If you'll turn in your Bibles to 1 Peter chapter 3. We finished the study through Ecclesiastes last week. And I would like to do a series that will go into middle January, late January, 1 Peter chapter 3. And then after this series we'll move into the Sermon on the Mount. in mid-late January. Just a note as well about our reading in 1 Corinthians. I continue to try to give explanation of those things. Some of that is on your church bulletin, but the whole portion is on the church website. And this next week we've I've really tried to give you some real understanding of Paul's use of the word tongues and the gift of tongues. And I'm going to talk about prophecy more in this next section for next Sunday. So as you read the order of worship next week, hopefully you'll get some of that explanation. Then following that, we're going to take a break from 1 Corinthians just for a few weeks and we're gonna read some scriptures pertaining to the coming of Christ. And we'll do that for a few weeks, and then in the new year, we'll come back to finish out 1 Corinthians, because in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul picks up on the gospel. So there'll be some things that we can kind of build on top of from the reading of those verses on the coming of Christ and things of that nature. So that gives you a little bit of an idea of where we're headed and what's going on there. This series in particular will take a short amount of time in some sense, but it doesn't mean it's any less important. I want us to read verses 1 through 7 of 1 Peter 3 this morning in the beginning. In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands. so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior. Your adornment must not be merely external, braiding the hair and wearing gold jewelry or putting on dresses, but let it be the hidden person of the heart. with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God. For in this way, in former times, the holy women also, who hoped in God, used to adorn themselves, being submissive to their own husbands, just as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord. And you have become her children, if you do what is right without being frightened by any fear. You husbands, in the same way, live with your wives in understanding, in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman, and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered. This morning I want to answer one main question. Why consider these passages in a standalone series? Why consider these passages in a standalone series? Now, there are some reasons that, to some degree, are closer to home. We have young couples getting married. We have people who are growing in the faith in all types of ways. We have a sense in which the health of a church is always helped by looking at what is a godly biblical marriage. So there are things that we can see in the culture of this church, but there's even a greater, broader reason, and that has to do with the culture around us first and foremost. When we're going to consider passages like this, you come across the word submit, specifically said to wives. And our culture hates that word. It hates it in a broad context. It hates it in the context when it's applied to marriage. It hates the word in general because it puts us in a place to have to deal with what God says about humankind, that we are by nature rebellious to him. This morning we'll look at the broader sense of why I consider these passages in a standalone series in three main ways. Number one, recognize the modern culture's rebellion against the created order. recognize the modern culture's rebellion against the created order. When you read these passages, and Paul specifically says, gives these commands to wives and to husbands to act and work in this way, you have to recognize that when the culture hates these things, they hate the created order. It's God who gave marriage. It's God who ordained marriage. It's God who commanded the activity of marriage. It's God who commanded who would be married and who should be married. The world is in such chaos over these issues in the created order that now it even goes beyond marriage. It goes to even the issue of gender itself. The modern worldly perspective on gender says gender differences aren't even important. And one of the sole bases for this view is the idea of how gender has been abusively used in society. The mantra today is male domination is terrible. Well, when either gender sinfully acts toward another gender, it's terrible. Certainly, when men act sinfully toward women, it's not a good thing. We have to understand the scripture is not prescribing sinful activity of husbands toward wives. The scripture is not prescribing that men have a right to treat women as though they are less than dirt. Matter of fact, it's only because of the influence of Christianity throughout Western culture that women enjoy any of the liberties they have today. That's just a fact. The culture doesn't like that because they hate God. They hate Christianity. They hate the things that these types of ideas and commands are built upon. You know what they're saying ultimately? We can do it better. We don't need to fear God. We don't need to act in a way that's pleasing to him. And this will go and not only into marriage, but we will destroy marriage itself. And we will go after the core creation, male and female. That sixth day of creation, what God gave was man and woman. And then in the garden, he gave them to be together. In that sense of creating man and then creating woman from man, God has given something very specific in His order. But the world hates God's created order. We have allowed for decades evolutionism to be taught in our schools. Christians have imbibed it and said, eh, it's not that big of a deal. Well, evolution brings about