1 Peter 3:7 | To the Married (Part 1): The Inestimable Impact of a Godly Husband

Speaker: Well, as you're seated, you'll probably notice in your bulletin

that we are in verse seven of one Peter, and there's not a glitch.

This is not confirmation that we're in a, a simulation or whatever.

Um, we're gonna get to verses one through six, but, uh, we're

gonna start with verse seven.

'cause verse seven is addressed to the husbands.

Verse seven is addressed to the men.

And as you've heard from us before, we believe in the value

of having a church that's led by godly men with godly families.

And so we wanna start with the husbands and call our husbands to lead the

way that God is calling us to lead.

And that's gonna also help us understand so much of verses one through six as

well as we back up to that next week.

But we are beginning, uh, with an address to husbands, and maybe

you're here this morning, you're thinking to yourself, well, I'm not.

A husband, maybe you're a wife or maybe you're a child or somebody who, uh, isn't

married, never has been married, marriage isn't on the the docket for you, and you

might be thinking, this is a, a pretty targeted sermon, targeted application.

In fact, each of the points are gonna be two husbands.

And so you may be tempted to tune out, but I want to encourage you to, to lean in.

Because, uh, of a, a handful of reasons.

First is this.

The husbands in this room need the church to be praying for them to be the type of

man that God is gonna call them to be.

Uh, to, to lead as a husband is a, a job that is difficult and it's

also a job that's not popular and not encouraged by our culture.

And so we need the, the church to be praying for the husbands in this room,

that they would lead in a way that honors the Lord and that they would lead well.

The second reason is, is we have a room with young men in the room.

And we have a church with young men in the church, and those young men are gonna grow

up to be husbands, Lord willing someday.

And they need to know what it looks like and what it means to be a Godly husband.

And we're praying that they have dads at home that are modeling that for

them, but they also need to know and own what God's word has to say about that.

Also, we have young women in the room who are gonna grow up and

hopefully get married to Godly men.

And so we want them to know what a godly man looks like.

I, I have a daughter and she's over serving in kids' ministry right now, but

she was there for pre preach, and I preach this message in front of her because I

want her to know the type of man that she needs to bring home to meet dad.

Not some dusty man that doesn't know what it looks like to lead his wife.

Well, or to lead a, a woman is, is God is calling him to.

And so this is important for, for that group as well.

It's also an important message for those, uh, that, that want to see the gospel

honored because Paul tells us, as we read during our scripture reading, that the

gospel is imaged through godly marriages.

And so we need to be paying attention and know what it looks like for a,

a husband to love his wife well, because therein we see the love

that Christ has for the church.

And then finally, uh, we will all benefit if we have strong

marriages in this church.

Our church will be more effective, more fruitful at serving the Lord,

more effective at our mission of making disciples by reaching and

teaching and training people if we have strong ungodly marriages.

And so if you're here this morning and you would say, well, I'm not a husband.

I get it.

I understand it, but I wanna say this message is for you too.

For all of those reasons and more.

But as we think about husbands, why we're starting with this message, I want you

to picture an arch, a, a, a stone arch.

And as a stone arch is built, uh, you don't start from the

top and build the way down.

You start from the bottom and, and build up towards the middle.

And as you're building a stone arch, there's supports that have to be

put in place to hold the arch up.

And that's because the last stone to be put in place in an

arch is called the keystone.

And that keystone is that wedge state.

Shape stone that goes in place at the very top.

And once that's in place, all of the other stones in the arch are locked in secure.

The arch is able to stand because weight is gonna be distributed the way it

needs to be distributed, and there's not gonna be points of tension in that arch

that are gonna lead to it crumbling.

But if you move that keystone, if you take that keystone out, then

that arch is no longer gonna be able to bear up under its own weight and

it's gonna collapse in on itself.

When you consider a godly marriage, both a husband and a wife are, are important

to the overall health of the marriage.

But what I wanna suggest to you this morning is that I believe

the, the husband's role is the keystone for the marriage.

I believe that if we have men that are following what God is calling

them to do, if we have men that are responding to the call to lead in

a way that God is calling them to lead, that that will produce strong,

godly, healthy families every time.

No, but the majority of the time, yes, and especially if we're dealing

with a home with two believers.

I think what Peter's gonna show us this morning is this, the surest path to a

strong and healthy marriage is a godly man committed to being a godly husband

the way that God has called him to be.

The strongest and surest path to a strong and healthy marriage is a godly

man committed to being a godly husband the way that God has called him to be.

With that in mind, we begin in one Peter chapter three, verse seven.

The first part of it is this.

Likewise, husbands live with your wives in an understanding way.

Live with your wives in an understanding way.

Peter says, likewise here.

And we've been in this series called Submitted Living.

And now Peter, you're gonna note, is not calling the husband to submit to his wife.

In fact, that's not a biblical command.

You're gonna find that the husband is called the lead.

And yet this is part of the family household.

This is part of the relationship of submission, the authority structure.

And we're gonna get to that a little bit later on this morning.

Uh, but Peter's addressing the husband as the, the one in authority here, and he's

calling the husband to live with his wife.

