Courage & Care

Today's reading is from 1 Peter chapter 3.

1 Peter 3 · chapter mention

Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, 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, 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.

Please be seated.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

My name is James Rath, and I'm the pastor here at Redemption Church Denver.

It is a joy to gather together with you all on this Sunday morning.

Let's pray before we enter our text for the day.

And above the roaring of the waves and the tumult that we experience in this life, Lord, you are enthroned high above it all.

And Lord, your power is demonstrated constantly to us in your providence.

Lord, as we know that all things are in your hands.

Lord, amidst the tossing of the waves, discouragement can grow, confusion grows.

Lord, we become disoriented, but you are not disoriented.

Lord, all things are perfectly in place, exactly where you would have them.

In the situations that you have placed us in our lives, Lord, with the dispositions and demeanors that we have, the histories that you have given to us, the relationships that you have placed us in, the difficulties and trials that we face, Lord, they are all perfectly in place for your glory to be made known and demonstrated for all eternity, forever and ever and evermore.

Amen.

Amen.

All right, so we are coming to the final stretch of the marriage series.

And in this final stretch, uh we are moving into the New Testament instruction for marriage.

So the shape of the series so far has been the first four sermons, we saw what marriage is.

We were looking at the question of what is marriage?

How does God use this institution of marriage throughout the story that he's telling in redemptive history?

We saw that marriage is understood in creation.

We saw marriage in the fall and in redemption and in our future hope.

These can all be told and understood through the lens of marriage.

And then after that, we looked at three case studies of particular marriages in the scriptures where we saw how these unique marriage stories found their meaning by connecting up with this glorious story that God is telling about Christ and the church.

And so we are hopefully having our imaginations changed so that we can gain a better understanding of not just how to interact with our marriages or uh how to, you know, 10 steps to a healthier marriage or something like that.

I couldn't come up with, I could maybe come up with like seven, but the final three would be reiterations of one of the first four, you know, lists.

But instead, what we're looking at is having our whole imaginations changed so that we can understand that marriage finds its meaning insofar as it demonstrates the glory of Christ's relationship with his church.

And that shifts our perspective for how we understand our own marriages, for how we uh assess whether the health of our own marriages gives us a whole new frame.

But now, hopefully by this point in the series, you are a bit like, okay, my imagination has been changed.

Uh, I have this whole new perspective on what marriage is.

I assess it in totally different terms.

Uh, what do I do?

Like, how do I do that?

How do I have a marriage that participates in this pattern that God has uh shown us in the glorious relationship of Christ and the church?

And so thankfully, uh the Bible speaks to this plainly.

And throughout the New Testament, we are given particular instruction.

Here's what you do.

So this these next uh this sermon and then two more sermons following this, we're going to be looking at particular New Testament instruction for what it is that you do in your marriage.

Now, this first this first week, we're looking at the instruction that Peter gives in 1 Peter chapter 3.

1 Peter 3 · chapter mention

And so it's helpful to understand what is the context of Peter giving this instruction for marriage.

Peter is writing to churches that are scattered uh all over the empire, and they are uh under increasing persecution.

And so many of them have been scattered and had to flee from their homes, and they're under increasing persecution because of their Christianity.

And it will mount towards this radical crescendo in just the next couple of years for them.

And so he's giving this instruction about enduring suffering.

And much of 1 Peter can be understood as a letter about suffering, how it is that you endure suffering.

And so the passage that leads right into his instruction on marriage is about the theme of submission, and he's talking about slaves submitting to their masters, and he understands that many of these slaves are Christians and they're submitting to wicked masters who are not Christians.

And yet Peter is still calling them to submit to and honor and serve those masters.

And then he goes into why he would call them to operate in such a way, it's almost incomprehensible.

And the reason is because this is the pattern of Christ.

So he says this in 1 Peter 2, 21 through 25, and this is the text that leads directly into his instruction on marriage.

1 Peter 2, 21 through 25, he says, For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.

He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.

When he was reviled, he did not revile in return.

When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued in trusting himself to him who judges justly.

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that you might die to sin and live to righteousness.

By his wounds you have been healed, for you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls.

So he gives this picture of Christ suffering.

He says, This pattern of Christ's suffering is yours.

And when you endure in the places that God has called you to, and you instead of seeking to accomplish your own vengeance or seeking to gain your own self-protection, if instead you remain sinless and honor God amidst that suffering, and you entrust yourself to God, well, this is the very pattern of Christ.

And it will be glorious because we've already seen that glory demonstrated in the person of Christ.

