One of the real highlights of being a pastor is the opportunity I have to do some premarital counseling, and one of the greatest moments in premarital counseling is when I come to that moment where I ask the couple, okay, why do you want to get married? And there's kind of like that nervous laughter. It always goes the same way, by the way. There's that nervous laughter, and they kind of like look at each other, and they're like, well, because we're in love. And you know, the other stuff, we want to get married. And I'm like, oh, okay, great. So you're in love. What does that mean? They're like, well, I mean, haven't you ever been in love before? You don't know what in love means? And I'm like, no, I know what it means. I'm asking you what it means. And they have to say what it means to be in love. And I'm like, okay, okay, great. That's great. You're in love. Why else? Are you getting married? And then a lot of times it's just silence and crickets and blank stares. and then we get to have a really beautiful conversation about the meaning of marriage. Here's how marriage generally works in our culture, just broader culture. This is a Western culture, progressive culture, postmodern culture. What you have is you have one person living for self who meets another person living for self, and then they do this extended period of thing called dating where they're trying to figure out in so many different ways, is this other person going to make me happy? Is this person going to satisfy me? And by the way, I think that's a big reason why so many couples, against everything God says, move in together and just start sleeping together, because they're trying to figure that out too. Is this person going to make me feel better about me? My life is about me, and I want to find someone who will make their life about me so I'm happier. And you come to the altar one day, And you exchange these vows where you say, until death do us part, and really what you're saying is, until the moment I realize that you're not doing it for me anymore. And somewhere along the way, this may take months, this may take years, but you add in-laws, you add stressful job situations, you add a couple moves across the country, you add a mortgage and other bills, you add your 2.5 kids, and then you blame your spouse for the fact that you're not as happy as just constantly delighted in marriage as you thought you would be. And this is why divorce happens all the time. The bottom line for many, maybe even most people, is that their goal in marriage is personal fulfillment. It is, I want to be happy. want what I want and both the spouse and even the idea of marriage exist to fulfill what I want in life or a big piece of what I want in life. And very often, Even things like sacrifice and kindness and serving a spouse and deferring to their opinion on something, when you had a strong opinion, a lot of times that deference and that service is just, you're paying it forward because you know if I do this and I hang those shelves for her, she's gonna let me chill this afternoon and watch the game. And sometimes even the service and the sacrifice is still geared toward that one ultimate goal of just personal fulfillment. The world uses marriage in order to get from someone, not in order to give. And this morning, as we're going through a series of things that Peter says needs to be completely counter-cultural in the lives of people who say they follow Jesus, we come this morning to a section on marriage. Now, I'll preface this with a couple things. If you're single, or if you're not even marriageable age, and I see a couple of you, okay, hopefully you're not even thinking about dating yet. You're just thinking about running around, riding your bike, and having a good time. and praising Jesus the way you do that as a kid, great. But there are a couple ways you can use this message too. One is you're thinking about the kind of person that one day you would want to marry. Because I'll tell you, if they don't honor you now, marriage isn't gonna make it easier. They'll never be on better behavior than when they're dating and trying to get you impressed about who they are. This also lets you know how to pray for the people around you who are married. To know kind of what they're up against. Culture does not view marriage the way we're about to discuss here that the gospel views marriage. And it's hard. It's hard to be a married couple in this day and age with the challenges that they face and just the culture dragging the other way. So there's a couple ways you can use that. I wanna give you this caveat before I read these verses. This is not an exhaustive treatise on marriage in the Bible, okay? Peter was addressing a specific situation. And so we can fall into all kinds of dangers when we take a couple verses and we're like, that's it. He says women do this and men do this and that's all you need to know about marriage. That's not all you need to know about marriage. And as we go through this, it'll be helpful to understand a little bit more about the context that he's speaking into, a specific situation where what he's saying is basically this. Don't view your marriage as a tool of self-fulfillment. View your marriage as a tool of witness. He's saying your marriage is just another area of your life And churches, as you have a bunch of marriages that together are reflecting something about God, your marriages, first and foremost, are about saying something about who Jesus is and what Jesus has done for you. So 1 Peter 3, verse one, he says, likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands so that even if some do not obey the word, and that is the word of God, They may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives when they see your respectful and pure conduct. Do not let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry or the clothing you wear, but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit which in God's sight is very precious. For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves by submitting to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, and you are her children if you do good, and do not fear anything that is frightening. Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered. This is the word of the Lord. Four Ps this morning. We got a problem, perspective, postures, and priorities. So, problem, okay? The problem is that what I just read rubbed even some of you the wrong way. And a few weeks ago, someone came to me from the church and they said, I'm reading ahead on what you're working on, and please tell me that you're not preaching on this husband and wife stuff when my family's in town. And I was like, oh, don't worry, it doesn't say what you think it says. there is a traditional culture that takes this text and uses it a certain way, and they say, that's all the Bible says on marriage, that's all you need to know, is like, women submit, and husbands, and we read it as if it says, husbands control, or something like that, and that's not what it says. And that's not even the situation that Peter was addressing. So kind of the elephant in the room, or again, the elephant in this text, is that what I just read by our culture, and even the church culture, may perceive all of that seven verses as hopelessly outdated in its view of gender, sexuality, marriage, divorce, remarriage. We're just like, where did that come from? We know that people used to think this way, and we can perceive this text as just sexist, chauvinistic patriarchy. Of course a man wrote that, because he wants men to dominate culture. And we hear that, I think, because to our culture, submission is a dirty word. We think, when we hear submission, we automatically think that means if someone's submissive, someone else is subjugating, someone else is domineering, someone else is controlling. And I would point out, if men performed their God-given role in this verse 7, women wouldn't have a problem submitting to that kind of man in the way that God calls them to be a godly wife. Because men, if you take it upon yourselves to be leaders and servants of your home, instead of domineering or abdicating responsibility, you make it really easy to say, look what God is doing in our home. But I acknowledge up front, it's a problem if we just read it and say, this doesn't sound right. Something just doesn't sit well with me. I would suggest it's because we're so culturally conditioned in how even we as believers think about gender and marriage and roles of the different sexes and things like that. So let me give you a point too then, a perspective. So it is very helpful to actually just go back and ask ourselves, what were male-female relations like in the Greco-Roman time period into which Peter's writing. In other words, we're asking the question, not how do we hear this, we're asking the question, how did the original recipients of this letter, how would they have read this letter? And I'll just tell you, back in this time period in which Peter's writing these words, everything was a male-dominated culture. It was very patriarchal. The marriage relationship was all about the man. and what he wanted, and it wasn't about the woman. I mean, to the degree that if a man wanted to sleep with another woman, he could do that, including his own servants, but the woman could obviously not reciprocate that. She couldn't go outside the marriage and commit adultery, but with guys, it's just like, you know, that's how men are, and that's what they do, and they have the power, and they have authority, and he's taking care of you at home so he can do what he wants. Men, very often in this time period, treated women as property. He could force her to serve his gods. By the way, any man could boss around any woman. You could see a woman on the street and say, hey woman, carry this for me, do this for me, do this thing, and they were supposed to drop what they were doing, unless they were doing it for their husband, and now do it for you. And back in this time period, one of a woman's greatest commodities was her physical beauty. Because aside from the family that you were born into and the status that you had, maybe as a wealthy woman, which was less than 1% of the population, you were very poor and your best hope in life, if I could just be crass, was that you were physically attractive enough to get the kind of man to choose you in an arranged marriage that your life would go fairly well for you from that point forward and that he wouldn't be too unfaithful to you. Into this culture in which Peter is speaking or writing What Peter says in these seven verses is not only the most liberating thing, it was the most empowering thing anyone had ever said about marriage, and particularly the woman's part in marriage. It was the most liberating and empowering thing, and you can go back and you can research all kinds of religions, philosophers, and people talked about marriage, and they talked about a woman does this and a man does this. Up until Christianity and Jesus