God's Design for Marriage.

Steve Gentry

[0:09] We’ll go ahead and have a seat. [0:10] Welcome to Village Church. [0:11] If this is your first time here. [0:12] My name’s Steve, one of the pastors here at Village Church. [0:14] And as always, I am thankful and grateful to see each and every one of you this morning. [0:19] If you have a Bible, go ahead and open it to First Peter chapter three.

[0:23] We’re jumping back into First Peter as we make our way through the entire book. [0:28] We took a couple of weeks off for the Easter holiday to cover the resurrection in a few weeks. [0:34] But today we’re going to begin First Peter chapter three to kind of catch you up. [0:39] If you haven’t been with us throughout this book or to remind you because you have a short memory, [0:44] First Peter is a book that is written to churches that were dispersed throughout Roman cities [0:50] that now would be modern day Turkey.

[0:53] At that point, it was in the Roman Empire. [0:55] But these people would have been mostly Gentile Christians who had actually begun to experience persecution [1:02] because of their faith in Jesus. [1:05] And so these were people that were surrounded by pagans who practiced cultic Roman religious worship. [1:12] And that’s a non-negotiable in that culture. [1:15] You had to follow that religion.

[1:18] And so if you are coming to faith in Christ, that kind of puts you out of the cultural norm. [1:24] And because of that, these were people that were being persecuted. [1:27] They could no longer be involved in those practices. [1:30] And that’s why in First Peter 1, 1, he begins the book by calling these Christians elect exiles. [1:37] It’s the same type of terminology that means their faith in Jesus and quite literally made them strangers in their own culture. [1:44] Or another way it’s translated is that they were aliens inside of this world.

[1:49] And the point is they were unique and they were going to live in unique ways, [1:54] according to the context they lived in, because God had saved them. [1:58] And now they would be peculiar, he says in Chapter two, he calls them a peculiar people in their context, [2:05] specifically because of their faith in Jesus Christ. [2:09] And further in First Peter 2, 11, Peter states that life in Christ was going to necessitate [2:15] that these Christians abstain from what he calls the passions of the flesh.

[2:21] And he even said it’s such a severe passion that is something that makes war against their very souls. [2:28] Now, what we might expect after he says something like that is the war that he’s talking about is about personal sin, [2:35] something that they’re dealing with in their personal lives. [2:39] But what he actually does is he begins to give examples for this war that was going to rage against their souls [2:44] by dealing with exterior relationships. [2:47] He began with the example of their relationship with the government around them.

[2:53] Peter, knowing that they were going to be persecuted legally under the Roman government, [2:58] he wants to prepare them by telling them that they’re going to experience this suffering [3:03] and it was going to wage war against them. [3:05] The second example that he used, we saw about a month ago, [3:08] was the relationship between a slave and that slave’s master. [3:12] If a slave comes to faith in Jesus Christ, how should that slave then act in relationship to the person or persons who owned that slave?

[3:24] And so the context of this book really is winning in a hostile culture. [3:28] That’s why we named it that. [3:30] At the end of chapter two, after he talks about the relationship of slave to master, [3:34] he then gives the example of suffering the way that Christ Jesus suffered. [3:40] And his point is that this faith you have in Jesus Christ is not going to remove you from the sin of this world. [3:47] It’s not going to remove you from having to thread the needle of complex and complicated relationships

[3:53] that you’re going to experience in this world. [3:57] And he says, suffer like Christ suffered. [4:01] And so for Christians, history has mostly involved living out our faith [4:05] in cultures that frankly just simply reject the lordship of Jesus Christ. [4:10] And so Peter kind of covers the Christian’s relationship to all three of these spheres [4:16] in view of the suffering of Jesus Christ so that we would not fall temptation to think,

[4:21] well, if my faith was real, I’d be having an easier go of this situation. [4:27] And so this week we cover what really is the most personal of the relationships [4:32] that Peter is going to address between verses one and verse seven. [4:35] Peter deals with the most personal relationship many will ever experience. [4:39] That’s the relationship between husband and wife. [4:43] And boy, if you thought the situation between a slave and a master was complicated,

[4:47] wait till you get married is Peter’s point, I think.

[4:53] See, last week, a couple of weeks ago, maybe I don’t remember when I dealt with, [4:58] you know, a few anti anxiety medication and then all of my knowledge of that. [5:03] I gifted it to you hand wrapped. [5:05] It was a wonderful, gracious thing. [5:06] And some some people emailed me, they didn’t like that. [5:09] And my response is wait till I deal with marriage.

