalist in history. She’s putting words in the mouth of God that God had not said. But she says, “No. He said that we can’t even touch that.”

So he says, “Did God really tell you not to eat?” I don’t think it was an innocent question. In fact, we don’t hear the inflection, but I think the way he said it in the garden was kind of like this: “Did God really say you can’t eat of all of this stuff?”

You can ask questions in such a way that you can kind of stir up emotions in people. If I came to you and said, “Did your son’s teacher really say that you need to hold him back a year in school?” Just asking that question with the tone of voice I’m asking is kind of like, “What does that teacher know? That teacher is trying to be cruel to your son.”

If a guy comes to me, and he says, “I just heard from Fred that your wife said she needs you to stay home next Saturday around the house. She doesn’t want you to play golf. Did she really say that?” Now, what he’s really saying is, “Are you going to be a man or not?” Right?

You see, the implication is, “That’s not very nice of your wife. That’s not very nice of that teacher.” So, when the serpent comes and says, “Did God really say that you can’t eat any of this?” he’s trying to stir up discontentedness in the heart of the woman.

And then the second question. God had said, “You can surely eat of every tree of the garden except the tree in the center of the garden.” Now Satan says, “Did God actually say you can’t eat of any tree?” God had been generous and gracious. Satan turns it around and tries to make it sound like God’s being stingy.

So at this point the woman’s thinking, “Well, why is God trying to keep this from me? What is it He doesn’t want me to have?” You can see from the woman’s response that these seeds that Satan is planting is starting to bear fruit.

Instead of saying, “Look, Satan, God’s a good God. He said we can have all of this. He just said stay away from that one, but look at the abundance that He’s given me.” The woman could have focused on the goodness of God, right? But instead, she goes right to the prohibition. She says, “No. He says we can’t eat of that one tree. He said, ‘Don’t even touch it.’” She forgets that God had said, “You can eat from all of the trees in the garden.” Then she adds that, “You shall not even touch it” (see verse 3).

When Satan hears that, he pounces. He says, “You will not surely die” (verse 4). First, he raises a question and causes doubts about the goodness of God, and now he lies to the woman. “You will not surely die. God is keeping knowledge from you. He doesn’t want you to know what He knows. He wants you to have to depend on Him your whole life. You’ll never be independent. You’ll never be in control. You poor thing.” Now, that gets you to Genesis 3:6.

So the woman who first is starting to go, “I wonder why He won’t let us eat that one fruit? I wonder what He’s keeping from us?” That’s when it says in Genesis 3:6, “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was a delight to the eyes, and was desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.”

Now, let me just point out: Where was old Adam? With her! We get this idea that Adam was off plowing, comes home, and goes, “Oh, Eve. Did you get in the garden again?” No. It’s not that at all. He’s standing there. What should he have been doing? He should have been stepping forward and saying, “Snake, get out of here!” He should have been protecting his wife. He should have been speaking truth and said, “Sweetheart, we’re not going to listen to him.”

When God comes looking for the couple after the rebellion, who does He come looking for? “Adam, where are you?” Who does He hold accountable? Adam.

In the New Testament when we’re talking about the second Adam, Paul, in 1 Corinthians says, “Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (15:21-22. NKJV).

If I was talking to men here, I would say to them that the passivity of the man is probably the original sin. The deception of the woman, in fact, the New Testament says that the woman was deceived. The man wasn’t. The man was passive but was engaged when the woman came with the temptation.

I would say to men today, and I do say to men today, that passivity of the men today is one of the great sins going on in the church. God has called men to be leaders, to guide, to guard, to protect, to feed, to lead. And men say, “Just give me the remote, and let somebody else handle it.” That’s what a lot of guys will do, and it goes back to this passivity.

Since it’s women, I’m going to talk to you about what’s going on with the women. She’s got this variety of food she can pick from in the garden.

John Calvin said that this tree that was in the center of the garden, she had probably walked past it many times, and every time she walked by it, didn’t engage, didn’t go touch it, didn’t go look at it, she was giving glory to God because she was saying, “I will obey.”