Christ and the followers of Jesus, nobody ever said anything like what Peter says here. And I'll tell you five things that you need for your perspective. Number one, Peter addressed the women directly. You notice that? He says, likewise, wives. He does not say, likewise, husbands, go tell your wives, whatever. And that's what often the philosophers and the rabbis would do. The women couldn't sit under those rabbis and learn. It was the men sat under the rabbis and learned, and then said, you go home and tell your wife, and that's how any kind of indoctrination took place in an ancient culture, is that the men got indoctrinated, they went home and told their wives, it's just the way it is. So this is incredible that an apostle of Jesus doesn't say, husband, go tell your wife. He directly addresses the woman and says, wives, I'm talking to you. You know why? Because I assume that you're intellectual. I assume that you're emotionally intelligent. I assume that you can understand what I'm saying because you're a man's equal, okay? So he honors the woman and he elevates her to a position alongside men. He's gonna get to men in verse seven, but he's just saying, women, I'm talking directly to you. And we don't realize what an incredible thing that was. And we don't realize that nobody was doing this at the time, but he did. Number two, I want you to notice that Peter's telling women, you have an intrinsic value that goes way more than skin deep. Your culture is telling you, you are the sum total of your body parts. And by the way, our culture hasn't come a whole great distance in 2000 years on that one, right? We haven't. We objectify an entire sex and treat them a certain way based on how valuable we think their physical appearance is. But Peter explicitly says here, you are precious and valuable completely apart from any physical attributes that you have. In fact, you have an imperishable quality that God has imprinted in you that's more beautiful than any physical attributes. Incredible. Thirdly, Peter acknowledges the natural anxieties and fears that a woman would have, particularly living with an unsafe husband. And you notice how specific this is, that in verses one and two in particular, he's not just addressing all women, although there are applicable principles, but he's literally saying, if your husband doesn't obey the word, if he's not a believer, he's not a follower of Jesus, what's the goal of what you're doing in marriage that maybe you could win them to Christ? and we're in the middle of a section where it's all about, how do we bring other people to Jesus? How do we make the gospel attractive? How do we adorn Christ instead of having people look at us as Christians and being like, what a bunch of fools, or what a bunch of hypocrites, or what a bunch of moralists. I don't want to be like them. So it's actually incredible that you get down to verse six, and Peter is directly acknowledging, look, when you gotta live in a bad marriage, you're gonna have certain anxieties and fears. He's treating the woman as psychologically and emotionally intelligent, and he's showing, I care about that. Again, incredible, nobody's talking this way back then. Fourthly, you notice that Peter says a woman submits to her own husband, not to every guy. And again, this was incredible. He's saying, no, no, no. Like walking through town, some guy's like, hey, do this, do that. He's like, eh, well, don't worry about it. You're free from all this obligation that your culture puts on you. Christianity is the one that sets you free, by the way. It's the faith that sets you free. And then I want you to notice, fifthly, that Peter actually commands, and then in verse seven, a reciprocal honor and respect of husbands toward their wives. This wasn't just, hey, women, be respectful. Hey, women, honor. Hey, women, submit. He turns right around and says, likewise, husbands. And he explicitly states to husbands, you better look at that woman that you're called to care for as your spiritual equal because that's who she is in God's eyes. She's intrinsically worthy of your attention, your compassion, and your care. Actually, one of the best commentaries on this, not surprising, it was written by a woman. A woman named Karen Jobes said this, how ironic it is that the words that first century wives would have read as affirming and empowering are criticized by some today as enslaving and impressive. When read within its original historic setting, these verses become a call to social transformation within the Christian community, allowing it to become an alternate society based on God's redemptive plan. The perspective here is that as other people in the culture are looking at the way husbands and wives in the church culture, in the kingdom culture, are treating one another, they'd be like, whoa. And I think wives for sure would be like, I wanna get in on that. What is that? Who is this King Jesus? who elevated the place of women and loved them as the equal of a man instead of property or chattel or something just to be used in marriage and then discarded when she burns your food, which is what even the rabbis were teaching. Okay, so that's an important perspective. Now let's look at these two postures. So I'm gonna summarize what he says about the wife first and then I'm gonna summarize what he says about the husband. A wife is to honor her husband with humble deference. And again, I want you to remember that I'm using the P word, the posture word, because the posture, as I said, there are