Ruanna Levi - The Beauty of the Lord - Sunday March 15, 2026

I want to speak today on the beauty of the Lord.

And I had actually another message ready to go, but I was walking yesterday and praying, and I just felt like the Lord was like, I want I want you to speak on the beauty of the Lord, the beauty of my holiness, the beauty of my presence.

And I don't know what you think of when you think of beauty.

Like if you think of, you know, great artworks or architecture, or you kind of think it's not my cup of tea, it's for somebody else.

But beauty biblically is a powerhouse.

Beauty in the word, in the presence of God, is not something just pretty or like pleasingly aesthetic to the eye.

Beauty in the word of God is raw divinity.

It's glory, it's military strategy, it's wisdom, it's creativity, it's it's um making new things, it's it's wonder, it's full of his presence and things that have not been seen on the earth before.

And so I want you to bear that in mind.

When I'm talking about the beauty of the Lord, I'm not talking about table decorations or something.

Like I'm talking about this rawness of the presence and power of God that is meant to stun us and is meant to cause us to live in awe and wonder, and is meant to be flowing out from our lives.

And the thing is that we are wired for beauty, every single human.

It's why every culture values beauty in whatever form.

Not just beauty in people, but beauty in buildings, beauty in art, beauty in design.

You know, all the great artists and philosophers and um poets, they've all talked about this beauty that is the thing that captivates the human heart.

And our capacity to see beauty if we will look.

Vincent van Gogh said this if you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.

Beauty is the purest feeling of the soul.

Beauty arises when the soul is satisfied.

And beauty is hardwired within us.

When they do PET scans, looking at what happens in the human brain when you look at something beautiful, when you gaze upon, when you see, when you're shown things that are beautiful.

The reward centers of the brain just light up.

Dopamine is released that actually lets you think creatively, it releases peace within your thinking.

And there's something about beauty that provides feelings of this awe, this wonder of this living beneath something much bigger than ourselves, and some connection with something much bigger than ourselves.

That's why for all of humanity there's this been this striving to make things beautiful, to create buildings that are beautiful.

And I uh when we went to um Europe a couple of years ago, we went into some of the churches, and I was thinking, why do they build them so high?

Like it's cold in Europe in winter.

And these churches were built in the 13th, 14th century, no heating, no ease in constructing something that big.

Why did they do it?

And I don't know if it was written somewhere, but or I heard it somewhere.

But one of the reasons why they did it was the architects were trying to make people connect with the beauty of the greatness of God, of feeling that they're part of something far bigger than their little world, their problems, their day-to-day issues.

And so they built these ginormous cathedrals towering above.

So when you sat there, you were you saw the beauty of the building, and it was supposed to expand your thinking into the beauty of God.

And there's something about beauty that when you are surrounded by it, when you're meditating on it, when your thinking is filled with it, it's actually easier to understand deeper meanings of things.

It's why, if you look at the lives of many great people that have come up with completely new ways of doing things, or incredible literary works, or incredible art, or incredible science, incredible inventions.

They spent time outside in beauty, and it wasn't so much that they were just looking at that thing and then suddenly they made something from it.

But being in that place of beauty, it does something in your brain so you can think.

So you can think creatively, you can understand meaning, you can work out how to express meaning.

And if beauty not only fills us with dopamine, fills us with that capacity to be at peace, to counteract cortisol and all your stress hormones, if beauty actually allows you to feel safe and satisfied and at rest, it's critical in these times.

But it also helps us identify that deep cry within your heart.

You know, when you see a small child and they're just agitated, they don't even know what they want.

They're just upset, whatever you try and do isn't right.

They don't know if they're thirsty, they're hungry, they're hot, they're cold, they need the toilet, they need water, they don't, they're just kind of agitated.

And they don't even know what is the cry within them that needs to be expressed.

And I feel like if we don't have enough beauty, we become like that.

Everything's wrong, everyone's wrong, everything's too hard, I don't know what I want, I don't know how to fix anything.

And because what happens is we don't know how to express the longing.

We don't know how to express what we actually want to ourselves, to God, to anyone else.

And studies have repeatedly showed with classrooms, with children, all of this, that when people are surrounded with beauty, they actually come up with the most creative thinking, the most ingenious design, they retain information the best, they learn the best.

So it's not some superfluous thing, it's intricate to our design, and it's meant to be this intentional part of our life.

Why do you think God created this beautiful world?

Like, why did he create sunrise?

Why did he create sunset?

Why did he create all of these colored flowers?

Why did he create the beauty of the human hand?