But now here comes the serpent, and he says, “But what about that? What’s God trying to keep from you?” This awakened in her a lust of the flesh. She wanted to eat it. Her appetite was aroused, not so much because that fruit looked better than all the rest of the fruit on the buffet table. Stop and think about it. It’s not because she looked at it and said, “Boy, let’s see, I’ve got blueberry pie; I’ve got peach pie; I’ve got pecan pie. I’ve got all of this, but I really want apple.”

It wasn’t that. The appetite in her that was aroused was the appetite to take what was forbidden. For the first time in her life, she is now dissatisfied with what God has given her. She believes she will be happier or more contented or more fulfilled in life if she just goes ahead and eats.

I want to make a couple of points here. I want you to see that all of us are in danger when we become dissatisfied with what God has provided for us.

I just spoke last week to a group of people on the 10th commandment. Anybody remember which commandment number 10 is? “Thou shalt not . . .” anybody? “covet. Thou shalt not covet.” What does it mean to covet? Well, it means to want what somebody else has, what you don’t have.

You go, “That’s really one of the ten? I mean, right up there with, 'don’t lie; don’t steal; don’t commit adultery?. . .don’t want things other people have?" That doesn’t sound like a big deal, does it? What’s at the root of coveting? What’s at the root of coveting is a discontentedness with what God has provided for you, and that’s a huge trap. That’s a huge trap.

So what’s happened here is the woman has become dissatisfied with what God has provided, and that puts her in danger. When you step across the line, when you say, “I want what God has forbidden, and my life will be better if I take it,” what you’re really saying is, “God does not know what’s best for me. He’s not a good God, and He doesn’t care for me.” Do you understand that?

The book of Philippians is a giant thank-you note. Paul is writing a thank-you note to the church at Philippi that has provided funds for him while he’s in prison. This poor, little church took up at offering and sent money to Paul while he’s in prison so that he can get some of his needs met, and he writes back the letter of Philippians: “I thank my God in all my remembrance of you,” (1:3).

He writes about how much their fellowship means to him and how grateful he is for the gift. You get to Philippians chapter 4, and he says, "I’m grateful for this gift primarily because I know that this gift, your giving—God’s going to bless your giving. Because you were givers, God’s going to bless you."

In fact, he says, "I’m grateful for the gift, but you need to know, I’ve learned how to be content in whatever circumstance I’m in. I’ve had plenty, and I’ve had nothing. There are times I’ve been hungry, and there are times I’ve had enough to eat. But I’ve learned this secret of being content" (see Philippians 4:10-13) 

You go, “I’d like to learn that secret, Bob. What is that secret?”

The secret of being content, he goes, “I’ve learned to say, ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,’” (4:13 NKJV).

And you go, “Okay, but I understand the Sunday school answer. The secret of being content is Jesus. Okay, but help me out here.”

Well actually, he’s just been talking about the secret of being content. First of all, before he ever gets to, “I’ve learned the secret of being content,” in Philippians 4:8 and 9 he says, "Here’s what you need to be thinking on. Think on things that are lovely and beautiful, and think on things that are praiseworthy and excellent and commendable. Instead of letting your mind dwell on things that are frustrating, broken, messed up, depressing, and hard to deal with."

Ladies, you want to know the secret of being content? Instead of focusing and dwelling on everything that’s wrong around you, set your mind on the good things you have. That’s a part of the secret of being content.

I remember hearing Elisabeth Elliot talk one time about a man having an ink stain on the pocket of his shirt, and she said, “If you looked at that, this blotch of ink, right there on the pocket of his shirt, here’s the question, ‘How much of that shirt is stained by the ink?’ Maybe one percent. Ninety-nine percent of the shirt is clean and pure, but where does your eye go? Right to the blotch. You almost can’t help but look at it.”

She said that’s the way a lot of women are with their husbands. A lot of husbands are good men with some ink stains, but you just can’t take your eyes off the ink stains.

Part of the secret of being content is to take your eyes off the ink stains and to look instead at what is praiseworthy, excellent, commendable, good, pure. Find those things. Affirm those things in your husband instead of always saying, “When are you going to fix that ink stain?”