gestures out of a posture. And again, I use the illustration of our sons learning baseball, and there's the general defensive posture. But then when the ball is hit, you know, I don't teach them like, your posture is your posture, just stay there. No, there's a gesture to chase the ball, or to raise your hand and catch, you know, raise your glove and catch the ball. Or to move a little bit, or to come forward, or to back up, but then you go back to that posture. And what he's saying is, wives, of course there are gestures here, gestures there. There are different kinds of ways that God has called you to move out of that general posture, but the general posture is you honor your husband with humble deference. So verse one, he says, be subject. And that sounds harsh in our language, Going back to the last couple weeks, two weeks ago, we saw that he applies the exact same word to our Christians' participation in politics and civic life, where he says, arrange yourself under the authorities that God has put in your society, and respect them. And then last week, we saw him take this into the employment realm, where he says, servants, arrange yourself under, or submit to, be subject to your masters, even if they're not very good at what they do. And we talked about vocation and employment last week. Well, it's the same word here. And I would just push back against this cultural opinion that to submit or to be subject to someone means that you're lesser than. Luke 2.51 uses the exact same word, hupotasso, to say Jesus was submissive to his parents. That is Mary and Joseph. Not just a heavenly father, but it says he arranged himself under the earthly parents, because he realized, Hey, look, I mean, ontologically, I'm greater than you. I'm the son of God. Okay? That's just a fact. But someone who is ontologically greater could say, I voluntarily arranged myself under your authority. And that's the picture of submission in Scripture. It's not that there's a greater and a lesser, and the lesser goes to the bottom, and the cream rises to the top, and that's men. Not at all. And if that's someone here's traditional view, I would like to disabuse you of the notion that that's what the scripture actually says. Going on here, verse two, seeking to win a husband by respectful and pure conduct. It's ironic and it's tragic actually that women today often feel empowered by becoming crass in all the ways that men are crass. And you see this, like in the workplace? It's like, I can cuss as good as any guy. I can sleep around too. And it's like, that's women's empowerment? Women's empowerment is actually just to live the life that Christ called you to live, because nobody's doing that. You're an empowered woman when you can stand on your own two feet before God and say, I am who you say I am, and through faith in you, I'll practice what you call me to practice. Going on to verse four, let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart. with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit." And someone's like, okay, there we go with the quiet spirit stuff. Woman, be quiet. And that's not what it means. It's a word that means peaceful or steady. And this is the picture that I first thought of when I was kind of doing a word study on this particular word. We just had the three major horse races, Kentucky Derby, Belmont, and the Preakness. Just see, I don't wanna get up on a horse and ride fast ever. It's just not something I care to do. It looks terrifying. We have a friend that their daughter jumps show horses. Just, I don't wanna leave the ground on the back of a horse. It doesn't seem wise. But if you watch the people who are really good at this, there's so much motion, so much speed, so much power in the horse, in the animal, and you watch the jockey, and everything on the jockey's moving, and they actually call it quiet hands. that the hands are just here. And they've learned that there can be all kinds of turmoil and motion and conflict and all this stuff going on that is raging around you, and it's these steady hands. And that's the word he uses here. That in your marriage and in your culture, women, wives, there can be a lot of frustrating stuff going on. And actually, he's like, what a powerful thing, women, that God has granted you this special strength to be in the middle maybe of a bad marriage, a horrible relationship, or just all this stuff, just the noise going on of culture, and to just have that quiet, steady, I'm good, because I know What God says is true about me, that's the idea that he uses here. By the way, this is not forbidding. Some people, some cultures, I mean, you may know of some, obviously not here, but some cultures have actually forbidden things like makeup on women and no gold jewelry and stuff like that, because it says let your adorning be internal and not external. I'll just point out that the third thing that he says, real quick, just so you know it, again, it doesn't say what you think it says, He says, do not let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair, see, so we can't do the hair stuff, and the putting on of jewelry, so no jewelry, or the clothing that you wear. And nobody's forbidden that one yet, okay? So the point is, where is your emphasis? This culture emphasized you dress a certain way, you do your hair a certain way, you wear a certain kind of makeup, you wear a certain kind of jewelry, and that announces to other people your status, because it's another way of seeking self-fulfillment. It's another way of