Welcome to the preaching ministry of Tri-City Baptist Church in Chandler, Arizona. Our desire is that God would be magnified through the preaching of His word and that Christians would be challenged, strengthened, and edified in their personal walk with Christ. Well, we have come to the final or fifth passage, not maybe the final passage, but the fifth passage that we are looking at in this series on the subject of marriage. And we're gonna look tonight in 1 Peter 3, verses one to seven and talk about the grace of marriage. Before we get into this passage, I wanna take just a moment and do a little bit of review. Just to remind you of where we've been, if you missed some of the sessions, haven't been able to watch them or we're not here. We talked about from the very beginning when Christ was confronted with the question of divorce by the Pharisees, he turned the question around and he basically used that to teach them what was the purpose or the intent of marriage in the very beginning. We came up with a definition of marriage and I did not put a slide for it tonight probably should have done that. But the definition we came up with is that marriage is the union of a man and woman who leave their father and mother's home to become united together as one flesh for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. That seems to be a definition that has really kind of held true as we've looked at other passages as well. And Jesus used in that discussion, he pointed back to the Garden of Eden. He said, in the beginning, this is the way it was. So we went back and saw the origin of marriage there in the garden. And we really walked through creation, the days of creation. We walked through the creation of man and husband and the wife. We saw sin enter into the world and the effects of that sin, which basically ended up being the need for a savior, the struggle for dominance within the home, and just the fact of the need for a great purpose in life because man was going to be working with the sweat of his brow and the struggles that come from all of that. Then we looked in Ephesians, we saw the model of marriage, which is the church. Christ and Paul refer to frequently the church, as Christ so loved the church. This is how, as we submit ourselves to Christ, that's the pattern, that union that is there, that mystical union between Christ and the church is pictured in marriage and modeled for us. And then last week we saw the, talked about the honor of marriage, that we are to make marriage honorable in all things. And we talked about some of the ways that in 1 Corinthians 7, how that is done. And tonight I wanna talk about the grace of marriage from this passage. Peter is talking here in the context of humility and submissiveness to government authorities in chapter two, as well as in the workplace. And then he comes to chapter three and says, and wives likewise be submissive. And he's really going back to chapter two, verse 13, where we are told to submit ourselves to the Lord's, for the Lord's sake, to every human institution. So in this passage, the first seven verses, really the first six verses address the wife, and then verse seven addresses the husband. It's kind of reverse of what we found in Ephesians. So Ephesians, husband's got the heavy load to carry, and, Here it's a little bit in reverse of that. But verse 7, before we get into the passage, I want to just point out a phrase I think is just very significant. And really, I've studied this passage before, many times before, This passage, this phrase really stood out to me and really impressed me. And that's why I'm calling this, entitling this message, The Grace of Marriage. Because in verse seven, husbands are told to dwell with their wives with understanding, giving honor to the wife as to the weaker vessel. And then he says, as being heirs together of the grace of life. Heirs together of the grace of life. That phrase is just a beautiful phrase that describes the wonder of marriage. It actually applies to both. You are heirs together, so this applies to the husband, applies to the wife. You both are heirs, fellow heirs. An heir is someone who has inherited something. Here it says we are heirs of the grace of life. Grace is God's undeserved unmerited favor blessing can also be used to refer to his enabling power because to enjoy his gifts we we have to have his gracious enablement and husbands and wives are here described as fellow heirs of the grace of life the blessing and undeserved favor of life he's not speaking about the grace of salvation, but the grace given and needed in this life. Now we know there's spiritual life, we know there's eternal life, but I think in the context here, he's talking about physical life here on this earth. All that we enjoy is by God's grace. But husbands and wives enjoy a special blessing of being able to enjoy this world and this life together in a way in which nothing else really in life compares. I think it's something that maybe we don't always appreciate till we get a little older. And then we get to look back on our life and we realize God's grace and blessing on us. Sadly, for some, that realization and appreciation comes too late. Remember, let me just, entertain me for a few minutes. Remember when you were younger and you were dating, you and your wife were dating? Remember