Well, I’ve gotten into a different message here. Let me move along. I’m still in Philippians 4. In addition to thinking on the right things, before that, the apostle says, “In everything, through prayer and supplication make your requests known to God,” (verse 6, paraphrase).

A part of the secret of being content is when you have needs, you make your requests known to God. And even before that, he says you should model reasonableness so that everybody can see it. He actually starts the whole passage off by saying, "Finally, rejoice in the Lord" (verse 4). How often? "Always, and again I say, [what?] rejoice."

You want to know the secret of being content?

• Think on the right things.
• Make your requests known to God.
• Model reasonableness in your life. 
• Send more time rejoicing than you do.

Eve is discontented because the serpent said to her, “There’s that one tree. Don’t you want that? You’re not going to die,” and that source of discontentedness, that covetousness led her into the sin.

What if Satan had come to Eve and said, “Look, here’s this perfectly good, delicious fruit to eat. Did God really say, ‘Don’t eat it’?” That sounds wrong.

And what if Eve had said back to him, “I’m not going to focus on what God’s told us not to do. I’m going to focus on what is true and honorable and pure and lovely, and if I have any need, I’m going to talk to God about it not you. I rejoice at where I am and what God’s given me.”

What if she had done that? You know what? We’d be living in the garden. Ladies, the path to destruction is the path of discontentedness, the path of dissatisfaction, the path of focusing on what you don’t have, not on what you do have.

You’re attacking the character of God when you say, “I know better than God what is good for me.”

I do a lot of traveling. It’s interesting. Somebody will come to me, and they’ll say, “I’m going to San Francisco next week.” You know what I wind up doing? I say, “When you’re in San Francisco, you have got to eat at,” and then I tell them wherever. It’s all about—it’s like travel and food—there’s something there.

In fact, I don’t know if you do this, but people will come to me and say, “Do you know how to get to so-and-so?” I go, “You go down to the Arby’s and take a right. Go down to the Dairy Queen and take a left.” It’s all food, right?

So men can stumble over this issue of food as well, but stop and think with me for a second. Who’s more likely to have an eating disorder? Men or women? Women by a long shot. Who’s more likely to do emotional eating? Men or women? There aren’t a whole lot of guys I know that are saying, “A pint of Haagen-Dazs will cure this for me,” okay? (Laughter)

Who’s more likely to be obsessed about healthy eating, men or women? Men? How many of you say it’s men? How many say it’s women? Okay, you’re out-voted. I’m sorry, ma’am. I understand. Okay, and there may—look, we’re talking generalities here.

There are some guys for whom healthy eating’s a big deal. There are some guys where emotional eating happens. I’m not saying it never happens. I’m just saying that in general, more women are having the eating disorders, the emotional eating, even the healthy eating.

Now you go, “What’s wrong with healthy eating? It’s a good thing, right?” Well, it can drift into idolatry. When what you eat or what you don’t eat takes on proportions that food was never intended to bear in life, when the importance of food becomes bigger than it ought to become, we’ve got a problem.

There was an article in the New York Times a few months ago about—the article talked about “femivores.” Femivores—the subtitle was—it’s an article about “Chicks with Chickens,” women who are starting their own “back to the earth, organic food, I’m going to raise it myself” “Chicks with Chickens.”

Shannon Hayes wrote a book called Radical Homemakers, a book for tomato-canning feminists. She said, “We’re like the Amish except we drive cars.” That’s how she described it. Look, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with backyard gardens or drinking contraband, raw, unpasteurized cow’s milk. I think that’s fine.

Farm fresh eggs—I’ve had the store bought, and I’ve had the farm fresh. The farm fresh are better eggs. Would you all agree with that? They cost about three times as much, but they taste better.

Pastured beef and free-range chicken and all of that stuff—I don’t have a problem. It costs a little bit more, and it usually tastes better. It’s probably better for you. But I do have a problem when whether it’s been pastured beef or not becomes almost an obsession, when you become so fixated on it. Here’s what I have a problem with. I have a problem with people who suggest to you that there’s a biblical way to eat, and then there’s the unbiblical way to eat.