getting people to say, wow, life's all about you, you're awesome. And he says, he's not saying like, don't wear clothes, don't do your hair, don't try to look nice. He's just saying, where's your focus? And, you know, I don't know a woman like this and I don't care to, but if you're a woman who you can spend two, three hours a day in front of a mirror preparing your physical appearance and not spend time in the Word and in prayer for your family before God improving the real you, your life's out of balance. That's the kind of idea that he's sharing there. Okay, and then when I put all those verses together, again, I think just the core point is a wife is to honor her husband with humble deference. Okay, now guys, your turn. B, a husband is to honor his wife with attentive care. And first of all, I want you to notice verse seven, first word is likewise. And that's so important that Peter does not say, wives, submit to your husbands. Now, by contrast, husbands, control your wives. He actually says the exact opposite. He said, wives, have this certain kind of attitude, this certain kind of posture toward your husband. First word in addressing the husbands, likewise. In other words, in a similar way, husbands. And then the first phrase he says is, live with your wives in an understanding way. is literally live with your wives, and there's actually, it's a word that's more intimate than some of you may be comfortable with. So it's not just like live in the same house, though it is that. The word can actually speak of their physical relationship with each other. It includes that. So saying, husbands, in every way that you would dwell with your wife, live with her according to knowledge. In other words, this is real simple. Guys, get to know your wife. I mean, I do know some brash guys that just kind of brag, like, I just tell my wife the way it is. Well, you're wrong. I mean, there's nothing Christ-like about that. What he's saying here is learn what makes your wife tick and what makes her ticked. Both of those are important. Learn what your wife fears. Learn what tends to control her. And when her emotions go a certain way, What brings comfort to her? What helps heal her heart when you're in those moments? What brings her the deepest joy? What frustrates her about what you do? And I hear guys say all the time, like, no one can figure out women. Well, understand, God didn't tell you to figure out women. He said you gotta figure out one woman. I mean, just using my own wife as an example, like, there are things that I could say, you know, if women, and I see it all the time, like memes at Valentine's Day, it's like, guys, if your wife tells you don't get me chocolate, don't get me chocolate, don't get me chocolate, you know what she means? It means get me chocolate. Well, my wife means don't get me chocolate. Like, I'll be mad, and it's going in the trash can if you get me chocolate, because I said I didn't want chocolate. The point is, I'm supposed to and I'm called to get to know the one woman that I'm married to. Husbands, you don't have to know what women in general out there want. Learn your wife. There's a seminary word that we use when we come to scripture and we're trying to understand what it is, and it's called exegete. Exegete the Bible, understand what it means. This is a call to exegete your wife. Understand her, know her intimately. Going on here, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel. Honor is the respect that you show to someone. Honor is the value that you place on them. Now, somebody's gonna get hung up on the word weaker. And I'll say, like, I don't believe for a moment in the context that Peter's saying a woman is spiritually weaker, a woman is emotionally weaker. Again, he's addressing a specific place in time, and I think, like, we can all acknowledge, and I looked this up again last night, because I don't know what's going on in our culture with gender and sexuality and all that, because it changes as fast as you can look up the news again to refresh, like, what are people now saying about sex? But most scientific, empirical health sites will say, men are physically stronger than women. Now, not every man is stronger than every woman in a physical sense, but it is said on average, a man's upper body can lift two times as much as a woman's upper body. Guys are usually bigger and usually a little bit stronger, okay? And that's what he's saying. Why is he saying that? Because in this culture, what were the men doing? They were using their superior physical strength to dominate women, to oppress women, to use women as tools for their own pleasure and then to discard them. I think there's also a social dimension to this, and I think this is still true, that he's saying you men have another kind of strength that women don't have, and that is the strength of privilege, the glass ceiling kind of stuff. There's only so many jobs available to women, but the guys, you know, they can do whatever. And he's speaking to the situation, he's saying, guys, instead of using your physical strength and your social privilege to control your wife, to suppress your wife and other women, he says, use your power and privilege to love and serve her. That's all he's saying, okay? And then he says, because, since, they are heirs with you of the grace of life. He's just saying, as plain as can be, your wife is your ontological, she is your spiritual equal. Okay, so everything that you've received by grace, she gets the same thing by the same grace. The