And he he ends this and he says, because look, he bore our sins on the tree.

What did Christ's suffering accomplish?

The atonement for our sins.

What did it mean that Christ suffered?

It meant that we once were straying like sheep, so that all the suffering that we would experience in the world would just toss us about and we would be straying, just wandering around, looking for some comfort somewhere.

But now we have returned to the shepherd and overseer of our souls.

Now that is the jumping off point for Peter to immediately start talking about wives and husbands.

Now, I I'm uh uh get to do a lot of premarital counseling, and uh uh a lot of times you'll you'll get glimpses of what people are hearing in in the way that they've done counseling other places, for relationship counseling other places.

And you realize that they're it's like they're talking about a totally different sport when they're assessing their marriages.

Because their marriage is really being, and everything is described as a communication issue.

Not everything, you know.

I'm sure there are exceptions, but it's it's always you're not communicating enough, there needs to be more communication.

The issue here is communication.

And then I'll hear talk through with the with a couple like things that are going on, and uh I'll be like, this doesn't sound like a communication issue.

It sounds like an issue of you know, sin.

Sin.

And um you're what you're communicating about is is that you've sinned against one another.

Because I can tell because you're in you you've just told me a story in which you sinned against her, and then in response to that, uh she sinned against you.

And uh you don't need to talk about this much more.

What you should do instead is you should you should confess to one another the sins that you've committed, and then and then you should forgive each other of those sins, and then uh, you know, move on.

Like you forgave each other, like how Christ forgives us.

That was a tangent.

But you can, you know, hopefully hopefully you can apply that.

Um confess, repent.

But the put the point is that there's there's often this totally different sport being played, and it wouldn't, when you hear that the trans the transition, like the introduction for Peter to give marital advice, is Jesus died on the cross and endured great suffering and it accomplished much.

Now let's talk about how let's talk about what marriage is like.

And that's a totally different frame for understanding what is marriage like.

You know, why in Peter's mind, this he's not even switching topics, saying Jesus endured great suffering and it accomplished much.

Now let's talk to wives and husbands.

Now I hope that at this point in the series, uh because we've done quite a bit of work to kind of demonstrate this point, that you'll see that this is, uh of course, that's the transition.

Of course, Peter is saying, look at what Christ means to us.

And when you understand what Christ means to us and how he lays himself down for us and endures great suffering on our behalf, now you'll see this is the pattern of marriage.

This is the pattern of marriage.

So, of course, marriage finds the fullness of its meaning in Christ in the church.

And so in a normal conversation about marriage, or just in when our normal intuitions, you know, our normal intuitions about marriage, as we've talked about, they're formed by what we see in our parents' marriage.

They're formed by uh whatever whatever sitcom, rom-com happen happened to be mainstreaming at a formative age for you.

It was either Ross and Rachel, little older, Jim and Pam.

And then I don't really know after that.

Like TikTok dances at one another, where they date where they meet and they dance at each other.

Made that up, but that's what I think happens.

Gibson, is that true?

Gibson is our resident Gen Z correspondent in this morning from the field.

And so in those intuitions that get formed, they're they're formed around just like this powerful romance.

And our expectations for marriage are that they'll be guided by this powerful romantic feeling that we'll be pulled into.

And so when we look for marriage advice, then what we expect to find is something is like instructions for how to like rekindle the flame, how to re-spark this sense of romance in our relationship, so that if we've drifted apart, so that we might get pulled back together again by this thing that re-sparks and rekindles the flame.

And so we'll learn like tips and tricks on on uh how to do that.

This is the way Peter starts.

1 Peter 3, 1 through 2.

Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands.

Don't you just feel the flame being rekindled?

Like I think if I had opened with that, in for the first sermon that we looked at, the creation of marriage, if instead this marriage series we went to this is the opening verse, wives be subject to your husb to your own husbands, I think it would have like bounced off of us.

You know, it's it's uh it feels arbitrary and strange because our expectations for marriage are like tips and trips tricks for us to like it more.

And but now I hope that this feels just completely intuitive.

When we see that marriage is this pattern of Christ in the church, and that the structure of marriage from the very beginning with Adam and Eve is this hierarchical structure, because we've learned that hierarchy is the shape of unity.

And so, if we want to see unity in this relationship, then we must see the hierarchy restored in that relationship.

And so now for Peter to come from a description of Christ and move into his description of what marriage will be, and begin with wives, be subject to your own husbands, we can see this is this is perfectly intuitive.

This is exactly the way that we should understand marriage being restored, because we know what marriage is, we know what it's patterned after in Christ and the church.