[5:12] You see, through these verses, Peter deals with God’s design for marriage [5:17] and how to be faithful if only one spouse is a believer. [5:22] And so I want you to understand that the context of what we’re talking about [5:25] is not just Peter saying, here’s how you have a great marriage. [5:28] No, Peter’s context is specifically what do you do as a wife? [5:32] If you come to faith in Jesus Christ and your husband does not come to faith in Jesus Christ

[5:38] and dealing with that in the Roman context was more complicated and complex of a situation [5:46] than we would deal with with the same scenario in 2025 America. [5:51] The relationship between husband and wife was a very cultural thing [5:54] with a lot of cultural pressures on them not to follow Jesus Christ faithfully. [6:01] And so Peter deals, yes, with God’s design and how to faithfully follow him [6:06] if your spouse is not a believer.

[6:08] But the way he deals with it is differently than you’re going to be comfortable with [6:12] because he deals with the issue by saying, how do you focus on inner beauty [6:17] when the culture demands vanity to be the goal? [6:21] And how do you find joy in bringing God glory through building a faithful marriage? [6:27] As I want to start reading in First Peter, chapter three, verse one, [6:32] he says, likewise, why does he say likewise?

[6:34] Well, he’s harkening back to what he just covered first with the government, [6:38] then with the slave, then with suffering. [6:40] And he says, speaking of suffering.

[6:46] Like you see, I had like an hour’s worth of material just for the introduction. [6:50] So you have no idea how edited down this is likewise wives, [6:56] be subject to your own husbands so that even if some do not obey the word, [7:02] they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives [7:07] when they see your respectful and pure conduct. [7:12] And all the men said, amen.

[7:17] Wow, some of you are in trouble.

[7:20] Number one, this morning, I want you to see through this passage. [7:22] Marriage is part of God’s original created order. [7:27] Marriage is part of God’s original created order. [7:32] And what Peter is really telling us in this passage is starting with this view [7:35] of the wife submitting in the relationship to her unbelieving husband. [7:40] And really the pretext to this or the presupposition that Peter is bringing into it

[7:45] is that grace does not destroy God’s design for marriage. [7:49] Grace upholds God’s design for marriage. [7:53] You need to understand that when you’re thinking about marriage, [7:55] you are not thinking about a new construct because the temptation [7:59] where cultural progression is concerned is that we begin to redefine our vision for marriage [8:06] with every redefinition that we would have culturally speaking.

[8:10] And in our context, this is as hot of an issue as you can get [8:13] because cultural progression would dictate redefine marriage over and over and over. [8:21] But Peter’s vision here is the Genesis construction of marriage. [8:25] He’s talking about the marriage between a husband and a wife. [8:29] And within his view, there is no other marriage for that. [8:33] And he’s going so far as to include it in a list with government and relationship

[8:39] between slave and master as to say this is the most important one [8:45] or civilization itself is built on the marriage covenant. [8:50] Biblically speaking, we know this because marriage was the first covenant [8:54] God ever instituted between human beings. [8:58] If you look at creation, design, and all that is entailed before you even get to sin, [9:03] God gives the covenant of marriage.

[9:05] A man shall leave his mother and father and cleave to his wife or hold fast faithfully [9:11] to his wife. [9:13] This is God’s design and there is no other. [9:17] No other version of marriage can be given to us that we would accept. [9:23] And so as Peter is instructing these people, [9:26] you are going to have to live differently than the culture around you.

[9:30] Even as the culture pounds on us to redefine marriage under a new structure [9:37] to accept other sexualities, we are the people that must say no, [9:42] there is no redesign for marriage. [9:45] There’s only God’s design for marriage. [9:48] And Peter presupposes this in his instructions to the wife in verses one through six. [9:55] So the instructions flow.

[9:57] Again, I want to remind you from 1 Peter 2 12, [10:01] the context of every sphere he’s going to give flows from this verse. [10:06] In 1 Peter 2 12, Peter had already said, [10:08] Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, [10:11] so that when they speak evil against you as evildoers, [10:16] they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.

[10:21] So what he’s saying is the way that you conduct yourselves in your marriage, [10:27] you need to understand that when you come to faith in Christ, [10:31] they’re going to speak of you as evildoers. [10:34] They’re going to speak of you as people who do harm to society. [10:38] They’re going to speak of you as rebels in the Roman culture. [10:41] They’re going to say that your lives are upending society.

[10:46] And that is true. [10:49] But he says, you better make sure as you follow Jesus, [10:55] that when they speak of you as evildoers, it doesn’t stick according to scripture. [11:01] And so when he’s talking about marriage, what he’s telling them, [11:04] jumping off of 1 Peter 2 12, is that the way that they vilify you within the marriage relationship, [11:11] it better not be because you’re doing harm to your spouse.