inheritance that you have waiting for in heaven, Jesus is not like, I'm king and the oldest son gets the most. He's like, you all get all of it. From the oldest son to the youngest daughter, all of those who are found in Christ are co-inheritors of this inheritance. So again, those two simple postures. You know, we don't have to go much beyond that, but just a wife is to honor her husband with humble deference, that posture, a husband is to honor his wife with attentive care. Now, priorities, and this is so important because you'll notice in the text that God addresses both husbands and wives with both a likewise and a so that. He says likewise wives, likewise husbands, live this way to both of them so that, okay? And what I want you to see is the likewise is actually tying us all the way back to chapter two, verse 12, where this whole section began. And I wanna just remind you, why is Peter writing these words about men and women, about husbands and wives, about marriage? Well, the big picture that he's presenting is he says, you guys gotta remember, you are dual citizens. And you're not living like it, but you are citizens of the Roman Empire, but simultaneously, you are citizens of an eternal and heavenly kingdom. You're caught between two worlds, and there's a tension almost all the time. And like, who am I gonna live for? Who am I gonna serve? And what does that look like in this culture that's so worldly, that's so carnal, and how do I please God? And he writes this whole series of things, but 212, again, is such a crucial verse for our theology. I'll read it for you and then I'll tell you what it says. It says, keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. Now what this verse is saying. And this is the key principle of this whole section of this letter. What this verse is saying is, as dual citizens of an earthly and a heavenly kingdom, God calls you and God empowers you to live not only morally upright lives, but to live beautiful lives. And that's where the word honorable and the word good in that verse, 212, means beautiful, attractive, winsome. In other words, we're not here as Christians just to say, well, we're right and everyone else is wrong. because you don't win a whole lot of people to Jesus with that attitude. You do have a calling of God to stand on the authority of his word and say, this is right because God said it, period. But we can drop the arrogance and we can drop the edge that so many Christians have and say, how can I be morally right in a way that's pleasing to God and simultaneously live a beautiful and attractive life. And then now what he's done over the last few weeks that we've looked at, he says, okay, so how do you do that in the political and civic arena that is so contentious? How do you live morally upright and attractive so that unbelievers see your respect for your authorities and they know that you disagree with them? but you're still respectful, you're still praying for them, you're still serving them and partnering with them for the common good of your city. And they're like, wow, that's different. And again, last week we talked about the employer-employee relationship, submitting to even a harsh boss and loving them and serving them and respecting them as much as you possibly can and working for the benefit of others in your vocation. And others stand back and are like, wow, that boss is a complete jerk to her. But look at her spirit. Like she obviously prioritizes something over and above just the boss's praise. But then this week, this is why it's important to see in context, he's just giving you a parallel. Now how do you do this in marriage? Again, not an exhaustive treatise. This is everything you need to know about marriage. He's just saying, here's a way, wives. for you to live not only morally upright in regards with your husband, but how to live a life that's counter-cultural and beautiful, attractive to other people. Husbands, you live this way, it's completely counter-cultural, and it draws glory to God. So here's your first priority. What I hear Peter saying is seek to glorify God and make him attractive to others through your marriage. I'm not gonna ask for a show of hands, but how many of you were like, that's how I governed my marital relations last week? I mean, we don't even think this way a lot of times, but this is his point. He's like, over and above anything that you're getting from marriage, what is the purpose of your marriage? It is to glorify God and to make him attractive to other people, so that the non-Christians that you interact with, and some of you, it's your spouse, they are the non-Christian who's closest to you. And over the years, we've had a number of different friends of ours who are very close to us, and one of the spouses is a believer and one of them is not. And sometimes he comes and most of the time he doesn't. And she's kind of wrestling with, what do I do? Well, this text is your greatest text. You seek to glorify God instead of getting your own way, and you seek to make God, Jesus, the gospel, attractive to this person. And, you know, I know we all think, like, I'm just going to continue to, I'm just going to keep dropping verses, and when he doesn't listen to me anymore, he just walks away, I'm going to put it on a sticky note on his side of the bathroom mirror. I'm just gonna keep dropping truth bombs until he submits to the truth. And part of what Peter says, which again was completely counter-cultural, is like, it's not up to you, wife. You don't have to change