In an understanding way, I wanna first focus in on the, that

phrase, live with, to live with.

This is literally dwell together.

When, when two people get married, they don't get married

and get separate apartments and just live in the same zip code.

They don't get married and, and live in separate states and just share

tax filings together in, in fact, when two people get married, the most

significant thing is not the document the pastor signs and mails into the

courts the most significant thing.

In a god's eye view is the fact that those two people stand up before the

Lord and vow and promise things to one another before the Lord, and then the,

the, the pastor, by the authority of God pronounces them to be husband and wife.

That's the most significant thing about a marriage.

And then from that point, that man and that woman, they go to live.

Together to dwell together.

This is the model from the very first marriage.

The marriage of Adam to Eve in Genesis 2 24 says, therefore, a man shall leave his

father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

So even the cohabitation of a man and a woman is meant to point to the unity.

That's to be there in a marriage relationship.

The wholeness, the oneness.

Yeah.

And yet what we find here is that it's not just that Peter or that God cares

that, that we live together, but he cares about how we live together and

speci specifically for the husband, he cares that the husband lives with his

wife in an understanding way that is, in a way that is according to knowledge

is what it is literally in the Greek.

It's interesting, right, because let's reset our, our context for a second.

We talked about that opening message.

We're a church in exile, not a church on vacation.

And Peter's writing to those that have been sent away from their home.

They're living abroad.

They're not home anymore.

They've been driven away from their home.

They're literal exiles and their spiritual exiles.

We are spiritual exiles.

We're not home here.

Peter's been addressing things like our future hope of being

with Christ in eternity.

He's been talking about how our, our trials testified to the, the

certainty of our faith and the, the precious value of our faith.

So that we'll obtain the salvation that's waiting for us.

He's been talking about persecution.

He's been talking about suffering under unjust leadership

of emperors and governors.

He's talked about the master slave relationship.

He's talked about submitting ourselves to the example of Christ

and suffering, and now he's talking about marriage, wives and husbands.

What that tells us is God cares about marriage.

Marriage matters to him.

God didn't say, Hey, you've got other things that are more important

than just trying to survive during a time of persecution.

God's saying, no, I, I care about how you're doing as a husband.

I care about how you're doing as a wife right now.

And the way that he's calling husbands to live with their wives is to live

with their wives in an understanding way that is according to knowledge, and

the knowledge is we're about to see.

He has to do with a knowledge of the man's wife and a

knowledge of God's role for him.

In fact, that's point number one this morning.

It's this, know your wife and know your role.

Know your wife and know your role

to know our wives.

Uh, remember one of the best pieces of advice that I ever got in college was

not to always do the Disneyland dates.

We were in California, so that made more sense out there.

Uh, but what them, what they meant by that was, Hey, don't always do the,

the, the nice restaurant don't always do the like, Hey, let's get dressed up

and go out together, kind of a date.

And the reason being is that makes it more difficult to really get to know the

person that is the real person, right?

We can all with varying amounts of work, granted, we can all

look good if we work at it.

To, to go out somewhere.

I was talking about myself, guys.

I'm not, don't, don't be offended.

That was about me.

That was about me.

We can all dress ourselves up and look good to, to go out together, right?

That, that's not all that hard to do.

And we can put out a facade.

But what my, my buddy told me is he said, you need to take your wife out or your,

your girlfriend at the time, you need to take her out and you need to go shop for

toothpaste together so that you can see if she's one of those weirdos that buys the

cinnamon toothpaste so that you can say.

Mm.

Noting that one for future reference.

She's not, by the way.

Um, but you need to have those real life dates where you're getting to

know people, where you're talking about things where you're not just out to

have fun at the theme park and then drop someone back off and go about life.

You need to do life together even while you're dating so that you get to know

that person because that's the real person that you're gonna wake up next to.

In marriage.

As husbands, then we, we have to know our wives, and if we think for

a second that the pursuit of knowing our wives stops when we get married.

Then we are doing it wrong.

That's just the beginning of the pursuit of our knowledge of our wives.

We have to know things about the woman that we're married to.

To live with her in an understanding way is to understand her.

It's to know her.

It's to know her desires.

W what is she after?

What are, what are the things that she hopes for in life?

Where does she want to to be with in, in five years?

Does she want to, if she's working, does she want to keep working?

What about her desires for your family?

Have you talked to her?

Have you found, does she want more kids?

Does she not want more kids?

What are her desires as far as your, your future?

The, the plans for the summertime, things like that.

Be pursuing, knowing your wife, what are her desires?

Know also what her fears are.

What are the things that she loses sleep over?

What causes her to feel anxious?

Man, you should know that about your wife.

What are her goals?

What are her frustrations?

What are her pet peeves?

Not so that you can push the buttons.

Know her strengths, know her weaknesses, know her emotional state.

Be attuned to that.

Know her spiritual condition.

These are ways that as men, that, that we need to know our wives, that

we need to be pursuing our wives.

And, and that's the thing.

If, if we're gonna know them that way, it, it requires effort from us.

We have to pursue, we have to take that next step.

In other words, if you're dating relationship ended when you said, I do,

then again, you're not doing it right.

There's more to that.