[11:18] It better not be because you’re sinning against your spouse. [11:22] It better not be because you’re not living as a wife that God intended. [11:29] And it better not be as the husband that God did not intend for you to be. [11:33] You better live God’s view for marriage because you better not embarrass Jesus Christ [11:39] by disobeying him within the bounds of marriage.

[11:44] Because what’s probably expected is if one spouse comes to faith in Christ in the Roman culture [11:50] and the other spouse does not, they would expect the believing spouse to abandon the [11:56] unbelieving spouse. And Peter says, you better not. [12:00] And so you’re going to notice, especially the wives, that he spends six verses talking to the [12:07] wives and one verse talking to the husband. [12:10] And that’s because he has a lot to say to you, ladies.

[12:12] You got a lot to get right. All right. [12:14] No, I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding.

[12:17] No, it’s because contextually, if the wife comes to faith in Christ first, [12:23] it’s a more complicated concept than if the husband comes to faith in Christ first. [12:27] And that’s quite frankly, statistically still true, but especially in this culture. [12:33] In Roman culture, it was different. [12:35] In Roman culture, the husband was necessarily still seen as the head of the household. [12:43] The husband was still seen as the leader of the wife.

[12:48] There was a hierarchy in marriage where Roman culture was concerned that still did reflect, [12:55] even if roughly, the order that God gives marriage in the book of Genesis all the way [13:01] to the New Testament. [13:03] And so if the wife came to faith in Christ before the husband came to faith in Christ [13:09] in a Roman city, that’s a no, no, because the wife had an expectation and even a cultural [13:17] obligation to follow whatever religious faith the husband would have followed.

[13:26] And if you have a husband who is following Roman paganism, it was expected of the wife. [13:31] She would continue to follow Roman paganism, and she would not deviate from that no matter what. [13:38] And so a great context for what Peter is writing about here is not to be focused on, [13:46] oh, my goodness, I cannot believe some of the things he says a wife must do in this passage. [13:50] No, the pretext of what Peter is talking about is you’re going to be accused of being [13:56] countercultural because you are.

[14:00] You’re not following the same religion as your husband, and that’s unacceptable to the culture [14:04] around you. And there’s no way of getting out of that either. It’s not an option even to pretend [14:11] that you’re following paganism any longer. And so you must rebel against the wishes of your husband, [14:20] even the wishes of the culture around you. [14:24] And so what Peter does is he says, since you’re already going to be accused of being a rebellious [14:31] woman, you need to submit to his leadership in any way you can in order to preserve your marriage

[14:42] so that remember, first Peter to 12 on the day of visitation, he will have repented of his sin [14:50] because he watched you be in all things a faithful and true wife. God does not want [14:59] that marriage covenant to be destroyed because of the husband’s unbelief. [15:07] If even unbelieving culture values marriage, you can submit to your husband’s leadership in [15:17] everything that does not make you disobey the calling of God. Peter assumes that the wife will [15:23] aim at the preservation of her marriage as a fruit of her faith in Jesus Christ, because

[15:32] submitting to her husband. Note the text does not say all men. We got to get that straight. [15:40] Doesn’t say all men. It says husband. Again, there are biblical qualifications for divorce. [15:48] I’ve spoken of them in the past. They’re in the archives. I’m not going to do a lot of [15:52] qualification with that this morning. If you want to know those, we will do that at a different time. [15:57] But the Bible does give qualifications for divorce that I’m just not going to take the time to cover [16:02] today because you guys want to go to lunch. But what Peter says here echoes first Corinthians

[16:09] seven verses 13 through 14. Look at the way Paul says this. He says, if any woman has a husband who [16:15] is an unbeliever and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him for the unbelieving [16:21] husband is made holy because of his wife and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. [16:26] Otherwise children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. And so what is he saying there? [16:30] He’s saying that if you’re an unbelieving, excuse me, if you’re a believing wife with an [16:35] unbelieving husband, your husband, let’s just be very practical with this. Your husband has a great

[16:40] chance of coming to faith in Jesus Christ. He has a sanctifying influence in the house with him. [16:47] He’s not made redeemed by his wife’s faith, but he is given holiness on display in front of him [16:57] as the wife follows Jesus Christ. We don’t do with this text what Presbyterians do. There’s [17:02] no magic potion. Your faith sprinkles over your unbelieving husband, nor your unbelieving children [17:07] that immediately sanctifies them in faith. No, what he’s talking about is the influence of a [17:13] godly wife in the family over her husband and her children and vice versa. If the husband comes to