the degradation of God's created order, even to the point that now gender can be questioned. Government schools are regularly putting gender problems into the classroom in elementary situations. Elementary children are being taught things they should never hear. These passages that Peter gives here in chapter three are so important to everything we understand about the foundations of what God gave us in creation. It's not just that he created the whole world, but he created man and woman and God put them together. The modern culture has a rebellion not only on gender, but it has a rebellion against its perspective on marriage. It even goes after the usefulness of marriage. We've taken the idea of independency so far that we want to separate the genders to the point that no gender is in need of another. How can you have true companionship if there's not a helpmate? The point of marriage, the point of what God gave in the created order is that the two genders in and of themselves weren't able to be independent from one another. They were both useful to one another in marriage and they were necessary. When a man treats a woman like she's lower than dirt in his marriage, then he's going against the God-given prescription. They should. But you know what the world is telling us? The world is telling us that we ought to be so independent that we don't even have a real purpose in our marriages. We really don't need each other. We don't even need the genders that bring marriage together. We're all just little independent people. You know what that goes along with? The idea of chaos and anarchy. Go do a search sometime and look at where college campuses have implemented these views of genderism and so-called equality. Go find out in the state of Washington, Evergreen State University. Go watch the three-part series on this university and see what happened when they implemented all these ideas of so-called equality. You watch it, and you see if you want your children to learn those things. You see if you want your marriage to function like that. We need to recognize the world hates God. It rebels against God even in the very essence of the created order. Why consider these passages in a standalone series? Secondly, recognize the modern church's reflection of the culture in marriage. It's bad enough that the culture works this way, But what's become even more sad is that the church has become to reflect the cultural view of marriage and even genderism and sexuality more than it has the biblical view. There's two things you need to note here. Number one, the church often reflects the views of the culture. And number two, the church often reflects the virtues of the culture. We have four things that David Ayer's book on the Christian marriage is brought out. It's a small phone book. The research in it is unbelievable. I've got a copy of it with me if you want to see it. It's, I don't know, 400 or 500 pages. goes through and gives all this information and statistics on the various things about sexuality, gender, and marriage all across an evangelical perspective. And when I say evangelicals, I'm talking about, you know, Protestant churches of all types in America. The church's views and virtues have more often in the last 30 years especially reflected the culture that it has the scripture as the acceptance of unbiblical divorce in practice is over 49% in the church itself. The acceptance of unbiblical unions in the church itself. Do you realize that over 30 percent, 30 to 40 percent of evangelical parents don't mind if their children marry outside the faith? Can you imagine? I would hope in our congregation we wouldn't say to our children, you know what, it's not that big of a deal if you marry somebody of a Hindu religion. You know, it's not that big of a deal if you marry somebody that's a Roman Catholic. I would hope we would give a little more thought to that. But I was shocked. Thirty to forty percent of parents in evangelical churches don't care if their children marry outside of a Protestant believing faith. It's not just the idea of being unequally yoked in the sense of Paul's understanding, but also the progressive thinking in the church regarding homosexuality is more prevalent than it's ever been. Rosaria Butterfield, you may have heard her name and you can read several of her books, but she was converted out of a homosexual background. She's now not only a believer, but she is the wife of a Presbyterian pastor. But she has been asked in recent years to speak on college campuses about the movement that has gone on, not only in the world, but in our country, and the movements that's taking place in school systems and colleges. And when she speaks against homosexuality from a biblical perspective, you know where she gets more pushback than anywhere else? Christian schools. Christian high schools and Christian college campuses, she gets more pushback in those places than she does anywhere else. If you're thinking about sending your child to a Christian college, you better check it out. Because our public schools are already shoving this down the throat of its students. It's not to say that you as a Christian parent shouldn't send your child to a public school, but let me say this, I know this is an aside, please forgive me, but you need to hear it. If you're gonna send your child to a public school, you better be ready to pull triple duty. You better know what they're being taught, you better have an understanding of what they're being taught, and you better be able to deal with what they're being taught from the scripture. If you think you're going to send your child to a public school and then just let it go and not regularly speak to your child and understand what they're hearing in the classroom and then interact and engage with them about those things from a biblical perspective and your