Our wives are complex creatures and ladies, I mean

that in a complimentary way.

They're complex creatures and if we stop pursuing them, we will find

that our knowledge of them atrophies just like a muscle that's not used.

And so we need to be working that muscle of knowing our wives out.

Your wife wants to be pursued men.

She wants you to schedule the date night.

She wants you to ask her questions.

In fact, let me give you some helps here.

'cause I, I found this real yesterday on Instagram, which I had no

idea was gonna work its way into the sermon, and yet here it is.

It's this guy that helps you continue conversations when

conversations are difficult to have.

So if, if you need some prompts, man, here's, here's some prompts for you.

The first one, tell me more about that.

You get home from work and you're talking to your wife and she,

she mentioned something to you.

Uh, tell me more about that.

And then listen.

Okay.

That's the other part too.

You got, you gotta listen.

Okay.

We're not just, Hey, tell me more and then tune out.

You gotta listen.

Tell me more about that.

Or something happens to her, Hey, tell me what was that like for you?

Or you just come home and, and instead of saying, Hey, how was your day?

What were some of the highlights of your day to day?

Day-to-day?

Taking that active interest, pursuing her, getting to know her, ask her

questions, put her fears at ease.

That's another way for you to to know her is to know those anxieties,

know those fears, and to help her by putting those fears at ease.

She wants to be pursued by you asking her opinion, her wisdom on something.

She wants to be pursued by, by you knowing when she's upset.

She wants to be pursued by you pushing her to grow in her relationship with Jesus.

She wants to be pursued by you, communicating with her,

talking through things with her.

A lot of good can be done in marriages if we begin to take the

initiative in some of these areas.

But it's not enough only that a, a, a husband should know his wife, but

also that he should know God's role for his relationship with his wife.

A lot of what I've just said could be preached to a, a Ted talk to a room

full of just men that aren't believers.

But in the church, we're called to be different because we're also

called, not just to know our wives, but we're also called to know

what God's role is for us in this.

And thankfully, God is not obscure on that.

God has laid out for us what he wants our role to be.

And we read it during our scripture reading, but here it is again

from Ephesians chapter five.

25 through 30.

Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up

for her that he might sanctify her.

Having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word so that he might

present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle, or any such

thing that she might be holy and without blemish In the same way, husbands should

love their wives as their own bodies.

He who loves his wife, loves him.

Self first.

No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it.

Just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body,

men, there are two facets of knowing our role in loving our wives.

The first is to love them sacrificially.

To love them sacrificially.

Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself

up for her to love your wife.

Sacrificially men means to pursue her good.

It means that you cherish her.

You honor her, you protect her, you defend her, you point her to Jesus every day.

To know your wife, men is to, like Philippians two, calls us to, to

put her needs before your own, to put her interests before your own.

To love your wife.

Sacrificially meant is to work hard at the marriage and for the good of the marriage.

To love your wife sacrificially is to be quick to seek forgiveness when

you've sinned against your wife.

To love your wife sacrificially is to to repent and to, to not wallow in self-pity

or shame, but to seek to correct behavior when you need to correct behavior.

To love your wife sacrificially is not to hold onto wrongs, but to be quick

to forgive when you're sinned against.

To love your wife sacrificially is to offer strong and clear direction without

being heavy handed or overbearing.

To love your wife sacrificially is to realize that your spiritual

wellbeing has a direct correlation with how well you're loving her.

Which brings me to the second part of knowing your role, which is not just a

sacrificial love, but a sanctifying love.

A sanctifying love.

If we're to love our wives in an understanding way, we need to know that

God desires of us to, to love her in a way that makes her more like Christ.

And that's the the purpose of your love.

Husbands for your wife.

Ultimately, it's not your own pleasure, your own satisfaction, your own good.

It's that she would be more like Jesus.

In fact, when I do premarital counseling with people, one of the things that I

will often say and challenge the young men with is this, that your wife, in the

end, when you stand before Jesus, your wife should be more like Jesus because

she was married to you than she would've been had she not been married to you.

That's on you and how you love her.

She has a responsibility as well, and we'll talk about that next week.

Some.

But men love your wife in a way that makes her more like Jesus.

How do I do that?

It's a love that initiates prayer with her.

It's a love that prioritizes the church.

In other words, men, you need to love your wife, such that

you say, Hey, you know what?

We should probably turn off the TV and get some rest because it's Saturday night.

We gotta be at church in the morning.

We wanna be ready for worship.

Hey, we should get the kids in bed tonight on a, a timely fashion.

Let's make sure that, that they know what they're wearing when they

get up tomorrow morning so that it can be a smooth process for us to

get out the door and get to church.

It prioritizes the church.

It's a love that models godliness.

It's a love that prioritizes the word.

It's a love that that leads in wise decision making to have

time and energy for the word.

Just like maybe you're gonna turn the TV off on a Saturday night.

Maybe you're turning the TV off on a Tuesday night because you know you

gotta get up early in the morning to get in the word and you want her

to be able to do the same thing.

It's a love that sends a text with the scripture to encourage her when

you know she's having a hard day.

It's a love that asks her, Hey, how's your time in the word been?

What have you been learning?