Sometimes you’ll hear people do this. In fact, I heard a nationally prominent preacher speaking on the fact that we should not eat pork and shellfish because that’s a part the Old Testament diet told you to stay away from—pork and shellfish. Well, what he never talked about was Acts chapter 10 where the apostle Peter is sitting on the roof of a house, and he has a vision of a plate full of ham sandwiches coming down in front of him. God says to him, “Take and eat.”

And he says, “Oh no, Lord, I will not eat what is unclean.”

God says, “Look, if I call it clean, it’s clean. Take and eat” (see Acts 10:9-16). 

Now, God may have set aside certain Old Testament practices for the nation of Israel for whatever purposes, but if you’re telling me that it’s unbiblical to eat a shrimp, then I've got to tell you, I have sinned many times and intend to keep on sinning, alright? I don’t think shrimp is off the list for us.

Now there may be health reasons why you say, “I’m just not going to eat that stuff.” Yeah, I understand that catfish and shrimp are down there, and they’re eating all of the pollution.

I understand that there are hormones that they’re putting into the chickens and all of that, and I go, “Okay, it’s not unwise to be aware of these things.” But it can become an obsession, ladies, that is a controlling, idolatrous obsession in your life. When it does, here’s the thing: It takes your focus off the mission of God for your life and puts it on something that’s really not as consequential.

Jesus says, “All of the law and the prophets can be summed up in this: love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself” (see Luke 10:27). You can say, “Well, if I’m not eating hormone injected chicken, then I can love my neighbor better or longer.”

I would go, “Look, when loving your neighbor is the controlling issue, we’ll talk about it, but I really think there’s something else controlling this other than I want to love my neighbor longer, okay?” That’s when it’s become an idol, so whether it’s an eating disorder, whether it’s health food eating, whether it’s emotional eating, the issue is really the issue of whether your eyes have been taken off of God and His purposes for your life and whether it’s on something that is less important.

Now quickly, let me just say this: Wise, healthy eating is good stewardship. It’s caring for your temple. By the way, I’ve said to people that I do have a temple, not a synagogue, right? That’s a little larger than a synagogue, but that’s okay. It’s a temple.

Obesity—listen to me—obesity is an issue when it affects your health and your ability to care for others or forcing them to care for you. So there’s an issue with obesity if it interferes with carrying out the mission of God. But what I’m saying is it’s possible for what a lot of women eat or don’t eat to become an idol. I’m going to talk more about that in just a minute.

It’s also possible for your preoccupation with appearance and beauty to become an idol, too. We recently aired a series of radio programs on FamilyLife Today that had Nancy Leigh DeMoss and a woman named Nancy Stafford. Nancy was an actress, still is an actress, but she was on the old TV show Matlock with Andy Griffith.

So Nancy was a Hollywood actress and Nancy Leigh DeMoss and then Sharon Jaynes—the three of them. We talked to them about beauty and why this is an issue for women. I mean, let’s be honest. There are more women who are more focused on their appearance than there are men focused on their appearance. There are some guys who are really focused on their appearance, but in general, it’s more an issue with women than it is for men.

I mean, how much time do most guys spend in the bathroom, right? Getting ready is something I can do in about five minutes. It takes Mary Ann a little bit longer than that.

When we talked with these women about it, they pointed out that there are really two words in the Old Testament for beauty. One word describes the outward appearance, and it says that—here’s what it says about the outward appearance. It says it’s fleeting. It’s vain, and it’s fading. And that’s true, isn’t it? Your beauty, your physical beauty is fleeting. It’s fading, and it’s vain.

The other issue is the issue for inner beauty which is imperishable, and the Bible says inner beauty should be pursued. Outer beauty should not become your focus. It’s not that it’s unimportant, but it’s not eternal.

