He said What?
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Walking on egg shells.
Walking on egg shells.
The message this morning is about Wives and Husbands, particularly about Wives being submissive to their husbands as found here in 1 Peter as well as the 5th chapter of Ephesians is not a popular message in 2019. I believe that is because it has been misused, mis-interpreted, mis-understood and quite frankly, abused. The results are most every time I have heard this preached from a church pulpit, the preacher tip toed around it, so afraid to step on toes, that they didn’t do justice to what God was trying to say through Peter and Paul.
I have heard preachers almost apologize for this passage of scripture and relegate it to a past culture that is not that important to today’s culture.
They will let loose on the guys and give them the full weight of the council of God, but take it easy on the ladies. The justification they use for giving women all but a pass on this scripture is found in where Peter refers to women as “someone weaker” or “weaker vessel”. (which we will talk about later) I say that is a load of crap! I think that approach to this passage is insulting and patronizing to women. It does them a disservice and completely underestimates the amount of power and influence wives have over their husbands.
When I read this verse, what I see is the Word of God
It is my intent this morning is to not shy away from this scripture, but preach it boldly. My prayer this morning is that the results of preaching this Word, we find answers that we can apply to our marriages and end up with stronger and happier marriages.
Also, I hope to show how, when things are going off course in your marriage, God’s plan to right the ship.
And finally, and most importantly, I hope to show how God can and will use your marriage to glorify Himself and bring unbelievers to salvation, and protocols back into fellowship with Christ.
I know that sounds ambitious, and it is. Two of my goals for Sunday morning are to 1. preach truth, and 2. beat the Methodist to lunch, so we will break this message into two parts. This week we will talk about wives and next week we will address husbands. So, if you drug your wife here this week so your wife could hear this message, be a man and come get yours next week.
Let’s get into the Word, shall we?
1 Peter 3:
1 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,
2 as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior.
3 Your adornment must not be merely external—braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses;
4 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.
5 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;
6 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.
7 You husbands in the same way, live with your wives 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.
First: Everyone take a deep breath!
Three scary things about this passage:
Be submissive
The manner of your dress
Women are “someone weaker”
We will talk about them, but know this:
It’s going to be OK. This is God’s Word, he loves you and He want’s His BEST for you. Challenge yourself not to trade God’s BEST for just OK. That, I believe, is what is at steak.
God has a vested interest in your marriage.
God has a vested interest in your marriage.
1. God created the institution of marriage.
Gen 2:
18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.”
Gen 2:
Gen 2:
23 The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.”
24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.
Marriage was the first institution God set for mankind. Not government, not communities, not churches. Marriage.
2. God intends marriages to last:
Jesus said in
9 “What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”
3. God uses marriage to glorify himself.
In God compares the Husband wife relationship to the relationship of Christ and the Church.
Paul references Genesis that the Husband and Wife will become one flesh.
Ephesians 5:
32 This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.
The marriage of the church and Christ is a future event that is a mystery to us that John writes about in
Rev. 19:7-
7 “Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.”
8 It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.
9 Then he said to me, “Write, ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’ ” And he said to me, “These are true words of God.”
Somehow in a Christ centered marriage we see the Glory of God revealed. And so, God wants us to use the relationship between Christ and the Church as a model of how to live out our married lives.
While our marriages can glorify God, the model is Christ and the Church, not the other way around.
God determined the hierarchy
God determined the hierarchy
Ephesians 5:23
23 For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body.
24 But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.
Men and women are equally loved, equally important, but differently equipped.
Pam and Bill Ferrel are contributing authors for Focus on the Family wrote this:
As research accumulates, it is becoming increasingly obvious that God made men and women different in many ways. They think differently, they process emotions differently, they make decisions differently and they learn differently. And yet men and women complement one another so beautifully that a healthy relationship makes both partners more complete.
As research accumulates, it is becoming increasingly obvious that God made men and women different in many ways. They think differently, they process emotions differently, they make decisions differently and they learn differently. And yet men and women complement one another so beautifully that a healthy relationship makes both partners more complete.