when you decided to get engaged? And the highs and lows of that, the excitement, if I ask her, will she say yes, will she say no? I love, I shouldn't say I love, that sounds very cruel. But you see these videos sometimes of someone who at a very public place proposes and he hasn't done his homework very well. And she says no or throws the ring at him or something like that. It was funny when my youngest son got engaged, we were talking to this guy who was a helicopter pilot. And somehow the subject had come up and he was talking about, well, I hope he knows what he's doing. Because I have seen a lot of bad situations. He was telling us how this couple had, he had it all planned, he was gonna take them on a helicopter ride, and there he was gonna, I think he landed on a beach, I can't remember all the details, but something like that, some incredible place, and they got out, and the guy got down on his one knee, and you could just tell the girl was just beside herself, and she just grabbed the ring and just threw it as far as she could off into the ocean. He said it was a very uncomfortable ride back in that helicopter. But the ups and downs of that, the joy when she said yes. Do you remember the marriage and all the preparation for your marriage? Then you had children and watching those children grow, seeing them walk for the first time. hearing them learn to talk and say mama, daddy, dada for the first time, seeing them graduate from kindergarten, then high school, then college, then they get married, and you start having grandchildren, maybe great-grandchildren, dealing with the struggles and the blessings of life together, serving the Lord together, seeing God answer prayers together, seeing God's hand of leading in your lives throughout your marriage. You are heirs of the grace of life. You have enjoyed God's blessing and you have enjoyed the grace of life together. And sadly, sometimes we lose sight of this because of minor annoyances or disagreements. We get focused on really things that are not that important, not that essential, and we lose the sense of joy and wonder that God has given us by having us to be joint heirs of the grace of life. We need to be reminded that to enjoy God's inheritance, we need his grace, we need his help. And we're not only given the gift of life, but we're given the grace to be able to enjoy it. So we need God's gracious enablement to enjoy his gracious gifts. And specifically here in this context, he is talking about husbands and wives as being joint heirs of the grace of life. So the first six verses, we'll find him addressing the wife. The fact that the wife needs God's grace. and she needs it for a number of reasons, but let's begin reading. We'll read the passage beginning in verse one, and let's read all seven verses, then we'll come back and we'll look at this in detail. Wives, likewise be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they without a word may be won by the conduct of their wives. When they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear, Do not let your adornment be merely outward, arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel. Rather, let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious to the sight of God. For in this manner, in former times, the holy women who trusted in God also adorned themselves, being submissive to their own husbands. as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, whose daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid with any terror. Then husbands likewise dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life that your prayers be not hindered. Let's ask God for his help as we look at this passage. Father, I pray that you will help us to appreciate the fact that In marriage, you have called us to be heirs of the grace of life together, joint heirs of the grace of life. Help us, Lord, to realize what a blessing it is to be able to share in the joys of life, the struggles of life, just the way that you lead us throughout this life together. And I pray that we would not be, we would not let minor issues and problems and annoyances rob us of the joy that we have of being able to share this world you have given us together. Give us understanding of this passage tonight, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. First of all, addressing the wife, because to do this, the wife needs to have the grace of God as well. She needs to depend upon the Lord's grace. She needs it for a couple of reasons here. First of all, The phrase we read in verse one, likewise be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they without a word may be won by the conduct of their wives. The wife needs God's grace to have the kind of submissive reverence that scripture talks about. As the church follows Christ, as a church obeys Christ, as Christ is the head of the church, so the husband is the head of the family, so the wife should be following the leadership of her husband. It is not a natural thing, and as we've seen, actually because of the curse, just the opposite temptation is there for the wife not to want to follow her husband. She's gonna want to be clinging to her husband or pulling her husband or trying to wrestle for that dominion as the book of Genesis describes. But God's grace is seen really in a submissive reverence. It's such a marked