There's other ways of getting that function, but he created beauty.

Why did he create the magnificence of trees?

Because he wired within us the desire for beauty, because it is the desire for him.

And when the tabernacle was being made, this first thing that was to represent the dwelling place of God.

The tabernacle and then the temple, line by line, instruction by instruction, word by word, it was to be beautiful.

Read Exodus, read the detail.

This was for God of the universe to live in.

It's never going to compete with the beauty of heaven, it's never going to compete with the beauty of creation.

It was never going to compete with God in heaven on the sea of glass and fiery seraphim flying before the throne and sounds and fragrances that we have never seen or smelt yet.

It was never going to compete with that.

It was never going to compete with the music and the songs of heaven.

It was never going to compete with the river of life.

Can you imagine when we actually see the river of life, not just feel it?

When we see it.

Every detail's breathtaking in beauty.

And so every object in the tabernacle, every object in the temple had to be hand-carved.

It wasn't just plonk a table there and put the bread on it.

It was carved.

It was carved with flowers.

It was carved with fruit.

It was carved with patterns and design and leaves.

And then it was covered, overlaid with gold.

And the curtains weren't just like find some material, hang it up.

It was woven in patterns with gold and blue and purple and white.

It was full of meaning, it was full of beauty, it was full of wonder.

And then it says in Exodus 28, verse 2 this is the first mention of what a priest would come in to wear.

Exodus 28:2

And you and I are priests in the kingdom.

And it says in Exodus 28, this is the Lord giving instruction.

You shall make holy garments for Aaron, your brother, for glory and for beauty.

So you'll speak to all who are gifted artisans whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom, that they may make Aaron's garments to consecrate him, that he may minister to me as a priest.

Do you know the first documented word of people being filled with the Holy Spirit were the artisans, the craftsmen, the engineers, the carvers, the weavers, the people that were creating something were to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

And God cared so much about it, He didn't just let the humans figure it out.

He gave this instruction, He gave this bar, and He says the garments for Aaron, they're for beauty and for glory.

So when God gives you something to do, it's for beauty and for glory.

I want to stand it in my life where whatever I do is like is carrying that beauty and glory.

Like I don't want to just like slap dinner on the plate.

Why not do it for beauty and for glory?

Just the way you do something, the way you give someone a present, the way you put flowers on the table, the way you whatever it is.

It's like somewhere in the heart of God is this desire for beauty and glory because it carries Him.

It carries meaning.

And we have been given garments.

And I want you to turn to Isaiah 61.

Aaron was given garments to wear, we've been given garments to wear.

Isaiah is trying to come up with language to describe the beauty of what you've been clothed with in God.

And the best that he can come up with is the bridal party.

Nobody just like drags out the old thing and wears it to the wedding, right?

And Isaiah says, that is what the clothing, the garments of salvation are, the beauty of salvation, the glory of salvation.

God gave his best.

You are robed in him, and you are robed in his beauty.

What you're wearing changes your thinking.

I remember when I was supposed to be having an emergency season for Zimmy in Darwin.

I knew I was gonna end up in a Caesar, like we were in the lift on the way down to the theater.

Like Joel was in theater pajamas, like the whole thing, like I was about to have a Caesar in ten minutes.

And this registrar came in, it was fine.

But he came into the lift in his reef sandals and his shorts.

It's Darwin, right?

It was a Saturday, he was on call.

And he's there going, no, this baby's not breached, you're fine, I'm canceling the Caesar.

All of which was probably fine as a clinical decision.

But there was something in me that was like, don't tell me, don't tell me about whether I'm having an operation in 10 minutes or not, standing there in shorts and wreaths.

Now I know that his mind is the same.

I know that his capacity to make that decision, his knowledge is the same, whatever he's wearing.

But there's something about what you're wearing is what you are carrying to the conversation.

And we're robed in righteousness.

And if we're conscious of what we're robed in, the garments of salvation, the glory of it.

Like Aaron was aware of what he was putting on when he went in to worship the Lord.

He didn't just roll in from whatever.

He was made to be aware that he was carrying beauty and glory.

And the Lord wants us to be aware that we're carrying beauty and glory.

In Revelation chapter 3, verse 5, it says, He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments.

Revelation 3:5

And I will not blot out his name from the book of life.

There's something in that process of overcoming in life.

It's why the Lord doesn't just move every obstacle before us, but what he does is he teaches us to overcome because I'm telling you, it changes what you're wearing, it changes the dignity that you're coming to the next issue with.