Differences:
Eyes: -The male retina is thicker
– It has more M cells (magnocellular)
– M cells are larger and are distributed across the retina
– M cells are responsible for tracking the movement of objects
-The female retina is thinner
– It has more P cells (parvocellular)
– P cells are smaller & concentrated around the center of the retina
– P cells are responsible for identifying objects & analyzing texture and color
Female babies like faces more, Male babies like moving objects more.
2 Hearing:
Girls have 11% more neurons than boys in the brain centers that control language and hearing. Not only do women hear better than men, they can also better distinguish between a broader range of emotional tones like crying.
During male fetal development, testosterone impacts the formation of the auditory system, and causes the brain to block out unwanted noise and repeated sounds. When a person repeats themselves several times, the male brain registers it as an “unwanted repetitious acoustic stimuli,” and they genuinely don’t hear it. Women on the other hand don’t have that skill.
Leaking toilet example.
3. Conflict and Competition:
Men get a positive chemical boost from conflict and competition, while conflict elicits negative chemical reactions in women, creating fear, stress, and sadness.
4. Emotions:
In adolescence, the brain activity associated with negative emotion moves from the primitive area of the brain into the cerebral cortex where language and reasoning centers are located, but this only happens in girls. This is why women are better at expressing emotion, while men seldom “want to talk about it.”
When it comes to responding to emotional experiences, men only use one side of the brain while women use both sides. Women also retain a stronger memory for emotional events than men.
Aggression:
Aggression:
Men tend to express aggression physically, while women express it verbally. This is because a man’s aggression pathway is more directly linked to the brain areas for physical action, and a woman’s is more closely linked to areas of verbal function.
If you want to talk to a guy, son. You will get more accomplished if you are also doing something like walking or throwing a ball.
For women, you are better off sitting and facing one another.
God made us different. He equipped us differently. And He determined that we work best together, if we follow His mode for marriage.
The problem: Sin
The problem: Sin
6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.
Delight to her eyes.
She ate it and then gave it to Adam.
16 To the woman He said,
“I will greatly multiply
Your pain in childbirth,
In pain you will bring forth children;
Yet your desire will be for your husband,
And he will rule over you.”
Desire: 2 meanings.
Interested in the bad boys.
Abusive women that won’t want to leave, even though she is oppressed by her husband. (Battered women)
The average battered women incurs 7 attacks before leaving.
7 “If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.”
2. To dominate over man.
By definition, domestic violence is a pattern of behaviors used by one partner to maintain power and control over another partner in an intimate relationship.
Understand, It was God who chose the order of a marriage.
Consequences for the Man:
Genesis 3:
17 Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’;
Cursed is the ground because of you;
In toil you will eat of it
All the days of your life.
18 “Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you;
And you will eat the plants of the field;
19 By the sweat of your face
You will eat bread,
Till you return to the ground,
Because from it you were taken;
For you are dust,
And to dust you shall return.”
Because Eve sinned, she was cursed with pain of child birth and strife with her relationship with her husband.
The whole world was cursed because of the man.
Because of sin, we have this marital conflict. But because of Christ, we can have forgiveness and hope.
Marriage: The wrong way
Marriage: The wrong way
Before we look at what it means for a wife to be subject to /submissive to her husband in a biblical marriage, its instructive to look at what happens when when it doesn’t happen.
You need to understand the power that women have over their husbands.
Tremendous power:
Adam got caught by God and confronted him,
10 He said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.”
12 The man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.”
God, who made Adam from the dust, who put him in the garden, who walked in the Garden with Adam, the creator of all things, ordered him not to eat from the tree. His wife simply offered it to him and he disobeyed God.
Samson had plenty of trouble with women.
His had made a wager with the Philistines. He proposed a riddle and they couldn’t solve it, so they threatened his wife. Instead of trusting Samson, she deceived him and got the answer. She turned on the water works and manipulated him and he told her the answer.
Then Delilah nagged him over and over until he told her his strength. He lied to her three times and all three times she tried to have him killed.
Ahab and Jezabel.
Ahab was saddened because his neighbor Naboth wouldn’t sell him a field. Jezabel had him killed.