[17:19] faith, the same is true as well. You live in light of your faith while building your family with the [17:26] faith in Christ. And so the goal is not divorce. The goal is the repentance of the unbelieving [17:35] spouse. Now I understand our context is different from Rome. As I said, in Rome, the husband’s [17:42] posture as leader within the marriage was intact. In our culture, not so much. What both Peter and [17:50] Paul advocate for here is God’s design for marriage from creation forward. So the gospel [18:00] does not destroy the Genesis view of marriage. And so when you read kind of one of these verses

[18:07] that people will throw in your face when you’re talking about this, Galatians chapter 3 verses [18:11] 27 to 28, about the equality of men and women in Christ, he is not talking about the design of God [18:19] that differentiates men and women. He’s not flattening gender in this text. He says, [18:25] for as many of you who were baptized into Christ have put on Christ, there’s neither Jew nor Greek, [18:28] neither slave nor free, no male nor female, for you are all one in Christ. And so what he’s doing is [18:36] while still upholding God’s design for relationships, he shows us there are no second

[18:43] class Christians. There’s no second class Christian because of ethnicity, because of social position, [18:48] or because of your gender. He’s not saying there’s no distinctions. He’s saying there is equality [18:56] in Christ and God has given structure to how marriage is ordered. Now, verses one through two [19:05] may seem harsh in our context, but as I said, consider the context that they were dealing with. [19:13] When she’s rebelling against the religious norms her husband has given her, she’s being accused [19:21] of not being subject to her husband. It’s that simple. And so when Peter gives her this command,

[19:29] he says you need to be subject in every way possible. Peter instructs here in her marriage [19:37] to be missional and as Francis Schaeffer used to put it, pre-evangelistic by submitting to [19:45] whatever she possibly could, since that would have been the accusation against her. Now, [19:52] this seems odd in our context, but not because our context is better. Simply put, we have destroyed [20:00] the order God gave marriage in many ways and so it’s almost more complicated in our culture, [20:06] because there are no distinctive roles in marriage for husband and wife in our culture.

[20:13] Peter calls for humility and service and winning him to Christ through her submissive attitude [20:21] wherever possible. And so is the wife to have a submissive attitude towards her husband?

[20:30] Yes, yes, yes. That is God’s design for marriage and there is no other, [20:39] regardless of what the culture around you would say. And how does that work out in this specific [20:45] context? Note, what does he say in verse two? He says you’re going to win your husband to Christ [20:50] without nagging him. Ladies, you will not lead your husband to Christ by supplanting his leadership [21:02] in the home. That’s not the way it works. You may nag your husband into mowing the grass. [21:10] You may nag your husband into picking up his dirty drawers. You may nag your husband into

[21:16] cleaning up after himself. Ladies, you may even nag him to do a load of laundry. [21:21] Because at the end of the day, he’s like, I’m tired of hearing about it. I’ll do it. Just shut up.

[21:28] Just the way it goes. But I can tell you one thing’s for certain. You will never nag your [21:34] husband to Jesus. You’re not going to nag your husband to faith in Jesus Christ. That’s just not [21:39] the way that it works. That’s not the way that men are rather designed in order to complete. [21:46] And you know, that’s biblical. Peter is fighting for the structure that God designed for marriage [21:52] for the good of the wife’s discipleship and the hope of his salvation. You see, God designed [21:58] things to work in a certain way. And when we submit to God’s design, we have a possibility

[22:06] of seeing God use our submission to him in order to make his will come about in a way [22:12] that if we seek to disobey his design, disregard the way that he has wired men and women, [22:19] we will not see him work because we are living lives in disobedience. [22:23] Proverbs 21 talks about this. Solomon writes about the distinction between men and women [22:27] in marriage. And I love the way Solomon writes because, oh boy, I couldn’t say anything is [22:31] controversial if I tried. Look at what he says. It is better to live in a desert land than with

[22:38] a quarrelsome and fretful woman. That’s some good advice for your marriage.

[22:46] Proverbs is filled with stuff like this. Proverbs even says it’s better to live in the corner of a [22:52] rooftop. So it’s better to take a blanket, climb a ladder to the roof, spend your night up there [23:00] than it says with a nagging woman is the original language. It also says that a quarrelsome woman [23:07] is like sitting under ancient torture with water. Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip.

[23:18] You will not nag him to Jesus, ladies. You will nag him to divorce you. [23:24] You will nag him to rebel against you. You will nag him to resent you.