child not be affected by that, then you are grossly ignorant. You need to think about it carefully and thoughtfully. because your children will be indoctrinated by the culture, period. TV, radio, well, not radio anymore. Nobody listens to radio. TV, computers, phones, internet, video games, books, whatever it is they're looking at, the culture is going to just crush them. And it's the same in the schools. They're not necessarily trying to really educate your children all the time on things they need to know. Math scores in the United States are down tremendously from three decades ago. You want to know why China's running the world? Because they care about real education. China does not care about educating people about biblical marriages and neither does the United States. You're only going to get it in the church. These passages will mean so much more if you understand that the culture hates it and God commands it. Most people today only think about marriage from the context of self-gratification and tax breaks. No joke. I read an article where 52% of people asked why they got married. One of the reasons they got married was tax breaks. That's a modern cultural view of marriage. has nothing to do with the created order, has nothing to do with the context of what's going on in the scripture. Self-gratification and tax breaks. Folks, sadly the church doesn't look that much different today. The last thing in the church is the problem with the acceptance of unbiblical roles in marriage, and that's why you come to 1 Peter 3. 1 Peter 3 sets up, along with Paul's writings and other writings in the Scripture, the idea of what's biblical in marriage. It's so saddening. But most young people growing up in churches today, and I've had numerous, numerous comments made to me personally, they will say to me, I have no idea what a biblical marriage looks like. And they grew up in the church. They said, I never even heard biblical marriages preached on growing up in the church. of the last five or six years, I thought to myself, how sad that a person can grow up 10, 12, 15, 17, 18 years in a church and never hear scriptural teaching on a biblical marriage. How sad. Why consider these passages in a standalone series number three? Recognize the modern Christian's basis for marriage requires a historical biblical standpoint. Recognize the modern Christian's basis for marriage requires a historic biblical standpoint. The culture says do away with the Bible. That's archaic. And all it produces is women under domination of men. All it produces is standards that nobody can live up to. All it produces is the meanness and vileness of suppressing and oppressing people. Yet if you're a genuine believing Christian in the Lord Jesus Christ, you need the historic biblical standpoint to have a godly marriage, a God-honoring marriage, and a marriage that will stand out in the culture. It brings us to a place to say, well, how does Peter accomplish the task of meeting this requirement of this historic biblical standpoint? Well, before we even delve into chapter 3, if you look at 1 Peter chapter 1, you have to recognize that Peter is setting a foundation for everything he will say in chapter 3. In chapter 1 verse 1, Peter calls himself an apostle of Jesus Christ, and then he writes this letter to those who reside as aliens scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. First of all, he's dealing with the places. Peter addressed believers spread out in pagan Gentile lands. This is interesting. Think about this for a minute. This letter that's going to tell us wives ought to submit to husbands and husbands ought to live with their wives in an understanding way. This letter that says that is written not to little Jewish communities and communes of people who will agree with him. This is written to believing Christians, even young believers who are living in these lands that are on the southern coast of the Black Sea. These are some places that probably Paul had not gotten to and yet there was a movement in the dispersion of the Jews to these regions and people were becoming Christians and there were churches that were formed. And here Peter writes to them. And he tells them, this is how you live as husbands and wives in the culture. First in the church, as believers, and second in the culture. Now why is that important? Well, as you read chapter one especially, and then you get into chapters four and five of the letter, you'll note that Peter talks about some form of persecution. Now, there's a debate about what type of persecution this is and some think it's the worst form of persecution is, you know, regularly putting Christians to death. What was going on in the Roman Empire around 100 A.D. and beyond? But this letter was probably written in the 50s A.D. The persecution had not gotten to that place yet. This is the kind of persecution that we might in some ways consider mild, but yet it's not really that mild because it's the kind of persecution where believers who acted like believers in the culture were considered outsiders. They were even shunned for being so different in their lifestyle. Why? Because these regions where these churches are cropping up are regions that are pagan Gentile regions. These are regions that at one time had been under Greek power and now they've come under the Roman Empire and the Roman Empire has marched through these regions except for maybe some of the most northern regions of what Peter is writing to. But even those regions are still very pagan and totally out of order compared to the Roman Empire. Because there's one thing that the Roman Empire wanted to do when it came in and swept into a region was take it over and get some type of uniformity as to how people would work. It didn't always work out that way, but they strove for it. They wanted to have it. They wanted to