You see, that’s part of the issue here. What you eat is what keeps your body going, but ultimately, your body’s not eternal. It’s your earth suit. It’s what you need to function. You want to keep it in good operating order, but your body’s not going to last forever. It’s going to wear out, and so whether it’s food or whether it’s beauty, you’re focused on the temporal, not on the eternal.

But I’ll tell you what, in this culture, beauty has become an idol. The cultural view related to beauty is that it’s a huge issue. I was traveling a few weeks ago, and on the airplane, in one of the seatback pockets, I pulled out a copy of People magazine. Now, I don’t normally pick up People magazine, but this particular issue was the issue that had the best and the worst dressed lists.

The thing was, here are these glamorous, good-looking people who spend thousands of dollars to try to look really good because they think that looking really good defines them, gives them worth, makes them valuable. I mean, it gets their picture in People magazine. Many of these people have tragic, sad lives, relationships that don’t last, anger issues, drug dependencies, but boy, they look good!

You see the value system in the culture? And here is a magazine that says these are people. What’s that say about you if you’re not as gussied up as they are? What are you? See, that’s the issue.

Eve was focused on the temporal, not the eternal. Her focus was moved from what God has said is important and good to what she wanted, and that’s when it became problematic.

• The issue is how much focus or importance do you place on physical appearance?
• How much are you seeking the approval of others, of men?
• Is your thinking about your outward appearance shaped more by the culture or by the Bible?
• What’s in your heart when you focus on your appearance? Is it value connected to your appearance?

God doesn’t look at you and say you’re valuable if you’re pretty. God looks at the inside, the heart. In fact, we know that, right? When Samuel came to David’s family, he said, “God’s pointed out somebody as the king.”

David’s dad, Jesse, says, “Here are all my boys. Which one? Is it one of them?”

Samuel says, “No, it’s not one of them.”

He said, “Well, who’s—what about?” “There’s one kid—the little kid’s out with the shepherd watching the . . .”

Samuel said, “Go get him. Bring him back. That’s the one.”

Jesse says, “Little David? Little David’s the king?”

And what does Samuel say? He says, “People look at the outer appearance. What does God look at? The heart, the heart” (see 1 Samuel 16:1-13) 

One of my life verses, by the way, is 1 Timothy 4:8. It’s the verse that says, “Bodily exercise profiteth little.” I just stop there. I don’t read on. No, I’m just kidding. “Godliness is profitable unto all things” (KJV).

That’s what the verse goes on to say, and really, the truth is, bodily exercise does profit us. It doesn’t say it’s unprofitable. But the pursuit of godliness is what is ultimately profitable. So don’t neglect bodily exercise, but when you make that more important than the cultivation of godliness, you've got things messed up. And I see that happen too much in too many people.

Now, let me just add real quickly, there is one place in the Bible where it talks about physical beauty being important for a woman. You know where it is? It’s in marriage. It’s in the Song of Solomon. There are these passages in the Song of Solomon where the Shulamite woman is commended for making herself beautiful for her husband, where he describes her beauty as being alluring and appealing and attractive.

That’s the place in the Bible where your physical appearance is commended and called to be a good thing. It honors your husband. It is a gift to him when you make yourself beautiful, but let me quickly add this. No amount of physical attractiveness can compensate for a lack of godly character. A beautiful shrew is still a shrew.

By the same token, a plain-looking, un-made-up woman who smiles and radiates the goodness of God from her face is beautiful, is beautiful. See, there is a reflection of beauty that comes out in the life of a woman who is really focused on the things of God.

Eve saw that the fruit was good, physically appealing, good to eat. It was aesthetically appealing, a delight to the eyes; and now we come to what Ken Hughes says was the great enticement—the fruit was able to make one wise.

Now wait a sec? What’s wrong with that? Doesn’t the Bible say we’re supposed to be wise? Isn’t being wise commendable? Well, let me ask you. What does the Bible say? Where is the beginning of wisdom? The fear of the Lord. So what Satan is saying is, “That fruit will make you wise without having to fear the Lord anymore. That fruit will make you wise, and you’ll never have to depend on God anymore.”

The great enticement for the woman was: “I can be free from God’s domination over my life; I can be in control of my own life. That’s what I want.”