It's a love that shares your insights with her.

It's a love that memorizes scripture together.

It's a love that guards the home from ungodliness says, you know what?

We're not gonna entertain that.

We're not gonna watch that show that movie.

We're not gonna listen to that.

It's a love that confronts sin.

It's a love that confesses sin.

It's a love that prays for her and asks how you can pray for her.

It's a love that takes the lead in the spiritual oversight of your children.

This is a sanctifying love.

And so God has called us as men to live with our wives in an understanding way.

And that doesn't just mean understanding in the sense of,

well, sometimes women can be hard to understand and I need to work at it.

It's to live in a way that you know her and you know what God's calling

you to do in relation to her.

That you're gonna love her sacrificially and you're gonna love

her with a sanctifying love man.

If you're married, your wife has been given to you as a stewardship.

She's been given to you by God to care for and his desires, that you live

with her in an understanding way to understand who he's made her to be

and how he's called you to treat her.

And if we do that, then where Peter goes next, we'll come more naturally for us.

Not always, I understand that, but ideally it will.

Peter goes on, he says this, that we need to be showing honor to the woman

as the weaker vessel since they are heirs with you of the grace of life.

Showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel since they're heirs

with you of the grace of life.

To understand what it means here in this second section, to show honor to our

wives, we have to understand what it means that they're the weaker vessel.

And I know that that is a, a phrase that probably doesn't feel all warm and fuzzy

for some of the ladies in the room.

But I want to set your, your concerns at ease that Peter was

not implying an inferiority here.

Uh, Peter's not in implying an inferiority in character and status in intellect.

And you say, well, how do you know that after all, the Greco-Roman culture

was a pretty patriarchal society?

We've talked about it recently on the Daily Bible Podcast, but it's

interesting that the way it worked is that God had women be some of the first

witnesses of the resurrected Christ.

That's not how it would've been done if this was a man made book

because the testimony of women was discounted during this time.

And so if this is a society and a culture that doesn't even really

honor the testimony of women, isn't this just another example

of the misogyny of scripture?

And isn't this just Peter being patriarchal and can't we just set

this aside and move past and we've evolved past this idea that the

women are the, the weaker vessel?

Well, I wanna suggest that's not what Peter meant, and we know that because

of what he says right after this.

He says, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life.

Uh, there's a possibility to read that as, as just their heirs

with you of, of life in general.

They've been given life just like you've been given life.

But I think because Peter uses the word heir, right?

And he's been talking about our inheritance earlier in chapter one,

which is an eternal inheritance that we have with Christ.

And also when we think about Paul's words about the heirs being heirs with

Christ in Romans eight, I think there's validity here when he talks about the

grace of life to see this as eternal life.

In other words, I think Peter's addressing, believing husbands

with believing wives primarily.

Saying to them, Hey, live with them in an understanding way showing honor them

as the weaker vessel since they are heirs with you of the grace of life.

And so that's how we know that this is not about an inferiority when

he calls them the weaker vessel.

Because they are fellow heirs when it comes to the eternal standing.

They are fellow heirs when it comes to God's point of view

on who they are in Christ.

This is what is meant in Galatians 3 28.

By the way, when Paul says, there's neither Jew nor Greek, nor slave,

nor free, nor male, nor female, for you are all one in Christ.

He's not obliterating any distinctions as way as far as

the way we see them right now.

What he's doing is, is he's saying that it's not as though any of these

categories are better, eternally speaking, are better when it comes to the, the

rights of eternal life than any other.

But that when we are in eternity together, we are one in Christ.

We are men and women in Christ.

There's no master slave relationship there that would have that

hierarchical distinction any longer.

And so that's what Paul's saying there.

He's saying the same thing that Peter's saying here.

There's a an equal worth and value that we have in Christ.

And so that's not what he means by weaker vessel.

But what does he mean by him?

Well, notice he says this, he says, show honor to her as the weaker vessel.

He says, show honor to the, to the woman.

He doesn't use the word wife there, but the more general term for, for women.

And I think there he's implying something that hopefully all of us can agree.

And that is typically not every time, but typically by and large

men are stronger than women.

Yes, we can agree with that.

I think that's a a, a reality that is observable.

It was observable then.

It's observable now.

And, and that's not about one being better than the other.

That's just a natural way that God has designed men and women.

God has designed men to be the stronger sex and women to be the fairer sex.

And so I think Peter's addressing that, saying that has a bearing on how we relate

to the women in our lives as husbands.

But then beyond that too, remember the context Peter's has been addressing

is the idea of the subjection of power structures in relationships.

He's dealt with the governors and he's dealt with the citizens.

He's dealt with the masters and he is dealt with the slaves.

Now he's dealing with wives submitting to their husbands.

So in the authority structure of the relationship, the wife is in

the weaker position in the sense that she's the one submitting to

the husband's leadership there.

And so she's the weaker vessel, even just in the authority

structure of the relationship.

So Peter's writing to the husband saying, husbands, don't Lord that over them.

Don't rule in an ungodly way.

Don't be, don't misuse the authority God has given you in that, but instead

show honor to them as the weaker vessel.