[23:32] We have so many good ideas that are sinful ideas. And throwing away God’s design on our good ideas [23:42] is one of them. Stop being quarrelsome to your husband. And I don’t say that thinking it’s easy. [23:56] I don’t say that knowing you don’t have a good reason. I know that in this room there are a [24:03] thousand reasons why you’re nagging your husband. I get it. He’s not doing what you want him to do. [24:09] He’s not saying what you want him to say. He’s not leading the way that you want him to lead. [24:13] And I’m telling you, he never will so long as you’re doing that. And he will not lead you

[24:20] out of spite from here on out. And so the former situation is worse. You need to realize, friends, [24:30] that the way that God designed for you to live out your femininity is the most effective strategy [24:39] you could ever take. And what’s that strategy? He says, when they see your respectful and pure [24:46] conduct, you’ll win him without a word. Oh, man, husbands dream of that, don’t they? [24:55] You guys are dreaming. So, man, things will have to change.

[25:02] Look at verse three.

[25:07] How do you do it? It doesn’t just say, sit there, shut up, don’t do anything, [25:13] and he’ll just magically become a Christian tomorrow. What does he say? He makes it harder. [25:18] Do not let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair, the putting on of gold jewelry, [25:23] or the clothing you wear. But let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the [25:29] imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. Quiet spirit, and every man said,

[25:37] I am going to get in trouble. I got to keep going.

[25:43] Which in God’s sight is very precious. For this is how the holy women who hoped in God [25:52] used to adorn themselves by what? Submitting to their own husbands. [26:00] And unfortunately, I have to read verse six. Again, I didn’t write it.

[26:05] As Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord. That’s just a hallelujah. [26:12] Now, y’all better be careful. I don’t get Pentecostal often, but I’m almost there reading verse six. [26:16] As Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord.

[26:22] And you are her children. Lunch is going to be rough on some of you. And you are her children. [26:29] If you do good and do not fear anything, that is frightening. Number two, this morning, [26:37] I want you to see inner beauty is to be treasured above vanity. [26:43] Inner beauty is to be treasured above vanity.

[26:50] Good things can become bad things when they replace what God wants you to do. [26:58] Did you know that? So many times we say, well, it’s not bad. It wasn’t

[27:06] until it contradicted the will of God in your life. It wasn’t bad until it made you rebel [27:12] against God’s word. It was fine until it supplanted what God called you to do. [27:18] And now you’re not doing what God called you to do because that not bad saying [27:23] has become a very bad thing. In our era, we have sought to strip marriage of every part of God’s [27:32] design that offends while hoping to preserve the beauty of marriage. And that’s not how anything [27:41] works. We have as a society turned marriage into a business arrangement that includes sex.

[27:50] Dual income marriages focused on the vanity of affording more stuff and staying attractive [27:59] on the outside while never focusing on flourishing relationally between the husband and wife has [28:08] ruined society. That’s not the direction everybody thinks I’m going to go when I talk about this. [28:12] You think I’m only going to talk about how you wear too much makeup or something and you’re too [28:17] worried about how you look. Yes, that’s a problem I’ll get to, but I will tell you the inner beauty [28:23] God calls you towards also represents the Ecclesiastes vision for vanity that includes

[28:30] throwing God’s design away so that you can build a bigger bank account. [28:36] So that you can be a girl boss. And so you throw off God’s design as though raising a family [28:47] is somehow a lesser calling. We must refocus on developing the inner beauty that God demands [28:58] by investing in building larger families and a household to manage quietly with beauty as God defines it.

[29:13] And here’s the deal. This just provokes some questions from me.

[29:19] A couple of questions. How can someone see that respectful and pure conduct from verse two? [29:27] If you don’t have any time to display it because everybody’s at work all the time. [29:32] And how can you display it when you don’t know how to because you’re not putting yourself in a [29:38] lifestyle situation where you can. And what does God even mean by those things? How can you discover [29:45] what they mean when you spend your time mesmerized by chasing the materialistic vanity of the present [29:53] age and only trying to be beautiful externally while you rot away on the inside?

[30:05] You see here’s the deal friends. I think those are good questions. [30:08] We can be so overwhelmed by the external that we don’t develop the inner self because we simply [30:16] don’t have time. Yet God says developing inner beauty is far greater. He echoes first Timothy 2 [30:26] 9. The apostle Paul says something very similar. He says likewise also women should not adorn them, [30:31] excuse me, should adorn themselves in respectable apparel with modesty and self-control not with [30:37] braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire. What’s Paul saying? He’s saying the exterior

[30:44] should match what is going on in the inner life of a person and often it does.