difference from the world and from the way the world acts and lives out life that it is a very loud, very bold testimony even to an unbelieving husband. God's grace is seen, he describes here, by her conversation, by her lifestyle, by her conduct. When they, speaking of the unsaved, see your chaste conduct accompanied by fear, that is the fear of God. That type of humble, quiet spirit that follows God, that wants to do right, that wants to submit to authority, that recognizes God's authority in the husband is not normal. And when demonstrated to the world and the world sees that, the world looks at that and they can't figure it out. But it becomes a great testimony to the difference in our lives versus the lives of those who are unsaved. That's why many people who get saved later in life, maybe are not raised in a Christian home, have not seen a Christian home, can't fathom this kind of relationship. It seems so bizarre to them, so strange, because it's so contrary to our secular world. And for husbands whose wives get saved, and I'm sure there were many cases of that here that Peter deals with in the early church, just as we saw in Corinthians, it becomes a huge means of testimony for them. I remember Paul said in 1 Corinthians 7 that the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, the children are sanctified by the believing wife. The unsaved husband living in this home with a wife who is following his leadership and acknowledging his leadership in the home is a powerful testimony. And they are one, he says they may be one by the conduct of their wives. I can't remember all the times through my ministry that I have known an unsaved husband who has become interested in the gospel because he can't figure out what happened to his wife and why she has changed for the good for so much. That story can be repeated over and over again, I'm sure, throughout church history and throughout all the world. One of the early church leaders, Augustine, gives an account in his book he writes called The Confessions, Actually, in the book, he writes as though he's addressing God, and he gives an account of how his mother influenced his father. And he writes, she, speaking of his mother, served her husband as her master, and did all she could to win him for you, speaking to God, speaking to him of you by her conduct, by which you made her beautiful. Finally, when her husband was at the end of his earthly span, she gained him for you. So he gives testimony that his mother came to Christ, or his father came to Christ through the testimony of his mother. And we could, again, probably if we had time tonight, share stories where you have seen that happen time and time again. So the wife needs God's grace for that submissive reverence. She also needs God's grace, really, to have the type of adornment that is truly, truly beautiful for the adornment of the heart. He says here that do not let your adornment be merely outward, arranging the hair, wearing gold, putting on fine apparel, but rather let it be that hidden person of the heart, that incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God. Again, the wife needs the grace of God in order to live a life that demonstrates really the beauty of a heart that is trusting God. The quiet peace, the gentle beauty, the gentle calmness that comes from a relationship with the Lord. The inner person here that's talking about, the inner person is talking about the mind, the heart, the emotions. It's where we relate to God, where we make basic decisions. There is a imperishable or unfading quality of a gentle and quiet spirit. And it's not normal. That's why God's grace is needed and why it is so precious in the sight of God. Now, this, many people missed the point, I think, on verses three and four. And they began to focus, they put all their focus on the prohibition here. This is not really a prohibition against wearing jewelry or any type of outward adornment. I think it puts all that in perspective. Peter's emphasis is not on prohibition, but on the proper sense of values. And I think if you focus just on the prohibition, we missed the point of the passage. Now, you probably heard this, the old country preacher said, if the barn needs painting, paint it, okay? But the value of the barn does not consist of the paint, but of the value of what's inside. See, you can be painted and decorated to the fullest and be spiritually worthless. And you can be as simple, homely as an old fence and be of great spiritual worth. Now, that's not an either or proposition, okay? There is no spiritual virtue to be unkept and not looking your best. But the point of the passage is it's that quiet spirit that is a beauty to God and God uses to be a testimony to the world, to the home. And then he gives the illustration of Sarah. Sarah, who in former times obeyed Abraham, acknowledged his leadership. Her respect and obedience to Abraham extended to her speech. She called him master. He says, you are her daughters if you do what's right. Her example is important. Now again, don't get sidetracked with the mannerisms of the day. My great aunt never referred to her husband, at least I never heard it, at least publicly, by his first name. Their last name was Kegley, so he was always Mr. Kegley. She'd always say, Mr. Kegley? Now that's just more of a southern thing, okay? You