This is what God wants for the husband, that if we know our wives and we

know the role God has called us to that we would honor her this way.

And this is our call, even if this is not just referring to believing wives.

Perhaps there's husbands in the room that have wives that are unbelievers.

I think Peter's call, God's Call on You is still the same, to show

honor to her as the weaker vessel.

And God would love for us as a church to be known by that.

Point number two, this morning as we think about what it looks like

to be a Godly husband responding to God's call on his life is this, be

careful in caring for God's daughter.

Be careful in caring for God's daughter.

When am Amanda was still my girlfriend and I decided I wanted to marry her.

I went to have dinner with her parents, uh, at Applebee's.

It's like one, one time that I've ever been to Applebee's.

And it went well.

It wasn't a bad experience either.

Um, but anyways, I asked them for permission.

And one of the things that her mom told me in that meeting, and it always

stuck with me is she said, PJ Parenting is the one job where if you do it

well, you work yourself out of a job.

I thought, man, that's profound.

That's true from a, a human perspective, but not from God's perspective.

In other words, when my father-in-law, when I got married, gave away.

Right?

That's why we do that.

Who gives this woman to be married?

Her mother and I do.

Right.

And it's the symbolic transfer of authority.

It's the the symbolic transfer of now you are responsible for her.

Right.

And that's what that is all about.

When, when that happened, my father-in-law gave Amanda to me to be my wife.

I took her into my care and my protection.

She's now, I'm responsible for that.

No longer is her dad responsible for that.

God is still my wife's ultimate father and authority.

I am caring for his daughter as her husband and that that will never change.

God has given her to me as a stewardship, but he has not

relinquished authority over my wife.

He's still ultimately her authority, and as I care for her, I need to

care for her in a way that's careful.

With that in mind, we teach our, our, our kids from the time that

they're young, to be careful with those that are weaker than them.

Yes.

I remember with my son Luke.

Uh, we had the, the twins at the time, and I think John was maybe three weeks old

and he's in this little bassinet swing.

And, and Luke was a terroror and he still is in the best way.

If you guys don't know Luke, um, you know the New Zealand haka dance that they do.

Okay.

Uh, we have zero kiwi in our family.

None that I know of.

At least Luke at 18 months old was in a diaper doing the

haka dance just naturally.

It was just in his blood.

Just we have video of him doing it.

We're like, what is wrong with his child?

Um, he brings so much joy to our family though.

But, but Luke loves a ball too.

And so John is sitting in this bassinet, this swing thing, a a

few weeks old at most, and Luke decides, let's play catch with John.

So Luke stands like three feet away and just starts chucking

the ball at his brother and the ball stays in the bassinet.

And in Luke's 18 month old mind, he's like, good catch John.

And so he is like clapping for John.

And, and John is, his life is fing before his eyes.

And we had to teach Luke, Luke, you've gotta be gentle with your little brothers.

You can't treat your little brothers the way that you

treat your older brother Josh.

Right?

And so we had to teach him that, right?

Remember?

Um.

Being younger.

My, my grandpa made me a, uh, a stage coach, a wooden stage coach, and I

remember my dad gave it to me and he said, pj, you, you have to treat this carefully.

This isn't a toy.

This is something to look at.

Uh, and he said, if you're not careful with it, you'll break it.

And I broke it

because I thought, man, GI Joe isn't a stage coach.

Does it get any better than that?

I don't think it does, but we know from the time that we're little

what it is to treat something.

Uh, with, with, with care, because it's precious and it's valuable to us, right?

When we hold a baby, we, we are careful with that baby because that

life is precious, invaluable to us.

We look at that, that baby and say that baby is is weaker than we are, but we

don't despise the baby for its weakness.

We value, we cherish that child and we're gonna care for that child very carefully.

That's.

In part the way a husband should care for his wife.

Chivalry has taken a backseat in our culture, and I think we need to give it

the, the front seat again, opening doors for someone walking on the, the street

side of the sidewalk, which that goes back to medieval times when the, the

sewage would've run through the streets and as a carriage came by, it would

splash up the, the nastiness and the, it was the man's responsibility to shield

his, his wife from that getting on her.

And so, but even that symbolic act today is important things that we

can do, being mindful as men of what we talk about around women, the

noises that are made around women.

There's a, a chance, an opportunity, and, and I think a, a good one for

us to regain some of these virtues in an effort to show honor to the women

in our lives as the weaker vessel.

But again, I could preach that to a room full of unbelievers.

And so showing honor to her as the weaker vessel is even more than that,

and it's, it's a spiritual care for her.

Not that women are spiritually weak compared to men, but that men have

been given the charge and task by God to lead their wives spiritually.

And so to do that, men, we have to make sure that we ourselves

are spiritually healthy.

Your wife is gonna benefit if you love Jesus more than you love her.

When you're taking care of your walk with Christ, you're gonna be better equipped

to love her and to treat her well.

In Ephesians chapter five, Paul used that word cherish the word cherish.

I, I love the, the imagery here.

It's from a, a Greek word that means to keep warm, to keep her warm

man.

Is there warmth in your marriage, not just physically, but is there warmth

in your marriage such that, that you are caring for her spiritually as well?