Men desire affirmation and respect. We like to be affirmed and respected. So what men often will do is they’ll pursue money or sex or power because those are the idols they look at and say, “If I get these things, I’ll be affirmed or respected or admired.”

Women, instead of desiring affirmation and respect, women often desire safety and security. So for a woman, what she will do is think, “If I can just be in control of the things in my life, then I can be safe. If I can just exercise control over things around me, then I’ll be safe.” Is that true? No! You being in control of things around your life is not going to bring you safety.

Ultimately, when Eve took the fruit, she was believing this lie. She was believing, “I will be better off if I know what God knows about good and evil, and then I can decide for myself what’s the right thing, and I won’t have to trust or rely on God anymore. I can be in control of my life.”

When God created the world, He said, “It’s good.” Here we’ve got Eve looking at the fruit, and she’s saying, “It’s good. It’s good. It’s good.” She’s already replacing God’s role in terms of what’s good in her life.

I believe that longing for safety and security is what’s in the heart of every woman. In fact, Mary Ann and I have joked about this. We’ve talked about the fact that, “Does she really want me to be the leader in our relationship?” If I asked you ladies who are married, “Do you want your husband to be the leader in your relationship?” you would all go, “Yes, I do.” And then, just like Mary Ann, you would say, “As long as he does exactly what I want him to do.” (Laughter) Right? You want him to lead until he says, “Okay, we’re going here,” and you go, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, that . . .”

Here’s the great illustration that we had of this in our relationship: When our daughter Amy was 15 years old, she was part of a youth group at church. She came home one day, and she said, “The youth group is going on a missions trip to Honduras, and I would like to go.”

I’ll never forget this. Amy was looking at me, asking me. She was saying, “I would like to go.” Mary Ann was behind her, where Amy couldn’t see her, and she was [shaking her head no]. (Laughter) And I said what a wise husband ought to say at that moment. To my daughter I said, “Your mother and I will talk about this, and we’ll let you know what the decision is.”

And Amy said, “Great.”

So later on I said to Mary Ann, “So, you don’t think Amy should go on the trip?”

“No. I don’t think she should—she’s 15 years old. Honduras is across a big pond, and we don’t know what the medical conditions are like there. What if something happened to her? She can go next year or the year after. She’s too young.” And she had all of these reasons why it was not good for Amy at 15 to go to Honduras.

I said, “Well, I think it would be good experience for her. She’d be with the youth group. She’d be exposed to a different culture; she’d have all of this. But, here’s what we’ll do. Let’s take some time. Let’s think about it. Let’s pray about it. We’ll get back in a couple of days. I’ll see if you feel any differently, see if I feel any differently, and then we’ll come back together on it.”

So we came back together on it. In fact, I remember Amy coming home one day, and she said, “The kids in my youth group are praying that you guys will let me go.”

I said, “You tell them to stop that. We’ll decide. We don’t need teenagers praying in that direction.” (Laughter)

So we got back together, and I said, “Do you feel any differently?”

Mary Ann said, “No, I don’t.”

And I said, “Well, I don’t either. So who decides?” Then I said this, I said, “Let’s say we decide that she goes, and let’s say something happens. Are you going to punish me?”

She said, “It would be hard not to, wouldn’t it?” I appreciated her honesty in that moment. Right? She was just saying what was on her heart.

Now, look, were her fears unreasonable? I don’t think so. But I think a lot of the issue here was: “The only way my daughter can be safe is if she’s in my control.” You know what’s true? She could be at home in Little Rock, and we can’t control what’s going to happen, can we?

I have to tell you the rest of the story. Amy went to Honduras, and I prayed for her every day. I was on my knees every day, “Lord Jesus, please . . .” (Laughter) She came back, and God had planted a seed in her heart that came to bear fruit. After she graduated from college, she came to us and said, “I’ve just taken a class called Perspectives on the World Mission Movement. I really think God’s calling me to do work overseas.” And she went overseas to teach English as a second language in Vietnam as a 22 year old.