[30:53] And see in our culture, see in Roman culture you could say this stuff about the wife [30:58] because the husband was busy trying to kill to eat. He was trying to grow crops so you’d [31:05] survive the winter so he didn’t have time to make himself pretty. Now men have all sorts of times, [31:11] all sorts of creams and all sorts of diets and all sorts of worries and let me tell you it’s [31:16] personal because I know how beautiful I am standing before you. But now men chase exterior [31:28] beauty just as much as women and let me tell you something you won’t find this in the ESV but in

[31:32] the Steve International version. First Steve 7 7 says if a dude’s using Botox on his forehead he [31:40] no dude no longer all right. I want to see some crinkles. I want to make sure you can raise them [31:49] eyebrows bro. Men have given in to this lie of external vanity just as much as women in our age [31:59] because we are not taking the time to develop inner beauty the way God has called us to take inner beauty.

[32:07] He used to say in Proverbs gray hair is a crown of glory. Now it’s a curse that we must reject at all costs.

[32:19] But see as society we need to understand that just because contextually he only says it about [32:24] women it doesn’t mean men cannot be guilty of the exact same thing.

[32:30] In our age there’s this temptation to give into vanity where we invest our lives on material.

[32:38] We always have to have a bigger house. We always have to have newer cars. We always have to have [32:42] new clothes. We always have to keep up with our neighbors. The question we have to ask not that [32:48] there’s anything innately evil about those things but why am I pursuing it and is it a distraction? [32:57] Because I’m rotting away on the inside not becoming the person that God wants me to be.

[33:05] You see the Bible challenges such a notion and I will tell you divorce numbers reflect what we’re [33:10] really pursuing in our lives. Once you are married it shouldn’t take long to realize that looks [33:19] aren’t everything and they certainly aren’t the most important thing anywhere near the top and it [33:24] is what on the inside of a person matters far more. If you come to me 10 years into your marriage [33:30] and all you’ve done for 10 years is look at each other boy are you gonna get disappointed after a [33:37] while? We’re all getting uglier every single day even Clooney’s like me.

[33:44] You’re all gonna get old. You’re all gonna get fat and you’re all gonna get ugly. Welcome to real life.

[33:52] The key to marriage is making sure there’s something else in here worth living with

[34:02] because at some point early in your marriage you realize once you’re done looking you gotta [34:09] start talking and there better be some substance in that conversation that fixes things quick when [34:16] they go bad. Friend you’ve got to focus on becoming the person people want to be around [34:25] and trust God’s definition of who people want to be around. [34:30] You’ve got a whole lot of ideas on who you should be becoming most of them bad. [34:37] When you get them from scripture they age like a fine wine rather than milk.

[34:43] A helpful addition though I will say here’s a caveat in the New American Standard 95 [34:48] there’s a qualifier in this verse and verse three when he says do not let your adorning be external [34:55] the NASB inserts the qualifier for context do not let your adorning be merely external [35:03] and it’s true because in the original Greek this text literally says don’t put on garments [35:12] and so if you have a rigid literal sense of what this means it means you can’t put on clothes at [35:17] all and I’m really glad you guys chose to this morning all right thank you but the fact is we

[35:24] know that it doesn’t mean don’t put on clothes and so we have to do the hard work of figuring it out [35:32] because the fact is if you’re a mess on the outside

[35:38] that’s a great indicator you’re also a mess on the inside too I’ve been in this business long [35:43] enough to know that so don’t do the stupid thing here and think it’s some kind of virtue of [35:49] holiness in your life to be dirty disheveled and gross looking on the outside it isn’t we don’t [35:57] get fatter because we’re not gluttons okay and so sometimes what’s on the outside is actually [36:04] showing people what’s going on on the inside the idea of what Peter’s talking about is that if [36:09] your life is invested too heavily in your outer beauty you will never do the more complex work

[36:17] of growth inside investing in your inner person so what should a wife be this is the opposite of [36:27] Mulan where he says I’ll make a man out of you I am just the man to make a woman out of you [36:32] in Proverbs 31 starting in verse 10 he gives a very biblical vision for all women [36:39] the proverb says an excellent wife who can find she is far more precious than jewels the heart of [36:47] her husband trusts in her and he will have no lack of gain she does him good and not harm all the [36:56] of her life what a beautiful passage there’s three focuses in this passage I don’t want you

[37:02] to miss them the first one excellence that’s vital because that means that there’s a vision [37:11] for you to excel towards he says if you are going to be a wife after God’s design you must pursue [37:19] excellence in all that you do I thank God every day that I married a woman that pursues [37:25] excellence in being a wife excellence in being a mother I God has given me such a great gift [37:30] I pray that he would give that gift not her someone else of excellence into the lives of [37:35] all the men in this church but here’s the other thing he doesn’t just say excellence