You're showing honor to her by pursuing her with that sanctifying love that

we were talking about earlier too.

This goes back to that sanctifying love and the sacrificial love.

Matthew chapter 20, Jesus said to his followers, he said, the authority

Matthew 20 · chapter mention

that you do have don't Lord it over other people like the Gentiles do.

Instead, he said this, he said, whoever would be great among

you should be your servant.

Whoever would be first among you must be your slave.

Even as the son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to

give his life as a ransom for many.

And so as Peter's charging the men with caring for their wives in an

understanding fashion, I think he's anticipating that that concern that

a husband could be overbearing, could lead his wife in a way that is like

the Gentiles lording it over her.

The word abuse has taken on, uh, a life of its own in our, our culture.

It's a word that is, is deeper and wider than I have time

to get into fully right now,

but I, I do want to address it in this context.

In fact, there's some commentators that believe that Peter was even

specifically addressing spiritual abuse in this passage by referring to the

wife as the weaker vessel and telling husbands to honor their wives in this.

Last week, my daughter was at school and she and a friend were

sitting at a lunch table and, and down the table from them was a, a

couple, a boyfriend and girlfriend apparently, that were sitting together.

And a girl came up and said something very mean about one of the, about the

girlfriend that was sitting at the table, and her boyfriend responded by calling

the girl a name to which the girl that had started things opened up her Gatorade

and, and dumped it on one or both of them.

The boyfriend stood up and punched this girl in the face.

Thank you for groaning under that.

And, and I, I tell you what, I was glad that my daughter came home and

felt that that was so outta place that she knew to, to bring it up to us.

And that led to a conversation with our boys.

You never, ever, ever punch a girl.

You never put your hands on a girl violently to hurt her,

to inflict pain upon her.

For a man to physically hurt.

His wife is one of the greatest perversions and abdication of his

role as a husband that I can think of.

In fact, Paul would even say that it's a form of self-hatred because

Paul called husbands to love their wives as their own bodies.

I can't think of a, a justifiable reason.

Short of self-defense to lay violent hands on your wife.

And, and when I say self-defense, I'm talking about restraining her.

I'm not talking about hitting, I'm not talking about retaliating.

I, I, yeah, I, this is heavy, but I wanna speak into it because I know

it's, it's not something that's foreign to the church, unfortunately,

man, if, if you are being physically violent with your

wife, you are engrave sin,

and there is no room for it.

It is not manly.

It is not strong.

It is as far from Godly as you can possibly be

by extension.

Ladies, can I say the same to you?

Also, though, for you to physically abuse your husbands is equally an

abdication of your role in their life.

But we were talking about men this morning, and so I wanna be as

strong and clear as I possibly can.

Man, if that is you, I, I need you to get help.

I need you to come in and meet with me or with Pastor Rod, or with Pastor Mark.

I need you to come in and confess that to us.

I need you to say, we want to, to get help in this

because it's that serious.

In no way, shape, or form is that showing honor to your wife as the weaker vessel.

There's other forms of abuse that are likewise sinful, verbal abuse.

Maybe you come home exhausted from work and, and you take it out on your wife.

She gets the brunt of your frustration.

Maybe it's emotional abuse, shaming, degrading her,

humiliating her, isolating her.

If you're speaking poorly of your wife to other people, men,

that's not showing her honor.

Spiritual abuse, the misapplication of scripture misusing verses

leading with that, that heavy hand.

None of these have any place in your life as a man of God who's

been called to show honor to his wife as a co-heir with Christ.

God calls us through Paul, that we should treat our wives

as we treat our own bodies.

And, and maybe you're there, man, and, and you're going,

okay, but my marriage is hard.

My wife doesn't submit to me.

Our intimacy is, is non-existent.

She's disagreeable, she's harsh.

She nags me.

She

disrespects me in front of our kids.

Again, I'm gonna address our wives next week,

but then the call for you is still to pursue faithfulness to the Lord.

I'm not saying it's easy, but you will never find a single verse in scripture

that says anything about marriage, being a husband or a wife that says it's easy,

but the call doesn't change based on our circumstances.

So even if you're a man out there that would say, well, pastor pj, you said

our wives are a gift from the Lord.

I wouldn't say my wife is a gift from the Lord.

Uh, then your marriage is a gift from the Lord.

At least

your obedience to God's command here are more about your relationship to him

than they are about your relationship with your wife to honor your wife, even

though you might sit there and think, well, I don't think she deserves it, is

to store up rewards with the Lord, is to be faithful to him, is to honor him.

And so God's given her to you, even in that sense to sanctify you and yes,

when everything's working properly to be the greatest source of joy,

this side of eternity in your life.

In fact, men, God cares so much for how you fulfill your role as a husband.

That where Peter goes finally here in our text is he says that he's willing to

interrupt his own fellowship with you.

God, the father's willing to interrupt his relationship with you, not

sever interrupt to interrupt that relationship with you when you're

disobedient to him in this fashion.

Look at where Peter ends.

He says this, we're to show her honor as the weaker vessel since she's a coheir

with us of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered, so

that your prayers may not be hindered.

The word hindered there means to have the way blocked.