So here's the instruction: wives be subject to your own husbands.

This is not being forced into some oppressive structure.

He's calling wives to participate in restoring their marriage to the position of function.

Because the position of function is patterned after Christ in the church, which is that Christ is the head of the church and the church is his body.

The church is subject to the to Christ.

So the wife is subject to her husband.

To move out of that order is to destroy the mechanism of unity.

So the call is now listen to so this is for wives.

We're talking wives now.

So wives, be subject to your own husbands.

This is not to husbands generally.

This is not all wives be subject to all husbands.

It is your own husbands.

This is not like Sharia law.

This is not all women are subject to all men.

That's not the command here.

But it's that the husband that is yours, your husband who has been placed over you, you are to be subject to.

Now he continues on and says, now I guess the question is, all right, great, those are the words that you said.

Well, what does that mean?

What does that mean?

Like, what could that look like?

How could I see it?

Well, it means that there is space created for him to lead.

And that you have an understanding that there is a final responsibility that belongs to him, and you entrust yourself to him to realize that.

And that's very dangerous.

This is an incredibly risky game.

There is no way to structure this that is safe.

Just let that settle into your mind.

Wives, there is no way to submit to your husband that is safe.

If you won't submit to your husband until it feels safe, you won't.

Because it's always a risk.

It's necessarily a risk.

Because your husband, who you're submitting to, like Jesus, is I hate to break this news, not Jesus.

He's not Jesus.

He's a sinner, like you.

And so there's this risk to return to this position of function, to subject yourself to him in that way.

You may think, well, Peter's probably thinking like these are just Christian husbands.

You know, these are these are husbands who are worth submitting to, and who are worth giving this uh honor of this sort of position, and they're not.

Because look at the so that.

Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word.

So you're talking about non-Christian husbands, which which first century would have been so common.

Think how common this would have been.

In the Christian community, this would have been common.

Outside of the Christian community, it'd be completely unthinkable for a wife to have a different religion than her husband, completely unimaginable.

But within the Christian community, they're brought in by the Holy Spirit.

So he says, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be one without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct.

Do you see the power that is given to the wives in submission?

You know the you know the phrase, nobody knows who said it, but preach the gospel and when necessary, use words.

Preach the gospel and when necessary, use words.

I don't know, I don't I don't know who said that.

It's like Wayne Gretzky, Michael Scott.

Like, it could be who knows.

Um that isn't that isn't really in scripture, except for here.

Except for right here.

Wives have this influence that by subjecting themselves to their husbands with without even speaking, it's like a magic trick.

Without even using words, they would compel their husbands to entrust themselves to Jesus.

Why is that?

What is it that they're seeing?

Well, the only way that you wives could have the courage to subject yourselves to your husbands is if you have entrusted yourself to Jesus.

Because Jesus is the one who sees the secret places, he sees the quiet places, he sees the respectful and the pure conduct.

And so by entrusting yourself to him and knowing that you are, above all else, utterly and completely entrusted to Jesus as your true husband, now you can take the risk in good conscience to entrust yourself to.

Subject yourself to your earthly husband.

That is the only way.

And then by that power, you might even see that your husband comes to know the Lord.

Because he's witnessed somebody by great courage entrust themselves to him.

This is so wise because it's completely against what our normal intuition is.

See, the normal intuition is that for the wife to see her husband not leading in the way that she would like him to, and say, I'll subject myself to him once I position him to be leading in the way that I would like him to.

And they think that their influence over him will come in the same pattern that his influence comes over her.

But that's not the case.

His influence is a top-down influence.

That's the structure.

It's always the structure.

It's not like your mission should you choose to accept it.

It's you accepted it.

That's the way the world is built.

Remember, we saw it in creation.

That's the way it's created.

And so his authority is a top-down authority.

But what often happens is the wife will say, okay, he's not leading in the way that I would like him to lead.

And I can prove it because I got a list.

And so I'm going to explain to him all of the ways that he is not leading in the way that I would like him to lead.

Which is I'm going to lead him into leading me the way that I would like him to lead.

Once he does that, I'll subject myself.

I'll be in subjection to that.

I'll honor and respect his authority in that regard.

And then the so it's like, hey, here's all the things that you're not doing, husband.

You're not honoring me, you're not communicating with me enough, you're not showing the kids, uh you're not prioritizing the kids and myself, you're not doing all the, you know, and it's just make up your own list.

Wives, could could you make a list?

Some of you are like, no.

You could make a list.

You could make a list.

And then what happens is that list gets shared with the husband.