don't need to call your husband master. You might appreciate, no, I'm just kidding. But the idea is the show of respect, the acknowledging of his role as the leader of the home. And all that needs God's grace. Again, this is not natural, done in the flesh. We need God's grace and God's help to do this. But then secondly, the husband, likewise, needs God's grace. just as his wife needs God's grace to be that quiet testimony and have that inward beauty, so he needs God's grace for at least three things that I mentioned in this verse. First of all, it says dwell with your wife, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife as to the weaker vessel and as being heirs together of the grace of life. Dwell with your wife with understanding. Likewise, he's pointing, doing everything, he used to do everything possible to foster the spiritual life of the home. That's the role of the husband. He's the spiritual leader in the home. And pointing back to Christ as the head of the church, and understanding this, he refers to his awareness of her needs, her fears, her feelings, her weaknesses, Now, we joke sometimes about the difficulty of husbands understanding women, but being aware of your wife's needs and understanding how to help her grow spiritually is really a serious matter. That ought to be the concern of the husbands, to want to dwell with them, with understanding, helping them mature in their walk with Christ. Someone asked Mrs. Albert Einstein if she understood Dr. Einstein's theory of relativity and she replied no, but I do understand the doctor. There needs to be an understanding of the person we are married to and the husbands especially are given this responsibility of understanding their wives, living with understanding. I was reading a pastor who did a lot of marital counseling, premarital counseling in his ministry. And he said, I usually give the couple pads of paper early on. I asked them to write down three things each one thinks the other enjoys doing the most. He says, usually this prospective bride makes her list immediately. The man would have to sit there and think and ponder, and usually the girl was right and the man was wrong. That's the way a lot of marriages start, okay? The husband's given that responsibility to understand his wife, giving honor to her as the weaker vassal, recognizing how God has created her. You know it's amazing how two married people can live together and not really know each other. Ignorance is dangerous in any area of life but it's especially dangerous in marriage. The Christian husband needs to understand his wife's moods, her feelings, her needs, her fears and hopes He needs to listen with his heart and share meaningful communication with her. There must be in the home such a protective atmosphere of love and submission that the husband and wife can disagree and still be happy together. That's understanding and giving honor. Giving honor that is showing to her the recognition that she likewise is an heir of the grace of life. Giving honor means to treat her with honor. You know, sometimes you hear people say, well, chivalry is dead, but husbands must treat their wives with honor. You know, you see this, you see these young couples when they're dating, you know, they pull the car up to the curb, he jumps out of the car. He runs around, opens the door, makes sure she doesn't step in any mud or anything. So careful, so protective. They get married and he slows down, waits for, why aren't you getting out? She's still sitting there. Okay, get out. Goes a little longer and he doesn't barely slow down. Open the door, you jump out. That should not be. Giving honor means to treat with honor, to treat with respect, to see there the joy and the privilege that it is to be married. And I realize that when we are married over time, day after day, you know, sometimes we begin to take things for granted. But to remind you that as a husband, we need to give honor. We need to dwell with her with understanding. We need to give her the honor really that should rightfully go to her. It's little things that lead to hurt. And oftentimes it's annoyances that fester into greater problems. And many times couples are struggling with problems in their marriage, it's not necessarily big issues. At least it didn't start off as big issues. But it was minor annoyances, minor problems, minor issues that were, that respect and honor was not given. And so feelings get to be hurt. But then he makes a very interesting statement. He says here at the very end of the verse that this needs to be done that your prayers may not be hindered. He needs God's grace in order to be able to not have his prayers hindered or limited in any way. Peter is assuming here that husbands and wives would pray together. Now, it's interesting, and most of the time I've heard this passage taught, or at least verse seven referenced. It's usually used for the husband's personal prayer life being hindered because he has this sin in his heart, you know, against his wife or against the Lord. So because of these things, God will not heed or answer his prayer. An element of that here. But I think of the context. What is assumed is that the husband and wife would be praying together. That your prayer be not hindered. And it's kind of hard to do that if you're mad with the person you're praying