To have an obstacle in our way, in our passage here, it's the path of your

prayers that are hindered, that are blocked when you're disobedient to the

Lord and how you love your wife, and how you lead your wife, and how you treat her

sin impedes prayer.

That's the general principle that Peter's unpacking for us here.

In this instance, he's talking about how a husband loves

his wife, but he broadens it.

If you'll look at one Peter three 12, just down the, the page five verses

here, look, he says, for the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and

his ears are open to their prayer.

The prayer of the righteous, but to the face of the, the face of the

Lord is against those who do evil.

It's the same principle there, or one Peter four, seven, the

end of all things is at hand.

Therefore, be self controlled and be sober minded for the sake of your prayers.

Be self controlled for the sake of your prayers.

Sin impedes prayer.

And in this instance, Peter is saying that if we don't love our wives well, if

we don't obey what God's call is on our lives for how we lead them, how we live

with them, how we show honor to them, then our prayers are gonna be hindered.

Why?

Because again, they're his daughters.

And also because our disobedience in this area reveals a heart that is not

submitting to the father, and also could reveal a heart that's full of hypocrisy.

A pharisaical heart, we could be drawing near to him with our, our lips,

while our our hearts are far from him.

Jesus went hard after the Pharisees in Matthew chapter 23 with seven

Matthew 23 · chapter mention

woes, and so many of those had to do with their hypocrisy.

They looked one way over here, but internally they were full of, as he

said, at one point, dead man's bones.

And so men, if, if your life is in order in so many areas,

but it's out of order here.

God is not going to be pleased with you.

Your relationship with him is gonna suffer.

Final point this morning, along those lines is this, love your

wives for the sake of your walk.

Love your wives for the sake of your walk.

Mentioned it briefly earlier, but let me say it again.

Your obedience to the Lord in this is more about your relationship with him than

it is your relationship with your wife.

Your wife will benefit greatly as you love her this way, but this is still more

about your relationship with the Lord than it is about your relationship with him.

Men, you can be in the word every single day, praying consistently, memorizing

scripture, showing up at Men's Bible study, volunteering on Sunday mornings,

volunteering on Wednesday nights, attending a community group, sharing

the gospel with your neighbors, and yet if you're not loving your wife

well, Peter says your relationship with him is going to be hindered.

That's how important marriage is to God.

That's how much it matters to him.

Why?

Again?

'cause Ephesians 5 25 husbands love your wives as Christ love

the church in Ephesians 5 32.

This mystery is profound, and I'm saying to you that it

refers to Christ in the church.

The reason is.

It is because when a husband abdicates his role as a godly husband, when a

husband is not loving his wife the way that Christ has called them to love their

wives, what it does is it perverts the picture of the gospel that marriage is

intended to be, and God doesn't want that.

God's design for marriage, especially in the context of a husband or

wife, is to showcase the gospel.

And so men, when you are not doing that, when you are not showing that sacrificial,

that sanctifying love for your wife, you are taking something that God meant to

showcase Christ's love for the church and you are making it about yourself,

you're perverting that and there's nothing about that that's gonna please God.

The marriage relationship is, is unique in that, in that, that it's

supposed to showcase the gospel.

Again, I, there may be objections.

Yeah.

But my wife doesn't deserve for me to love her that way.

Maybe she doesn't, but again, you're not doing it primarily for

her, and you didn't deserve for Christ to love you that way either.

Or maybe your objection is Yeah, but, but, but she makes it difficult for me to lead.

Press on in obedience to Christ and he's gonna reward your faithfulness.

Men, women are called to submit to your leadership in marriage, but you are

not called to enforce that necessarily.

You're called to lead.

You're called to lead.

She's called to follow.

You lead and trust that the Lord is gonna reward that.

But then the second thing I would say, if, if you've got a situation where your

marriage is not good right now, your wife is not being submissive to your

leadership and you're pursuing the Lord.

Then please come and meet with us.

Get help for your marriage.

Don't suffer silently in a marriage that's not going well.

Come in and and meet with me with Pastor Radha, with Pastor Mark.

Get counseling so that we can help you guys in your, your marriage.

Maybe some of you're sitting out there going, okay, pastor Fiji, this is great

for those that are married to Christians.

I'm married to an unbeliever.

Okay, well, let me encourage you this way, man.

Lead her in such a way that if God saves her, she's gonna see

the way that you've loved her as consistent with God's commands,

right?

You wanna lead her in such a way that if, if God saves her, she's gonna say, thank

you for being faithful to lead me the way that God's called you to lead me, even

when I wasn't living with you the way that I should have been living with you.

And trust God's timing and God's promise that you're gonna

eventually reap what you sow.

In a good way.

Your faithfulness will hear well done, good and faithful servant.

Was it easy for Christ to love the church and give himself up for her?

No.

How do we know that?

See the Garden of Gethsemane would Jesus praying three times.

Father, if there's any other way, I let this cut pass from me.

But not what I will, but what you will be done, man.

If you've been distant and dry spiritually in your walk, it may be that you haven't

been loving your wife as God wants you to.