your husband. I know you want to, but you don't have to. That's not your responsibility. God sets you free from that tension of like, who am I really serving here? You're free to serve God. And by the way, there's a paradox that the more your marriage has to be about you, and your happiness, the more you will find frustration and dissatisfaction in your marriage. If it's about you, you will always pity yourself, and you will always notice all the things that your spouse is not doing right, saying right, things that are leaving undone. I mean, it's the whole confession again, right? The things that we ought to have, and it's like, she ought to have done this, and she ought not to have done that, and I'm just constantly offended. I mean, you chase. self-fulfillment in marriage. It's like chasing your shadow to try to step on your own shadow. You're not getting closer. You move to get that happiness from that other person, and it's a moving target. It's the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and you know that's not real, right? Because the rainbow moves. If you move, the rainbow moves. Well, satisfaction in marriage is like that. It's actually kind of the fallout. It's kind of the end of Seeking to glorify God and pattern your life after the way Christ treated his bride, and before you know it, you got two people doing that, you have a lot of satisfaction, a lot of peace, a lot of laughter in your marriage, in your homes. Second purpose, related to the first, but seek the approval of God. Because I realize even in this text this morning, this is so counter-cultural, and if you value what culture values, you'll never get there. but find your worth in what he says is true of you. Women, right now, you know that culture's telling you a different narrative than what scripture says. They're telling you, you're better than this submission stuff. The whole attitude is like, prove yourself, stand your ground, you deserve happiness and freedom and power, and there's still this emphasis on the outward, beauty, appearance, attractiveness, staying in shape, your performance, how well can you juggle 101 balls with your family and not drop anything? That's still just appearance. Men, I mean, for the most part, and I'm thankful for this, but for the most part, our culture right now is not telling you to be domineering. They're telling you to be a wallflower. I've dealt with probably two or maybe three really abusive guys during my time as a pastor, and there's absolutely no place for that. And I'll just tell you plain as day, I lost friends because there was an abusive situation in the church, and I went and met with her, what is the abuse, how long has it been going on, how serious, all that stuff, and I said, now, I just want you to know, full transparent, I'm gonna go talk to him too. They would not talk in front of each other. And he said, yeah, it's true, because she's a hmm, hmm, hmm, and I was like, nope, sorry, I'm with her, and the church is with her. Okay, submission doesn't mean like the submission to dishonor God in other ways by like literally taking a beating. And the church stood with her and helped her understand how the gospel freed her from an abusive situation. But I'll just tell you, for every abusive guy, for every controlling guy I have to deal with, there's 20 or 50 or 100 that just abdicate. Or they are so obsessed with success in their job, their wife never sees them. And they're like, what do you mean controlling husband? I never see my husband. My husband's just all about this thing, and then he has the one hobby. And if he's not at work 80 hours a week, then he goes to the Lynx on Saturday, and I just never see him. And I want you guys to realize, if you're going to value what God values, if you're gonna seek the approval of God, it doesn't matter what culture is saying you do. You know, come back, come home tired from work, click on the TV, put your feet up, don't interact with your kids, don't tell her how your day was or ask her how her day was or any of that, just do you. And I have to talk to husbands like that all the time. And that is not what Christ is calling you to, to just abdicate your attentive care for your wife. Most of you know my wife, and you know that in many ways, she's way more successful than I am, and I'm cool with that. See, submission is not make sure everybody knows that the husband's more successful, or make sure that he is successful, or make sure that he gets all the attention, or make sure this or that. We have a great relationship, and it works because I think, well, I know that she has this attitude toward me. I work on this attitude toward her, and there's a lot of joy in that. And it doesn't have to look like this little box, okay? Let's go to this last thing, seek to honor your spouse. And I just tell you, I don't really care what that looks like. Because you know what, your spouse knows, right? She knows if you respect and honor her. He knows if you respect and honor her. And I think that's part of why Peter actually If you read the verses again, and I invite you to do this on your own, you read these verses again and you're like, he doesn't give a whole lot of detail about what exactly that submission is supposed to look like or what exactly does it mean to be attentive to your wife and to know her and to live with her in an understanding way. He's just kind of vague. Well, yeah, he's vague, and I think this is one of the beauties of the gospel. You have tremendous freedom in Christ. You have