And the husband, this happens especially in Christian environments.

The list can be exactly right.

It can be exactly right.

Like perfect, perfectly all the things he's not doing that he should be doing.

And the husband will say, Well, I'm supposed to be the leader here.

And so now, if I do any of those things on the list, then I'm just subjecting myself to her, and I know I can't do that.

And so now he's not doing anything that he should be doing in the name of leadership.

And she's trying to lead him in the name of so I can finally submit myself to you.

And it's just gridlock.

It is gridlock.

This happens all the time.

It happens all the time.

And so do you see the wisdom in Peter's advice, which is that with respect and pure conduct, this is this requires just unthinkable courage for a wife to do.

But it is where her power of transformation is.

Because listen to the difference in cultivating right leadership in your husband and right headship in your husband.

Can you hear the difference between these two phrases?

You need to lead me.

That's option one.

Option two, I will follow you, and I am following you.

Do you hear the difference?

One takes responsibility.

You need to lead me.

That's the one that's taking responsibility.

It undermines its own project.

I will follow you.

I am following you.

I think the husband who hears that, I will follow you, I am following you.

You know what just settled on him?

This incredible weight of responsibility.

You know the demand that was that was made?

I better lead here.

This is mine.

This is my home.

This is my household.

I am not a victim of it.

I'm the one who has responsibility for it.

And you I think you'll be blown away.

I think wives just dramatically underestimate the influence that they have to be able to cultivate glorious leadership in their husbands.

But there is no way you can do it without risk.

There's no way.

So in order to do that, you must entrust yourself to Jesus.

So Peter continues his instruction for the wives.

He says in 1 Peter 3, 3 through 4, do not let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear.

So if you wore any jewelry today, we're actually going to have a bin up here.

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.

You know, this is one of those passages, all these passages are like, you can choose to be offended by them with a particular reading, but then with just like, if you just correct your vision a little bit, it's it's just like, man, I wish somebody had said that.

I wish somebody had been telling me that the whole time.

Like there is there is a beauty, wives, women, which can be cultivated in you that is imperishable.

Imperishable.

It does not, it is not fleeting with age.

It does not go away.

You do not have to be outrunning it.

There is a true beauty which can be cultivated in you.

Now he goes immediately, I think, to talking about beauty because beauty, women, you should know this.

And some of you intuitively know this.

It's extremely powerful.

It's extremely powerful.

You know, it's like a um like a beautiful woman is like a is like an army.

You see like an army marching, and it's like, wow, this captures my attention.

And there's a there's a power here that it it could be, it feels like it could be unleashed, and I and I it's uh, you know, like we talked about Eve, she's fashioned.

They say all of the like descriptions of Eve being built by God, it's the same as the temple being built by God.

And the temple is made of many stones.

There's this song about it, it's called She's a Brick.

We don't have songs like that about guys.

There's this great new version of Snow White that I want all of you to buy and read.

By uh Jonathan Pageot.

It's a book.

I'm not I wasn't making a Disney joke.

There's a there's actually a great version of Snow White, uh, a book by uh uh Jonathan Pageot.

It's called Snow White and the Widow Queen.

And the Widow Queen, who's the you know wicked stepmother in Snow White, um she's uh she's always trying to trick Snow White into giving her something that will kill her.

And in the in the story, she's she's giving her things and she says, uh, if you put this ribbon in your hair, or if you wear this belt around you and they're all poisoned and awful, she says, then you will know what it feels like to be the fairest in the land.

And it and Snow White uh thinks to herself and she remembers the prince that she had met earlier, and she thinks, finally, I would have the power to be able to grab this prince for myself.

And the widow queen explains to Snow White, and she says, uh, the the you know, the wicked stepmother, she says, Don't you know that beauty is a weapon?

And that's the lesson that she's trying to teach Snow White.

Don't you know that beauty is a weapon?

But the the lesson that Snow White learns is she comes to see this, and you know, you know the story, it's the same old story, but told very well.

She learns beauty is not a weapon.

Beauty is a gift.

Beauty is a gift.

It's something that's that's received and wonderful to behold.

But there is a use of beauty like a weapon to be used as this power over husbands or over other men or over other men for to get power over husbands.

Then there's this beauty that is a gift.

And there is a beauty that is imperishable that Peter is calling Christian wives to.

Saying, don't spend your time.

Don't just don't don't be intoxicated by this imperishable beauty, or excuse me, by this perishable beauty, which is like chasing you down constantly.

Instead, adorn yourself.

Make yourself beautiful.

That's what adornment is.