In Isaiah 61, you know the passage.

Verses 1 to 3, it's the prophecy about what Jesus, the anointed one, would do.

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor.

He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, so that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.

Now listen, if you want your life to be a planting of the Lord that will actually glorify God, it requires this process.

And part of that process is that Jesus made the good news possible.

That he really does bind up our hearts and heal the broken places within us.

He actually does set us free from things that have held us captive and things we have done wrong.

He was anointed by the Spirit for this.

And then it says he comforts, he consoles.

They're all necessary steps into that planting to glorify him.

And then he says he does something.

It says he exchanges ashes for beauty.

That means we have to go.

We offer them to him and he takes them gladly and gives us beauty.

He exchanges mourning and gives us joy.

He exchanges heaviness and gives us garments of praise.

So we're actually carrying righteousness.

We're carrying beauty.

We are carrying glory.

And when you understand, when you've done that exchange, when you've put on those garments, when you're consciously aware of what you are carrying, there is a glorifying of God.

And it says in verse 4, it is those people who have been restored, those people who have engaged in receiving beauty, who have done the divine exchange and gone, Jesus, here's my ashes.

Again and again.

Every time you find the ashes in your life, every time you find the burnt up stuff, every time you find the weariness, every time you find the annoyances, the frustration, the anger, whatever it is, every time you find the sin, you take it and go, here's my ashes.

Give me your beauty.

It is those people that it says will rebuild old ruins.

It is those people that go in and change things that have been unchanged for generations.

It's those people that can repair ruined cities.

Beauty matters.

Carrying the beauty of the Lord matters.

Because we want to be a transformational people.

It's our inheritance, it's our right.

Because he was after something.

He was after something that was going to change him enough to change the world around him.

And that was this.

To behold the beauty of the Lord.

This is a king.

This is a military commander.

This is not someone who just wanted to sit around painting flowers.

He overs he subdued every enemy of Israel.

Every army coming against them he overcame.

In one life.

This is David.

He's going, there's one thing I need, and that is to be in the beauty of God.

To look upon the beauty that is inherent in God.

I need to see that beauty.

I need to be in the presence of that beauty.

I need to gaze.

I need to set my heart gazing upon that beauty.

Because when I do that, all this other stuff flows out.

When I sit and gaze at that face, when I sit in that holiness, the beauty of that holiness, I understand how to overcome my enemies.

Understand how to make provision for these massive projects I need to do.

I understand what's actually the cry of my heart.

That's why he could write song after song after psalm after psalm that touches our hearts now, thousands of years later.

Because he got in that beauty.

He got in that holiness and was like, there's only one thing that I need to do.

This is a man of war.

I want you to understand this isn't for a few ladies on the side.

This is a man of war who understood the power of beauty.

He had a nation to reunite.

He was hunted down for 15 years.

Attacked almost on a daily basis.

Before that, he was undervalued, mistreated by his family.

Most people say he was like only a half-brother to his brothers.

Discounted by his own father.

Mocked by his siblings.

He's like one thing.

One thing.

I don't need to have a political meeting.

I don't need to have this.

I don't need to campaign.

I don't need all of this.

What I need is to get in that place of the beauty of the Lord.

And from that place, God told him how to do everything else.

But he intentionally sought the presence of the Lord.

He intentionally drew aside to gaze at the beauty of the Lord.

And it doesn't matter what your background is, it doesn't matter what you've been through.

It doesn't matter what people have said about you.

Restoration is real in his presence.

He takes ashes and gives beauty.

And being in the beauty of the Lord is part of our healing.

It's also part of our war plan.

It's also part of our assignment.

So we know how to go out and carry the kingdom of heaven.

Because in beauty, you can think.

David did something that medicine now proves that in the place of beauty, you can think creatively, you can think strategically, you can you're energized and you're calmed.

And so you can go forth and change the world.

Some of you would know that in Japan, many companies are now paying their staff to have time to go on what they call forest bathing.

Their staff are paid to go and wander in the forest.

Now, Japan knows how to do business, right?

Like they know how to create companies and make them work.

They're hard business people, they're hard workers.

But what they found was they have a term for it.

It means death by overwork.

And what they were finding was people were so driven, so just working harder and harder and harder, trying to accomplish things, trying to do things, and they just died.

Because actually the human soul isn't designed to live like that.

And so they started this thing.

And what they found was if they actually paid people, they paid their staff to go and wander.

Some of them do it for like 20 minutes a day, some of them do it for, you know, two hours in the week, some of them do it for two days in the month.