take it over in that way. And it became that Christianity didn't always put people in that order. But even in the Roman Empires, although they had order, one thing they had disorder in was religion. You could worship just about anything. Then it got to the place where you had to worship all the specific gods they wanted in their way. So here are these Christians trying to live in a culture to where they're saying there's only one true living God. How do we know this is true, that they're saying that? Because notice what Peter writes to them. After he lists all the places, he says, in writing to them, who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with his blood. May grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure. Peter not only addressed believers spread out in pagan Gentile lands, but Peter addressed believers according to one God and three persons. He says, this is how you've been saved. This is who you're worshiping. Praise be to God. Verse three, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Well, here are these Christians. They've come to know one God. one God and one God only in three persons. And salvation comes alone in the Lord Jesus Christ by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, as Peter put it. Can you imagine that ringing out in a true pagan culture of that day? It's kind of like our day, isn't it? Now, there was a time maybe in America that you could go to work and you could have great Christian conversations with some of your co-workers. It depends on what time frame it was and who you talked to. But we know. For the most part, to go out into our culture and to genuinely speak of the things of Christ and live a Christ-like life is not heralded as good for society. Wives and husbands, if you begin to take on a godly perspective of marriage and you live it out in the culture, most of the culture will hate you for it. But they'll hate you because they know behind it is an understanding that there's only one God. And they have to be accountable to that one God in three persons. So you have to understand what the biblical marriage is saying to the culture. When we live and act in our marriages in a biblical way, we're saying to the culture, we are submitting to God. And we're submitting to the one God. The culture doesn't want to be held accountable to the one God. They want to have many gods, and they want to spread it out, and they want to make gods of themselves. And for Christians to live lives, maybe not even to say anything, but just simply to live a Christ-like life in their marriages is offensive to those who hate the gospel. It's the stench of death. A true gospel marriage is the stench of death to the culture. Peter gave a basis for marriage that was found in the one true living God. And that's why when he writes this letter to these churches in this region, he founds it and bases it on the one true living God. And so everything he's going to say after that is in that basis. Some of these regions, especially the northernmost regions around the southern coast of the Black Sea, we probably would read about them and call these people barbaric. Let me tell you though, go watch, I'm telling you, go watch what happens in these cultures, these college campuses where they let this garbage run rampant. It's barbarism. We think we're so uppity and we've come so far as humanity. We're just as rebellious toward God as the most barbaric people of ancient ages. Whether we carry it out physically or not, our hearts are no different. And apart from God's grace, we have no hope. And what's happening across this world proves it. When Peter addressed these believers in a Trinitarian fashion, he goes on to address them praising God for his work. As he goes along in verse three, he's praising God who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again. to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. What have we gotten from it? To obtain an inheritance, verse 4, which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away. Reserved in heaven for you who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Peter praises God for his work in salvation. Here are these people that have been dispersed in these regions, these pagan regions. They worship all kinds of gods. Ladies, if you want to know mistreatment, go read about ancient history and find out how women were mistreated. American women had no idea. I'm not slighting you ladies at all, but I'm telling you, you have no idea what it's like to be mistreated. It's God here who's doing a work of salvation in the lives of these people in these regions, and they're being commanded to act differently, and differently toward their wives. It's God who's brought this salvation about. And Peter founds all of his understanding of how the Christian marriage is going to look based on what God has done in salvation. Since God has caused you to be born again, you have a living hope. Now go out and act like it. It's a powerful thing to recognize. what God does in the lives of people when he genuinely changes them from death to life. Hear these Christian men being told, live with your wives in an understanding way. When other men just treat their wives however they like to. Whatever they want to do. Gospel centeredness and salvation can only aid, can only aid a marriage. Peter addresses this praising God for His work in salvation. He shows the grace of God in salvation, how God caused it. He shows the sovereignty of God in salvation. And that sovereignty, he says, is to obtain an inheritance. Do you realize that our marriages are a picture of the inheritance that we have in Christ? Go spend some time looking at Ephesians 5, 22 to the end of the chapter. And look at that picture that Paul gives. This inheritance that we have in Christ on earth there is a reflection of that in our marriages. It's