You've been impatient, heavy handed, overly demanding, short-tempered, passive

aggressive, or maybe it's been that you've been living with her in annoyed

way, rather than in an understanding way.

You haven't been praying for her.

You haven't been encouraging her in her walk with Christ.

You haven't been showing her honor as the weaker vessel.

And I think Peter would say, that's a big reason why you're not

feeling close to God right now.

And so if that's you men, this is a call this morning, an opportunity

this morning for repentance.

Is there an area in your life, man, where you haven't been loving your

wife well, where you need to confess before the Lord and to your wife?

Do you need to bring another brother in Christ into that situation or

one of our pastors and confess there and, and find accountability there?

Men, are there areas of leadership this morning that this is that opportunity

that God has put in your laps this morning to, to see that change and to

resolve, to make change, and to commit to, to different pursuits, different

ways of, of leading and loving your wife

to today's that data, to to make those choices, to get that accountability.

And what will that accountability look like for you in that?

One final point of, of warning on this, Matt, is, is not just what it does

to your walk, but I also want you to think about your family, your kids,

man.

If you're not strong in your relationship with the Lord, you're gonna suffer

and so will your whole family.

And, and, and if you've got kids at home, they will suffer for your

lack of leadership in this area.

It's not just your wife and you who are gonna suffer if you don't love her and

lead her and show her honor this way.

You're gonna have kids at home that are watching and learning.

You're gonna have daughters at home that are learning from how you

treat their mom, about what type of man they need to be looking for.

You've got sons at home that are learning about how you treat their mom,

what type of man that they're gonna be with their spouse in the future.

And you think about what they may put into practice and the patterns

that they may replicate in their own marriages down the road.

And then you think about eventually your grandkids.

And I just want you to feel the weight of the generational impact that you not doing

what God is calling you to do could have.

And then on the flip side, I want you to consider that the

legacy that you could leave.

And if you love your wife well.

If your daughters grow up and they kick all those dusty boys to the curb because

they know, man, I saw my dad love my mom.

Well, and I'm not settling for anything less than that.

Or you're young men in your home growing up, loving their wives well, and the

generational legacy that that could start.

God cares deeply about marriage.

He cares deeply about men leading well in marriage and

fulfilling our roles as a husband.

So much so that if we're neglecting him in that area, the consequences are gonna

spill over into our relationship with him.

The surest path to a strong and healthy marriage is a godly man,

committed being the godly husband.

The God calls him to be.

God has called husbands.

I think again, to be the, the keystone of a godly marriage.

Not every marriage is a godly marriage.

There's a lot of nuance and, and different circumstances that can impact that.

But for the husbands in the room, the safest place for you to be is to be the

husband that God is calling you to be, to live with your wives in an understanding

way, to show her honor as the weaker vessel, as a fellow heir of the grace

of life for the sake of your walk, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

Once again, I, I know that this sermon is more targeted than the

ones that you typically hear of me.

And next week we're gonna speak to wives.

Yeah, but in both instances it, it matters for all of us.

What you've heard this morning.

We need prayer.

The husbands in this room need prayer.

We need your prayers to be praying for us, that we would be that

type of man in our marriages.

It matters for us because the young men in the room, this is what God is calling them

to be as they grow up and as they step into those roles and into those marriages.

It matters for the young women because this is the type of man that they

need to look for as they're pursuing marriage in the future themselves.

It matters because this is the, the way that the gospel is displayed

through relationships to the world around us as we live these, these

roles out as a husband and wife, and it matters because we will be better

off as a church if we have strong, godly men leading their wives This way,

all the stones matter in the strength of an archway, but it's the keystone

that bears the burden of sustaining the whole and marriage, both the

husband and wife matter to the strength and health of the relationship.

But it's the husband that God is called to be the keystone

and to set the tone, let's pray.

God, we thank you for your word.

We thank you for husbands.

We thank you for marriage.

We thank you for the gift.

Of marriage.

Lord, I, I pray for the men in this room who are husbands.

I pray that you would help them to live out well, their role as a

man of God, that, that you would help them to love their wives.

Well, I pray that even this morning, if there's areas that need to be

repented of, if there's areas that need to be committed to, if there's.

Resolve that needs to be made this morning to do things differently, that today

would be the day that that's enacted, that it wouldn't be kicked down the,

the, the street that it wouldn't be.

Let's just continue to settle for status quo.

Let's just grin and bear it and be pleasant roommates until the kids move

out, and then we'll figure out what to do.

But that we would see that marriage matters in your eyes.

But a mindful, mindful as husbands that when we stand before Christ in the bema

seat, part of what we will be giving an account for was how we loved our wives.

And I thank you so much that your word is clear on that.

At the same time, God, I, I acknowledge that it's not easy, and I just

pray that you would help us as husbands to have that selfless love.

That is what we're called to have for our wives.

And God, I I pray that you would give us great joy in that pursuit,

as I know there can be such great joy in that, that marriage can

be so fulfilling and satisfying.

And so, Lord, marriage is a gift.

It's a gift.

And when we are doing these things, when our, our men are leading in this way,

that there's much joy to be found there.

And so I pray, God, that we would be a church filled with strong,

godly marriages and that you'd be pleased with their testimonies.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.