But they set aside and paid their staff to wander in beauty.

And what they found was that their mental capacity was enhanced.

Their creativity was boosted.

Their fatigue and their stress was managed.

Their immune systems were strengthened.

We know that.

We know the pathway that actually strengthens your immune system when you're in nature and when you're in beauty.

And it restored their capacity to focus.

It restored their capacity to press in.

And what they had was increased output, not decreased.

Increased creative thinking, increased production.

Because what's happening is when you give yourself, when you give people space and time to engage in beauty, when you restore wonder in the human experience, you restore hope.

And you restore the capacity to think and you restore a different way of seeing and you restore joy.

And in that place, you can do a lot.

You know, I think a lot of our trouble most of the time is we're just running on way too empty.

We've got one cylinder, come on, go harder, go harder, do more, think more quick, get this done.

And then we've got another cylinder just busy with worry.

What are we gonna do about this?

What's gonna happen about that?

What do we do about this?

What do we do about that?

And you're designed to have many cylinders going out of wonder at the beauty of God, at wonder at what he's done in your life, at wonder and renewal and strength of being in his presence.

We are designed for wonder.

That's why every leaf is unique.

It's why every cloud is different.

It's why God arrays the rising and the setting sun in breathtaking beauty.

And he expects us to look and see and learn and be changed.

And we need these well-trodden paths into beauty and wonder in his presence.

If you need answers to problems, if you need breakthrough, you get into that place of the beauty of his holiness.

That's where you can think.

That's where you can hear.

That's where you can understand the way forward.

In Job 40, verse 9, God is challenging Job and he says, Have you an arm like God, or can you thunder with a voice like his?

Job 40:9

Then adorn yourself with majesty and splendor, and array yourself with glory and beauty.

Because this is who God is, adorned in majesty.

Arrayed in glory.

In 1 Chronicles 16, David is bringing back the ark, verse 23.

He's recovering the presence of God.

And this should be the greatest desire in your heart is that you carry the presence of God into your workplace, into your community, into your street, when you go to the shops, into your home, that you are carrying the presence of God.

And so this is the song that David sang when he recovered the presence of God to the people of God.

Sing to the Lord all the earth, proclaim the good news of his salvation from day to day, declare his glory among the nations, his wonders among all people, for the Lord is great and greatly to be praised.

He is to be feared above all gods, for all the gods of the people are idols, but the Lord made the heavens.

Honor and majesty are before him, strength and gladness are in his place.

Give to the Lord, O families of the people.

Give to the Lord glory and strength.

Give to the Lord the glory due his name.

Bring an offering and come before him.

Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

Tremble before him, all the earth.

This is the song of the people who know how to host the presence of God.

This cry to worship in the beauty of his holiness.

They are victorious in power.

Things tremble at his word.

And they know how to walk with him because they've seen the Lord.

They've seen the beauty of his perfection.

Nothing competes with him.

He is radiant.

In two Chronicles twenty, there is a very, very, very grave situation.

Three different nations have risen up against Judah.

Three.

Three nations' armies have come against this small nation.

And they're set to destroy Judah.

And they have no capacity to overcome.

And it says, But Jehoshaphat sought the Lord.

And he gets prophetic input and he worships and he gets himself into the beauty of the presence of God.

And then he goes out and he says to the people in verse 20, believe in the Lord your God and you shall be established.

Believe in the prophets and you shall prosper.

And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed those who would sing to the Lord, who would praise the beauty of holiness as they went out before the army and were saying, Praise the Lord, his mercy endures forever.

The pressure was on.

It was not good.

There weren't good options.

Everything was stacked against them.

And Jehoshaphat worshiped.

Jehoshaphat found the place where his conscious mind was filled with the beauty of the holiness of God.

And from that place, when your mind is consumed with who God is, you know victory is inevitable.

If you're not sure that victory and breakthrough is inevitable, you haven't got yourself consumed with the presence of God.

When we are before the Lord and our whole mind is just consumed with Him, you know anything's possible.

You know.

It's not just something to quote, you know that He can do anything.

And from that place, Jehoshaphat did the most unthinkable military strategy ever known to man.

He sent out the worshippers and he gave them one instruction worship in the beauty of holiness.

Don't worship in fear.

Don't madly try and quote something.

Worship in the beauty of holiness.

And they went out, and when they did, the enemy fled.

You want to win some battles?

You want to push back the enemy.

You want some strategy.

You need to know the beauty of holiness.

You need to know how to turn your attention to be consumed into the beauty of God.

Wonder.

