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THE PLEASURE OF PERFECTION Based on Psa. 84By Pastor Glenn PeaseChristians have always had mixed feelings about pleasure. They know Godmade us to enjoy many pleasures of life, and yet there are also the forbiddenpleasures. These are often just extremes of what is acceptable. Sex is good, butimmorality is bad. Food is good, but gluttony is bad. Abundance is good, butexcessive luxury is bad. Power is good, but tyranny is bad. Every pleasure seems tohave a danger zone where it goes to far and become a negative. It is like the heatgage on your dash. It is necessary for your car to develop heat, but when it keepsrising it goes into a danger zone, and is then a threat to your car. A good thing goneto far is a bad thing. So it is with pleasure.Adam and Eve had all the pleasures of paradise, but when they took theforbidden fruit they went into the danger zone, and that pleasure was very costly,for it led to great pain. Christians tend to focus on one aspect or the other of pleasure-the fair or the forbidden. The Puritans spent much of their energy focusedon avoiding the forbidden. They even passed laws forbidding laughter on Sunday.Their idea of entertainment was sitting on a hard wooden bench listening to a threehour sermon. They feared pleasure lest it be taken to extremes. They felt the bestway to avoid extremes is to avoid even the legitimate pleasures of life. They foundpleasure in avoiding pleasure.Modern Christians have rejected this approach, and feel the Christians shouldtake advantage of the pleasures God has made available. It is obvious we are madeto enjoy a great many pleasures. God has given us taste buds to enjoy many tastes,and then provided us through nature a multitude of foods to stimulate these tastebuds. A major part of our joy in life is the pleasure of eating. God built us with anervous system designed to enjoy the pleasures of sight, smell, touch, and sound,and not a day goes by in which we do not experience pleasure by our senses. Theseare all legitimate and motivate us to seek ways to add to our pleasures.This may be more healthy than the Puritan approach, but it faces the samedanger of lack of balance. Christians can get so caught up in the pursuit of pleasurethat they neglect their spiritual life. The Psalms are God's gift to His people toprevent this, and promote the pleasures of the soul, so that we maintain a balancebetween the pleasures of the flesh and those of the inner man. The pleasure we wantto focus on is the pleasure of beauty, and more specifically, the pleasure of God'sbeauty, or the pleasure of perfection.Psalm 84 begins with an expression of pleasure in God's dwelling place. "Howlovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty." There is a deep longing in thissong to experience again the pleasure of being in this lovely environment where thepresence of God could be felt. We are made in the image of God, and so there is a
 
magnetic attraction to what is lovely, beautiful, and perfect. When we see perfectbeauty we are compelled to praise. Why do you think millions are spent to makecars look beautiful, and why beautiful women are used to advertise them? It isbecause what motivates people to buy things is the beauty and pleasure of perfection. We all want to own beautiful things with perfect shape, perfect colors,perfect efficiency. The perfect price is unachievable, of course, but we will pay theprice if the beauty is near enough to perfection.Anybody selling anything uses beauty to promote the product. Better Home andGardens gives you pictures of what is a perfect home and garden. This produces inpeople a desire to possess such perfection. The love of perfection is built into us, forit is part of God's image, and that is why the classics never die. They are classicsbecause they never lose their appeal, for they are aesthetically pleasing to our earsor our eyes. Truly beautiful music and art are permanent for they appeal to humannature in every age, and will continue to do so for all eternity.God expects man to have pleasure in worship, for it is to be experienced in anenvironment of beauty. The Temple was designed by God to be filled with thebeauty of colors, artwork, sculpture, and gold to appeal to the eye. The vast choirwas to produce music appealing to the ear. The incense was to appeal to the nose.The sacrifice was to appeal to the taste. Worship was to be sense oriented so thatthe whole body, mind, and soul of man would experience the pleasure of perfection,and out of that pleasure praise the God of perfection.The reason most churches are built with an attractive sanctuary is becausebeauty is a stimulus to worship. Beauty makes us feel nearer to the Creator of beauty. Ugliness makes us feel nearer to the Lucifer, who by his rebellion broughtugliness into the perfect world of God. Disorder, dirtiness, and anything thatrepulses us is a hindrance to worship. That is why we must work at keeping theenvironment of worship one that appeals to our aesthetic nature. God is everywhereat all times, but we do not always sense His presence. It is beauty and perfectionthat produce in us the sense of His presence.We may never achieve perfection in this world, and all we do may always havedefects and flaws, but it is still our duty to strive for perfection and seek to providean atmosphere that gives pleasure to the senses. It is possible to worship and praiseGod in a muddy foxhole or in a dusty bamboo hut.From every place below the skiesThe grateful song, the fervent prayerThe incense of the heart, may riseTo heaven, and find acceptance there.There is no atmosphere where God cannot be praised, but the Bible stresses thebeauty of the house of God as an ideal environment in which to worship. Beauty isan aid to worship for God is the most beautiful of all beings. David in Psa. 27:4
 
writes, "One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: That I may dwell in thehouse of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord, and toseek Him in His Temple." You may not be aware of it, but for centuries the highestgoal of life for Christians was the beatific vision. This is the vision of God's beauty,which we will see when we behold God in all His glory on the throne. John in thebook of Revelation got a preview of this beauty, but all Christians will get this visionand experience forever the pleasure of perfection which will lead to perpetualpraise.Worship is to be a foretaste of heaven. It is a sip of that cup of pleasure we willdrink for eternity. If we come to church and do not get any pleasure we have notworshipped. If the truth of God's Word does not reveal to us any beauty toappreciate; if the music does not give us pleasure by the message or the tune, thenwe have missed the essence of worship, which is to praise God for the pleasure of His beauty. If there is no pleasure in some aspect of beauty you will not beworshipping, for worship is expressing pleasure in who God is and what He hasdone.The purpose of coming to church is to experience more of the beauty of God.Augustine called God "the beauty of all things beautiful": "The most beautiful":"The fairest of all." He said of God's Word:" Thy truth, bright and beautiful aboveall." He wrote, "I was borne up to thee by thy beauty." He came to Christ after alife of sin and he lamented, "Too late have I loved thee, O thou Beauty of AncientDays." Beauty is an aid to worship because it is a reflection of the beauty of the Onewe worship.Fortunately we can rise above our environment and worship God even in verynon-beautiful surroundings. Corrie Ten Boom had to worship God in aconcentration camp where there was ugliness of the physical and spiritual. The sinof man's nature was never more ugly there, yet she worshipped the God of beautythere. But when she was asked to help develop housing for the homeless after thewar she directed the rehabilitation of old factories and buildings. One was a formerconcentration camp. She ordered that the barbed wire be removed and thateverything be painted with bright colors, and every window have a flower box. Sheknew the awfulness of a bleak environment, and she was determined that sorrowingfamilies have some beauty in their lives.Beauty is basic to pleasure, and pleasure is basic to happiness. Every realm of life is affected by the beauty, or lack of it that we experience. That is why the goal of coming to church is to experience the pleasure of beauty. But since beauty is in theeye of the beholder, that is why there is a need for variety. Some people see beautyin old songs, and some see the beauty in new songs. Some see beauty in the KingJames Version, and others see it in the Living Bible. Some see beauty in the solo,and others in the choir. Some like hand clapping, and others prefer silence. Varietyis a part of beauty, for there are many different tastes.The history of the church is a history of the struggle to find balance in beauty.
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