Honduras at 15 is one thing. Vietnam at 22 . . . I remember the day she called me, and she said, “Dad, my teacher teammate and I, we’ve been assigned to this one city in Vietnam with 250,000 people. As far as we know, we’ll be the only two Christians in that city.”

I said, “Let somebody else’s little girl go do that.” You know? 

But I remember talking with Mary Ann at that point, and I remember Mary Ann saying to me, “She is as safe in Vietnam as she is in Little Rock if she’s in the will of God.” (Laughter) It’s true. So it’s a part of that learning to let go of the issue of control and recognize that what Eve wanted was, “I can only be safe and secure if I’m in control.”

That’s an illusion, ladies. The only way you can be safe and secure is if you are in the will of God for your life. That doesn’t mean you won’t go through trials. It doesn’t mean you won’t go through hard times. What it means is that though you walk through the valley of the shadow, He is with you. To be outside of the will of God is the most dangerous place you can be. To be in the valley walking with Him is safety. This issue of control is an illusion for a lot of women.

Here’s the question: Will your life run more smoothly if you’re controlling of your circumstances or your environment or if you’re trusting God to take care of you?

Some of you can give testimony to the fact that it will not run more smoothly if you’re trying to control it because you’ve tried it and you’ve seen that even when you try, you can’t get there.

When we make something into an idol, here’s what we do: We inflate its function. Something becomes an idol when you give it more function than it was designed to have. It starts to function as a god in your life. It’s something that you start to worship and obey, and you will not violate the commands of your idol. It’s functioning like a god. It drives us with warnings and promises. We have to have it. It leads us to shame. Our life feels wrong if we don’t attain our idol.

So how can you tell if something has become an idol in your life? There’s a difference between a desire and an idol. How can you tell if you’ve moved from a desire to an idol?

Well, David Powlison has asked a number of questions that I find good and helpful. They’re penetrating questions on this subject. So let me ask you a few of these questions.

• What do you organize your life around? Do you organize your life around eating and appearance? If so, they may have become idols.
• What do you want or crave or wish for? What do you obsess over? What preoccupies your thinking? What do you find your mind instinctively drifting toward? What fills your conversation? Is it food? Appearance? The things of God?
• What are you willing to sacrifice an inordinate amount of time or money to obtain? That may be an idol in your life.
• What do you fear losing? What is it, that if you lost it, you would lose your desire to live because all of the meaning would be sucked out of your life, all desire to move forward would be lost? That’s an idol.
• What do you rejoice over? What present or hoped-for things bring you great pleasure or delight? That could be an idol.
• What makes you angry or frustrated? Is it food related? Is it your appearance?
• What can cause anxiety or great stress? Food? Appearance?
• How do you define success or failure? How do you weigh your significance or insignificance?
• How do you define yourself?

These are helpful questions to help you think about: Has something taken on the proportion of an idol in your life?

Ask these questions when you see there’s an idol, a potential idol, you ask the questions, and these idols will appear.

If you worship your appearance or your food code, that’s what will control your life. If you worship God, He will motivate you and control your life. Whether you worship God or idols, that’s what you’ll serve, and that’s what will rule you.

At the root of all of our sin is idolatry. Someone has said, “Idols are cruel masters holding out false promises and making unreasonable demands of your life. They require that you sacrifice for them, and yet they make no sacrifices for you.”

How do you deal with idols in your life? You deal with them this way:

• First of all, you identify them.
• Secondly, you confess that they’re idols.
• Third, you turn from them. You repent. That’s what repent means—to turn from.
• And then, here’s the key thing: You have to replace the idol with God.

You see, it’s not enough to say, “I recognize that food has become an idol in my life.” Okay, that’s good, but you’re not there. The next thing is you have to say, “Not only do I recognize that it’s an idol, but I agree with God that it’s taken on unhealthy proportions in my life.” Okay, that’s fine. Then the next thing is, “I now turn from this thing.”