tremendous flexibility. Because as you shift from one generation to another, as you shift from here to go to an Asian culture in Malaysia, go to a Hispanic culture, go to an Eastern European culture, and even from one marriage to another, there are different opinions about what does it look like to show respect and honor to one another. For example, in the time that this was written, I mean, you can see it in the text, kind of, it was scandalous for a married woman to be in public with another man. And I think in that culture, for like a woman to honor her husband and say like, I gladly belong to him, I'm not cheating on him, like back then in that culture, she would have limited certain kinds of public conversations to honor him and vice versa. A husband would not be going around just chatting it up with all these women at the public square because he knows what that looks like and that's not honoring his wife. I don't think we have much of that problem anymore. I'm not concerned that my wife as a businesswoman is meeting with bankers and brokers and investors and sitting down at a restaurant and having a conversation. Because that no longer in our culture communicates like, whoa, I guess, what happened with you and Matt? You know what I mean? It's just, it's a business lunch. And I think part of why God just gives us so much flexibility here is he's like, husband, wife, be wise, be loving. Think about them first, not yourself, and do what it takes to honor them. If you're single and the person you're with right now doesn't honor you, her body doesn't belong to you. If you have a boyfriend that's possessive, clingy, insecure, seems to care too much about your physical attractiveness, and not who you are as a person and how he's nurturing your soul, run. Because it's not gonna get better. And if he dishonors you now, you know what kind of person he is. He's someone who just doesn't care what God says, and he's gonna do what he wants to do. Great, so you're in a relationship where he's already told you, I'm in this for self-fulfillment, I know God says don't do that, I know it says don't treat her like that, I'm gonna do it anyway, and one day I'll be the man that you want me to be. Well, I hope so, because I believe in repentance, but that repentance probably needs to start this morning. Okay, let's wrap this all up. Here's your theme. The gospel creates husbands and wives who honor one another for Christ's sake. Husbands and wives look to that other person and say, it's more important for me to glorify God and to honor you, to respect you, to lavish my attention and my care And you do this to one another. If both of you are about you, I was at a David Wilcox concert one time and he was explaining how this long-standing relationship with his first girlfriend, he said, it just didn't work out because I was totally into her and she was too. It's honoring one another. It's reciprocal as you both honor Christ, okay? And by the way, this is not simply try harder, do better, because everything I've said so far, It's true, and it's the word of God, but it could be very moralistic. Some of you husbands could be like, yeah, I need to do better at that. I'm gonna try harder this week. I'm gonna lead a conversation, and some of you should lead conversations with your wife and with your families about maybe some things that need to change. But this is not just try harder and do better. This is look to the Lord Jesus Christ, because word after word after word, humility, gentleness, attentive care, These are words that the scripture uses of Jesus for his bride, the church. And all we're doing is saying, Jesus, we want to be like you. And we want your gospel that you've set us free from just miserable marriages and just self-obsession. You've broken the bondage of that self-obsession so we're free to live for you. And we receive your gift of salvation. We confess that we fall short in this area of how Husbands relate to wives and wives relate to husbands and how the rest of the church is praying for them and encouraging them and involved in their relationship to help encourage and honor everybody, but we confess that, we receive your grace to empower us to live as you want us to live. You ever watch a couple that really knows how to dance together? That is not us. Actually, our regular worship leader, Richard, he can dance with his wife, so good for them, right? So before our wedding, he actually just threw a class for a bunch of us. He's like, I'm going to teach you this one dance. So I mean, first of all, he's like, Matt, at your wedding, you're going to make a total fool of yourself. First dance with the bride, and you have no idea what you're doing. We learned that one by practicing over and over and over again, and then we didn't continue to practice. So it wouldn't work now. So I'm in awe when I watch other couples who just They're all over the room, and there's this synergy, and it's mesmerizing to watch. But if you understood dance, you know that that husband or that man is taking the lead. And the woman is following, but it's not a passive following. I mean, when you watch a woman who knows how to dance with a man who's technically leading, just the energy, the tenacity, The intelligence that she brings to that dance is what makes the whole thing happen. And I think that's a beautiful picture of our marriages as we invite God to do this in us, is that we become of one mind in our marriages, husbands and wives, in Christ. Can we show the world this kind of marriage?