[37:40] he says trust that’s an important thing isn’t it husbands some of y’all go to bed every night [37:47] one eye open because you don’t trust your wife you’re like I don’t know what she’s gonna do to [37:51] me once I fall asleep you gotta trust your wife I love it because I leave home every day I leave [37:59] my wife there raising educating working and I’ve got to trust when I’m not there and I do [38:08] and I got to trust that if I’m incapacitated she’s not going to pull the plug [38:13] that’s a lot of trust to put in a person whenever I’m talking to people that are just yeah I know

[38:22] whenever I’m talking to someone who is in pre-marital or about to get married I’m very [38:28] clear on the out front I try to talk you into breaking up because I tell you it’s a lot easier [38:34] to break up now than it is after you say I do every divorced person said amen all right it’s a [38:39] lot easier once you say I do you got to pay lawyers you got to take sides it’s a complicated [38:46] affair and I will look at a guy and I will say if you even have a shred of distrust in her end it now

[38:56] because you have to trust your wife and wives you need to trust your husband [39:03] if you don’t trust him don’t say I do but then I love the third one because it’s something that [39:10] quite frankly in our culture we’ve lost this verbiage the third thing is goodness I love the [39:18] way verse 12 says in the ESV she does him good not harm I love that because what that actually [39:25] is it’s not complicated at all it’s the mentality that after you’ve been out working at home [39:32] as a husband after you’ve been separated from home you come home and it’s the attitude

[39:39] and I’ve had this feeling it’s good to be home it’s good because it’s your place of rest it’s [39:46] your place of recuperation it’s your place of peace and I know that for some of you it isn’t

[39:56] see for some of you it’s a place of volatility for some of you it’s a place that you need to [40:00] be in the bar before you go there and that’s a horrible way to live

[40:06] see in our culture these are almost interchangeable because a husband needs to be these same things [40:10] it’s not that we don’t need to be these things for our wives excellent trustworthy good

[40:17] then down in verse 30 of proverbs 31 charm is deceitful beauty is vain but a woman who fears [40:29] the Lord is to be praised you see a lot of times when we struggle with excellence we struggle with [40:39] trust we struggle with goodness we immediately begin blaming our context and I think it’s part [40:46] of what Peter’s saying here because I don’t think there’s much harder context as a Christian to [40:51] enter into than a context in which your husband is a complete pagan your husband’s an unbeliever [40:55] your husband is going to tell you you’re not allowed to follow Jesus Christ and Peter looks

[40:59] at that wife and he says be excellent be trustworthy be good you have to stop blaming your [41:07] present circumstances or even your past circumstances for not growing your faithfulness to Christ [41:13] his power through the Holy Spirit is sufficient will you submit to his vision what Peter is saying [41:20] is you can grow to be the wife that God wants you to be even if you are with a husband who is not

[41:28] because it’s not about him it’s about God’s call in your life fearing God leads to inner beauty

[41:40] worshiping the false gods of the spirit of the age cultivates [41:44] deceit and vanity and that’s how you become a selfish person who’s rotten to everyone around you [41:50] and that turns you into the type of person when you read verse six

[41:59] Sarah called him Lord

[42:02] you went

[42:06] it’s revolting to you I’ll never view my husband that way I’ll never call him Lord [42:14] I’ll never be able to do that

[42:20] what are you pursuing the world’s vision or God’s vision full disclosure my wife does not call me Lord

[42:34] we’re talking about posture

[42:38] so what do we do number three God designed marriage for our joy in his glory [42:44] you have to believe that I know that some of you are in this room and your present situation [42:52] has built an atmosphere and an environment in your home where you don’t believe it’s for your [42:59] joy and you sure don’t thank God can get any glory out of your marriage at this point so [43:03] let’s talk about the husband likewise husbands live with your wives in an understanding way [43:11] showing honor to the woman as a weaker vessel since they are heirs with you of the grace of life

[43:18] so that your prayers may not be hindered I know that the husband only gets one verse but man this [43:24] is a dense verse there’s so much application here for you to unpack men the husband has a great [43:34] responsibility for cultivating the environment of the home contextually though it makes sense [43:40] he only gives one verse and I will even use modern day statistics to prove it because in [43:46] that culture of rome if the husband came to faith in Christ the cultural norm was the whole family [43:53] would come to faith in Christ so it’s far less of a complicated situation for the wife to work out

[43:58] and the kids to work out in our era this is still true a recent study was done about 10 years ago [44:05] that found that when the father and the husband is the first person in the family to come to faith [44:10] in Christ over 90 percent of the time the whole family comes to faith in Christ [44:18] but the same study proved that when the wife and mother is the first person to come to faith in [44:24] Christ 17 percent of the time the rest of the family follows her lead that tells you something [44:33] about the influence of the husband and the father what verse seven teaches is the husband has this