You see, that’s a step a lot of us don’t get to. We feel sad about what we’ve recognized, but we don’t turn. The turning—here’s where it’s key. It’s not just saying, “I will forsake the idol.” You have to replace the idol with something else, and that something else needs to be God. You can replace one idol with another idol. Somebody can say, “I’m going to turn from my idolatry to food and start watching television.” That’s just replacing one idol with another idol.

But when you say, “I’m going to turn from this idol and replace it with God,” what does that mean? That means you’re going to replace it with the Word of God; it means you’re going to replace it with prayer; it means you’re going to replace it with fellowship; it means you’re going to replace it with service to others.

The next time you’re tempted to make food into an idol, instead of a pint of Haagen Dazs, you’re instead going to spend a season of prayer. Instead of binge eating, you’re instead going to read your Bible or serve others. It’s not enough just to identify and confess; you’ve got to repent and replace the idol.

Now, I said at the beginning of this message that I wanted us to take a hard look at these three issues because I’ve observed that they’re traps for women in our culture today. Some of you may disagree with some of the observations that I’ve made or think my conclusions are off base. Look, I may be wrong. I’m open to correction and input here, but what I hope is that as we’ve raised these issues today, it’s caused you to stop and think about whether you’re thinking culturally, carnally, or biblically when it comes to food, beauty, and control.

Is your thinking about food, cultural, carnal, or biblical?

Cultural would say: “What the culture says is important or not important is more important than what the Bible says.”

Carnal would say: “What I want is more important than what the Bible says.”

You see, there are three places where we get tripped up. We face the onslaught of the world, the flesh, and the devil. The world gives us cultural lies. The flesh gives us those carnal impulses, and the devil takes both of those and just pumps them up. That’s why we have to renew our minds with biblical thinking.

What does the Bible say about food? What does the Bible say about beauty? What does the Bible say about control? We have to retrain our thinking to think more biblically. The Bible says that God will supply what you need from a food standpoint. The Bible says He has given us all things freely to enjoy; we’re to be good stewards of our bodies. The Bible says that our outward appearance is fading, but inner beauty is what matters. The Bible says that ultimately God is the one who is in control, and we need to live surrendered lives.

That’s biblical thinking, but you’ve got your own flesh and the culture that are screaming at you to think differently about that.

What influences your thinking when it comes to food, beauty or control? Is it television? Magazines? Movies? Media? Is it the approval of your peer group? Is it your own sinful desires? Or is it the Word of the living God?

Have any of these issues become idols for you? Have any of them become too big of a priority? If that’s the case, what I’m hoping is that this message, this time we’ve spent together would help you pull back and say, “I need to think more biblically about these areas of my life.”

Look, I know we’ve just touched on this. Some of these are deep rooted. The talons of some of these sinful patterns get locked into a woman’s life, and so emotional eating becomes an issue, and you go, “I know I should think biblically. I’ve tried that, and I can’t break the chain.”

Well, let me tell you that your sanctification was never intended to be an independent project. If there are issues with food or beauty or control, if there are issues with those in your life, instead of trying to get free of the talons of those issues on your own, get some girlfriends. Get together with them and say, “Look, I need help in this area.”

Make it a community project. Humble yourself, and just say, “I need help. I binge eat,” or “I struggle with bulimia,” or “I think I’m too preoccupied with my food or my diet or my appearance or . . . I need help in these areas.” And then, as sisters, come around and pray for one another, support one another, encourage one another, hold one another accountable.

It was never intended to be an independent project. Your sanctification is a group project, and you’ve got to be able to do it with sisters who love you and who will help you, and you can fight the battle together.

Let me pray for us.

Father, I do pray for these ladies. I can’t begin to know some of the deep rooted issues related to food or beauty or control that may be going on in these women’s lives, but I’m grateful, Lord, that You know the issues better than I do, and, more than that, Your Holy Spirit gives us the power to deal with sin in our lives.

So I pray that through Your Spirit and through Your Word and through the accountability with other women, You would see women freed from bondage in this area.

Lord, I ask You to help these women not only to identify and confess, but help them turn from and replace the sinful patterns in their lives and instead to walk in liberation, living for what is eternal and not for what is temporal.

I ask it in Jesus’ name, amen.