with. I was gonna say go try it, but no, don't try it. Don't put it to the test, okay? But you know from experience. If you have a disagreement, if you're struggling with something, if you're upset, you've had a tiff in your relationship and it's kind of hard to sit down and pray together, isn't it? Probably the very thing you need to do, but it's hard to do. And he said that husbands need to treat your wife with understanding, you need to honor her as a joint heir, the grace of life, that your prayers be not hindered. Hurt feelings, inconsideration, lack of respect, lack of honor, lead to a failure to pray, or if we do pray, we pray just robotically, without any real spiritual depth or reality. And that's not the way God intended the home to be. If the wife is living in submission to her husband, recognizing his headship, if he is honoring his wife as joint heirs of the grace of life, It's a natural thing as believers to pray together, to pray for your children, to pray for your needs, to pray for one another. Now, certainly we pray individually, we pray on our own, but I think the context here, the idea is praying together, the importance of praying together. And when there is a lack of honor, when there is a lack of understanding, when there are hurt feelings and frustrations that come because of either a lack of honor or lack of understanding, then it becomes very hard to really pray together. And what is sad is that these things end up leading to annoyances, frustrations, that cause us to lose sight of the joy that we should share as the grace, as the heirs, the grace of life. As I said and referred to later many times, Husband and wives don't even realize the joy that they have, the grace of life that they've been given until it is gone, until it's passed. How many wives or husbands have wished they could have taken back some harsher words they uttered before they lost their spouse to an eternity? How many wish they had not taken each other for granted? And again, in just the day by day dealing of life, it's easy to do that. What I wanna challenge you with tonight is whether you're newly married, whether you're celebrating 70 plus years of marriage or anywhere in between, don't lose sight of the fact that you are heirs of the grace of life. God has given you the gift, the privilege to share life with a godly husband, a godly wife, or at least a loving husband, a loving wife. And yes, you need God's grace to appreciate it. You need God's grace to minister one to another the way that God has designed you. But do not take that for granted. Do not just assume that you will always have that opportunity. Do not always assume that that grace will be there. If you just go back and think through some of the passages we've discussed already, the time that Adam and Eve lived in the garden before the fall, the joy, the union that was there, the unhindered by sin, unaffected by sin, And then son entering in and all those problems, now this frustration in life, a man's frustrated, comes home from work, it's been a hard day at work. The wife is frustrated with her children. and the struggles that have gone on there, and she may resent that he's not showing her the deference and leading the home that she thinks he should show, and she's smarter, she should do this, and all these struggles that go, and then just the problems that then continue to mount up. And what happens is many times we, We go to counseling or we seek someone's advice or help, and the focus is on the little things. The focus is on, well, you know, he leaves his shoes out, you know, or she does this, she doesn't, and we lose sight of the big picture that each of us, husband and wife, are heirs of the grace of life. Therefore, because of that, the wife is submissive in following the leadership of her husband. The husband gives honor to his wife. That's the way God intends it. And when we fail to do that, we lose out on the joy that comes from being heirs of the grace of life. You need God's grace to appreciate and to minister to one another the way that God has designed yourself, the way God has designed your marriage. Don't take each other for granted. Work to build your marriage on Christ and his word. We've sung the hymn, we're gonna close tonight with the hymn Christian Home. But I just wanna call your attention to a few of the words of that hymn before we close in prayer, then we sing the first verse of that tonight. The prayer of that hymn is, the hymn writer writes, oh give us homes built firm upon the Savior, where Christ is head and counselor and guide, where every child is taught his love and favor. and gives his heart to Christ, the crucified. That really should be our prayers, right? But give us homes with godly fathers, mothers, who always place their hope and trust in him. Next verse goes on. Oh, give us homes where Christ is Lord and master. The Bible read, the precious hymns still sung. That needs to be more than just an ideal. That needs to be our prayer, our desire for our homes. Don't allow the annoyances and the frustrations of life to cause you to lose the joy we share as heirs of the grace of life. Let's have homes that demonstrate that, that are built upon Christ, that do demonstrate his love, his favor, that model the church and model His grace and His love for us. Let's bow our heads in prayer.