[44:38] great responsibility to seek to build the marriage through the sacrificial leadership [44:45] that is expected of men everything Peter states in verse seven is about upholding God’s design for [44:53] marriage through both structure as well as order the husband develops the inner man just as the [45:01] called to develop the inner woman but also with the added necessity that God expects that husband [45:09] to lead his wife in the same direction he takes responsibility for the faith of his wife when the [45:17] text says in an understanding way it’s easy to make a joke and say well men don’t really understand

[45:22] much and that’s half the problem but what it actually means is that it’s a it’s a verbiage [45:27] means according to knowledge and God commands then that the husband be sensitive yes and consider [45:37] it of the wife’s physical and emotional needs that’s why husbands are called providers this [45:46] is not the woman’s responsibility it’s the man’s responsibility now first you have to obey the [45:53] which I think you’re okay with live with your wife it’s good that you have the same household [46:00] but even then he’s not just talking about the physical in the original language yes it entails

[46:06] being together physically but it is actually a word that means emotionally inhabit the same space [46:13] as your wife it’s about intimacy and so saying I don’t understand women as an excuse [46:22] that’s just a moronic thing to do and I don’t want the men of this church to be morons [46:28] you have to obey God and learn that’s why Colossians 3 19 see 18 ends with the phrase [46:37] as is fitting to the Lord for the woman but then he immediately says which fits with as is fitting [46:43] the Lord husbands love your wives don’t be harsh with them you do not lead your family as a task

[46:54] master like a bull marching through a china shop your goal is not I will browbeat her hopefully [47:02] allegorically speaking into submission no your goal is to live with your wife intimately and [47:12] understand your wife emotionally physically mentally in such a way [47:19] that she can’t wait to follow your leadership and so men if your wife is not following you [47:26] that’s not a time for you to blame that’s a time for you to look in the mirror and say [47:30] am I worth following see the concept then he goes to feminine weakness it’s not complicated

[47:40] it’s nowhere near as offensive as you think it’s just natural law men are stronger than women [47:46] even coming out of puberty men have a stronger bone structure than women have used to be common [47:53] sense about 15 minutes ago now the world’s lost its mind but also it should be true of muscle [48:00] mass I should have greater muscle mass than my wife unless I have some sort of disability [48:05] men are made by God to be physically stronger and yes emotionally stronger than their wives [48:13] but not so that we can domineer our wives true strength is not found in abusing domineering

[48:23] or taking advantage of the weak true strength is found in providing protecting nourishing and [48:33] feeding your family in every way you do not destroy weaker vessels you protect them with gentleness

[48:48] you can easily make your wife cry not a man in here has been married more than five minutes [48:54] and hasn’t made his wife cry so you can take the mask off I know you made her cry dozens of times

[49:03] but you should never feel like you won when you did

[49:08] you should look in a mirror and say how can I do better [49:12] how can I lead better how can I develop as an inner man to be a husband that leads well

[49:23] you see friends if he’s in 525 is always the go-to husbands love your wives as Christ loved the [49:31] and gave himself up for her marriage should move both the husband and the wife closer to Christ [49:42] because it shows others the work of Christ he gave himself up he sacrificed he paid the ultimate [49:52] price and some of you won’t even sacrifice your stupid hobbies you’ve been having since you were [49:59] 15 years old to spend time with your family your family is priority number one because God [50:08] designed it and gifted it to you to lead I beg you men don’t blow it

[50:20] why and I want you to tune in for at least three more minutes because I do not want the men in this [50:27] room to miss this because of the last phrase of verse seven the last phrase says that your [50:37] investment in your wife is a direct reflection of your relationship with God

[50:49] what it literally means is if you’re not leading your wife well God doesn’t even want to hear your [50:59] prayers it doesn’t get much more serious than that if you don’t lead your family with great effort [51:11] great resolve great dignity great commitment great endurance

[51:22] you will not have an effective connection to God the Father

[51:27] family is joy I believe that I experience that every day of my life [51:36] if it isn’t God wants you to change [51:44] and the only pathway towards that is following Jesus Christ [51:48] he designed marriage for your joy and his glory never accept less than that [51:59] a few application points pursue your role in marriage through God’s design [52:07] it is not easy nothing the end verses one through seven is easy but pursue that role it’s going to

[52:16] take repentance pursue that role submit to God’s vision for marriage instead of the world the world [52:23] will lie to you about your marriage believe God grow in inner beauty above vanity it’s harder [52:34] and it’s necessary and finally find joy in building and maintaining marriage for God’s glory