25 Surely there was no one like Ahab who sold himself to do evil in the sight of the Lord, because Jezebel his wife incited him.
Wives, you have unmentionable power over your husbands.
1 The wise woman builds her house,
But the foolish tears it down with her own hands.
Acts the Jews tried to stop Paul and Barnabas
50 But the Jews incited the devout women of prominence and the leading men of the city, and instigated a persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and drove them out of their district.
Wives have the power to tear their Husbands down.
Job’s wife certainly wasn’t supportive.
9 Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die!”
Unfaithful Wife:
3 For the lips of an adulteress drip honey
And smoother than oil is her speech;
4 But in the end she is bitter as wormwood,
Sharp as a two-edged sword.
5 Her feet go down to death,
Her steps take hold of Sheol.
6 She does not ponder the path of life;
Her ways are unstable, she does not know it.
Proverbs 5:
Nagging wives:
19 It is better to live in a desert land
Than with a contentious and vexing woman.
24 It is better to live in a corner of the roof
Than in a house shared with a contentious woman.
4 An excellent wife is the crown of her husband,
But she who shames him is like rottenness in his bones.
15 A constant dripping on a day of steady rain
And a contentious woman are alike;
A wife who doesn’t wield her power wisely can tear down her husband, and can lead him away from God
So what is and isn’t Submission?
So what is and isn’t Submission?
In the same way.....Be submissive to your own husbands.
13 Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority,
1 Peter
It is an act of worship to subject yourselves to your husbands leadership.
18 Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.
Tips to be a submissive wife:
Keep the main thing, the main things.
God
Husband
Kids
Take interest in what He is interested in
That doesn’t mean you have to give up your interests
Show interest in his.
be supportive of his dreams and aspirations.
Show appreciation for what he does.
Guys want to know our efforts are notices.
Let him have some “guy time”
That doesn’t mean you are neglected.
But your not smothering him.
Keep the nagging to a minimum
Tell him his strengths
Support him in his weaknesses.
Don’t make decisions that affect both of you without talking to him.
Don’t go behind his back.
Don’t undermine his decisions.
Be uplifting.
Be respectful.
Pray for him.
Submissiveness isn’t
Agreeing on everything.
Leaving your brain on the alter.
Giving up on influencing your husband.
Do so in a positive manner.
Not putting the will of your husband before the will of Christ.
Not getting all of your spiritual strength from your husband.
Not living or acting in fear.
Benefits of being acting in submission to your husband.
You will strengthen you husbands relationship with Christ.
if he is not a believer he may be won without a word.
2. You will be appreciated greatly by your husband.
22 He who finds a wife finds a good thing
And obtains favor from the Lord.
10 An excellent wife, who can find?
For her worth is far above jewels.
11 The heart of her husband trusts in her,
And he will have no lack of gain.
Proverbs 31:10-
28 Her children rise up and bless her;
Her husband also, and he praises her, saying:
29 “Many daughters have done nobly,
But you excel them all.”
30 Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain,
But a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.
Proverbs 31:28-
4 An excellent wife is the crown of her husband,
But she who shames him is like rottenness in his bones.
What about the clothes?
3 Your adornment must not be merely external—braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses;
4 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.
Women....and men in this culture braided jewels in their hair and on their garments to show their importance.
God says whats important is on the inside. The spirit of a woman.
22 As a ring of gold in a swine’s snout
So is a beautiful woman who lacks discretion.
What about the weaker vessel?
This message if for the guys and it isn’t an insult to women.
Men are generally bigger and stronger than women and guys resolve conflict with other guys with violence. God is saying that is off limits when it comes to women.
Only a strong person can be submissive.
Only a strong person can be submissive.
Submissiveness is not timidity, it is not servility, it is not subservience, it is not docility, it is not degrading, it is not a sign of weakness.
Submission is a sign of strength, not of weakness and a greater degree of submission requires a greater degree of strength of personal character.
Submission is an act of the will — it is the result of a choice, a decision. The act of submission can only come from a choice that a person makes. Submission cannot be enforced upon a person. Either a person submits of their own free will or they do not submit at all. Submission is a gift that one person chooses to give to another person.