Not just God is this, God is this, God is this, but where your whole mind is fascinated by Him and Him alone.

Consumed with Him.

Beholding the beauty of the Lord.

You know, there is so much pressure in these days to get your gaze off the beauty of the Lord.

The algorithms that run social media, that run YouTube, that run the news, they are designed to prioritize anything that makes you stressed or angry.

They are designed to make you fear.

They are designed to make you feel like you're not enough and you don't have enough.

In Ephesians 5, verse 15, I'm nearly finished.

Ephesians 5:15

It says, be very careful then how you live.

Did you hear that?

Be very careful.

Be very careful then how you live.

Not as unwise, but as wise.

Making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil.

This is Paul's instruction to a church that was passionately on fire for God.

And he says, be very careful.

You need to choose wisdom here.

You need to think because the days are evil.

You know what the word evil there means?

It means stressed.

It means full of labors.

It means pressured.

It means harassed by many things to do.

It means annoyances and hardships, things that are painful or calamities that you hear about, things that are hurtful or not healthy, things that grieve your soul.

It's sounding like what we get bombarded with all day.

And Paul says you need to be very careful.

Because if you just let that be the main input, if you let that affect you, if you let that onslaught of that stress, that evil, that grievous things that are happening, that calamity after problem after need, if that is just what you're sitting gazing at, you're not going to have anything to say to a world that needs you.

Be wise.

Behold the beauty of the Lord.

You need to have spent more time sitting in the beauty of holiness, meditating on God than on any other input.

It's not an Opt-out.

It's an opt-in to true wisdom.

To true creativity, to being a true part of the redemption story on the earth.

It's an opt-in to making earth look like heaven, like we were instructed to do.

But you're not going to get the strategy looking at the problem.

You're going to get the strategy looking at the face of Jesus.

Because beauty is power expressed.

Beauty is wisdom.

And strategy.

And understanding and order and ways forward and strength expressed.

John tells us in 1 John 3 that what we behold, we become.

Looking into those eyes that have every answer.

Moses was one of the greatest men to ever live.

We're still living out of his revelation and his capacity to set up an entire nation.

And he was the one that said, show us your glory.

But I would encourage you to meditate on Psalm 90.

It's his prayer for the nation.

It's his prayer for the nation that he prayed again and again.

And the whole psalm is incredible.

I would take it and pray it over your life, pray it over the church, pray it over your family, pray it over this nation.

But in verse 16 it says, let your work appear to your servants and your glory to their children.

And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us and establish the work of our hands.

Yes, establish the work of our hands.

Because Moses understood when the beauty of God was upon a people.

Solutions happened.

Things happened.

What they put their hand to could be established.

Psalm thirty-four five says this, I'll end with this.

They looked to him and were radiant.

And their faces were not ashamed.

That word radiant means not only shining, it means flowing out.

Your life becomes a flow of life out when you look to him.

Your life becomes radiant.

Your life becomes full of solutions, full of answers, full of breakthroughs for people when you look to him.

Father, I ask that we would be a people that intentionally seek the beauty of your face.

The beauty of your fountain of life.

And Lord, I ask that we would be intentional.

We would war over the time to come into your beauty, to come into your presence, to gaze upon your face.

We would become just militant about guarding that time because we would know, like David knew, like Moses knew, that like Joshaphat knew, that in that place is every answer we need.

In that place is every strength we need, every refreshing we need, every creative thought we need, everything that we need is in that place of your face.

God, don't let us be a people swept along by the demands of people.

Don't let us be a people swept along by the culture of fear and anxiety.

Don't let us be a people swept along by all the bad reports.

All the unsatisfaction of the world.

We need what you know.

It's in the face of Jesus.

And we set our eyes upon you, Lord.

We set our eyes upon you, God.

God, desperately.

I don't want to do a quick glance and run.

I want to gaze.

I want to gaze.

I want to gaze.

I want to know your expressions, God.

I wanna I wanna delve into the depths that is in your face, God.

I wanna know your breathtaking holiness.

I wanna know the answers you have for the people around us.

Take us deep, God.

Take us deep in you, God.

Deeper than we imagined.

Deeper than we thought.

And Lord, I ask that we'd be the most energized, the most strength, the most strengthened.

The most creative people with wisdom flowing out of us.

Because we've been in your presence.

We've been with you.

Our workplaces would be flowing with divine inspiration.

I just want you to hold before him areas of your life.

Whether it's things you're studying, whether it's work issues, whether it's people finances, whatever it is.

Just hold it in the beauty of his face.