not perfect, right? No marriage is perfect. Not one of us lives in a perfect marriage. Not one of us is a perfect spouse, even in the church. Yet that doesn't mean there shouldn't be a desire to grow, to grow as a husband in Christ, to grow as a wife in Christ. How do we know that from Peter's letter? Because as he opens up all of this grace and understanding of salvation, which I don't have time to teach through this morning in chapter one, he gets to chapter two and he says, therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babies, you believers, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation. There's a purpose here in what Peter is doing. Part of your growth in salvation later he'll show as a growth in your marriages. Growing as a spouse in Christ is a reflection of your growth as a Christian. If you're truly growing as a Christian, you'll be growing as a spouse. Peter here is urging, urging these people to grow in Christ, grow in sanctification, this process to where the Spirit, already having saved you by His grace, the Spirit continues to work. And one of the ways that He continues to work is to work in our marriages. There's real growth in the Christian life, and that growth has an outworking through everything that we deal with. Sometimes we talk about school, or we talk about work, or we talk about the culture in general. But Peter will specifically come to a point in chapter 3 where he's saying part of our growth is our growth in our marriages. If we want to be serious about Christ, we ought to be serious about Christ in our marriages. And trust me, that'll be an evangelistic tool. The world will notice it. Sometimes they'll notice it without a word. And Peter's writing to these people, it would be recognizable that Christian husbands and wives were working differently than the rest of the culture. And he's going to instruct them specifically how they are to work together. He does it so that they will glorify God in their sanctification. He does it so that they will bring glory to Christ in their sanctification. But he also does it so that the world will know Christianity does have a real, actual, practical effect in the culture. It's not the only way, but it's one of the main ways. If the church starts to give up a biblical view of marriage, which I know this is overview and I've covered some really broad topics, and we're going to get into some real specifics. But if the church begins, not begins, it already has, if it keeps giving up the biblical view of marriage, evangelism will mean nothing. Because you can run your mouth about Jesus loves you all day long, and if our marriages and our families are in shambles, then the culture will say, what is the big deal? We're a small church. I'm not saying we're going to blow the world wide open from Jackson, Georgia. But that doesn't matter. It's our calling to be thoughtful about having biblical marriages. I want to close with these two thoughts. A culture's view of marriage reflects its view of God. Culture's view of marriage reflects its view of God. Just take a moment and consider how the culture looks at marriage and gender, and you will see its view of God. And it ought to be concerning. Secondly, a church's view of marriage reflects its obedience to God. A church's view of marriage reflects its obedience to God. If we say we want to be thoughtful, serious, growing Christians, and we give in to the culture's view of gender and marriage and all these other issues, and we will be disobedient to the God we say we love, the God that we say we come here to praise, the God that we say we're coming here to sing His praises. If we give up the biblical view of marriage and disobedience to God, we will not be the salt of the earth. We will not be the light on a hill. The culture will hate you, and it will hate you in your marriage if it's growing in Christ, but that doesn't matter. You'll be pleasing to God. So as we go into this study, specifically in chapter three, you see the foundation of why it's so important. And it wasn't given to this little commune of people who would have all agreed and they could have lived it out in a commune together. This was given in the real world. These ideas and thoughts were given to real places, churches living in the world, just like you, just like me. Sometimes I fear that we look at the things in the scripture and say, oh yeah, well that was easier for them back then. No, it wasn't. We have to keep striving and striving toward our heavenward calling in Christ Jesus, including in our marriages. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, you've been merciful to us. That while the culture crashes in on top of us, wanting to mold us to its ways. As it beats against us day in and day out, you've given us an anchor for our soul, the Lord Jesus. Through His shed blood, as Peter spoke about, there's actual forgiveness of sin, and we praise you You caused us to be born again. You gave us your grace. And while the world may shake its fist at your grace and say that you are so awful, Lord, will you give us Will you give us hearts of joy? Joy in you. Even though the culture may be falling apart around us, give us joy in you. That even in our marriages, we would seek to grow. Those who have been married one year or those who have been married 50, may we grow in Christ. Give grace to those who are about to be married, that they would desire to grow in Christ, not independently, not just as single Christians, which that's important to some degree, but may we grow in Christ in our marriages. Lord, we give you thanks for your word. in these next few weeks. May the truths that Peter expounds to the people in these regions be thoughts that we can grab hold of and ask the Spirit to deal with us, that we would grow in these ways. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.