Make yourself beautiful in the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious.

Saying, make yourself beautiful in the places which God sees.

This is the way you honor the beauty that He has given you.

With a gentle and quiet spirit.

A gentle and quiet spirit.

This is what he calls Christian wives to.

Now, this means that you are entering a place, and as I said, there's no way to do this without incredible risk.

Because the risk of embracing a gentle and quiet spirit, well, you may be trampled on, which is dangerous.

It's a dangerous world.

That is a risk.

It says, in God's sight, this gentle and quiet spirit, which cultivates an imperishable beauty, is very precious.

Do you think that that is precious in the sight of the world?

Do you think that a gentle and quiet spirit and wife is precious in the sight of the world?

Can you even believe that I'm saying this right now?

That wives should have a gentle and quiet spirit?

Without going on like a five-minute speech on like, by gentle and quiet, he doesn't really mean gentle and quiet.

You know?

That's what we normally do.

It's not celebrated.

So how could you move, how could you even embrace this?

How could you how could you embrace this as a wife?

You must entrust yourself to Jesus and see that the things that are not received as beautiful in the world, he receives as beautiful.

He recognizes them as glorious, honorable, and an imperishable beauty.

And you know what this imperishable beauty is.

And this is, you know what this internal beauty is.

And I want to present a contradiction here.

You know this internal beauty because you can see it.

You can see it on the outside.

I mean, have you have you met an old Christian grandmother?

Great-grandmother?

My wife's grandmother is still alive, my kid's great-grandmother.

And she's one of the most honorable Christian women I've ever seen.

And she's beautiful.

You can see it.

You can see it.

You know, I I know you know exactly what I mean.

You've seen these women, they're glorious.

Now he goes on and he provides this example.

He says, 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.

Now, this this passage actually, these these verses, verses five and six, first Peter three, are the reason that I wanted to do the case studies in our series, because I saw that the way that Peter was instructing the church with regards to marriage was showing pictures of the of this wife who gloriously participated in her marriage.

And I wanted our own imaginations to be stoked in that same way.

And the way that Sarah's glory is shown is that she is one of the holy women, and what do we remember her for?

She hoped in God.

And how was that hope in God demonstrated?

She submitted to her husband, even calling him Lord, trusting them to accomplish together something which was impossible for them, which is to have children when they were both as good as dead.

And what we saw, what we see in her submission to him is this glory which goes beyond, it stretches into generations.

Something beyond our imaginations is what's seen.

And so it's gentle and quiet, and it's subjected, and it's it's hidden in private.

It's this quiet feminine space.

And what does it accomplish?

If you step back through time, it's like this explosion of glory.

It's immeasurable glory.

But in order to honor it, you must entrust yourself to the Lord.

You entrust yourself to the vision that He has, which expands to this.

And then how are you Sarah's children?

How are you like Sarah?

You do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.

I named this sermon courage and care.

Courage is what Peter requires of wives.

Do not fear anything that is frightening.

How could you do that?

You see, the things that Peter is calling you into is to not fear anything that is frightening.

How could you do that?

You must, in order to subject yourselves to your husbands, you must entrust yourself to Jesus.

Entrusting yourself to Jesus, you see, I have nothing to fear because he is the one who cares for me.

He is the one who protects me.

He is the one he is my truest husband.

And he will supply all my needs according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus.

So the call for wives is courage.

I think this is so needed.

It is so it takes such courage to step into the position of function in the Christian marriage, to enter that hierarchy, even when it seems like it's it's not fully established yet.

Or not safe to enter yet in the same way.

Do not fear anything that is frightening.

Trust yourself to Jesus.

This is the call, wives.

Takes incredible courage.

Now, husbands.

The instruction to husbands in 1 Peter is shorter.

We'll make up for that when we do Ephesians 5 next week.

But in 1 Peter 3:7, he does it in one verse, but it is a dense verse which tells us a lot.

1 Peter 3:7

It says, 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.

It is a shorter, shorter one, but we can already start to smell the pattern of Christ in this.

The honor is shown to the weaker vessel, just as Christ lays himself down for the church.

Who is greater, the church or Christ?

And then who does Christ honor?

He honors the church.

And so we are called as husbands to step into this same pattern.

And he calls really two things in this passage.

He calls husbands to understanding of our wives and to honor our wives.

And then he provides two reasons for these things, for two reasons for understanding and for honor.

The reasons are that she is a weaker vessel and that she is an heir with you.

Those are the two reasons.

So let's begin with understanding.

I think an easy way to approach the call for husbands to understand, to live with their wives in an understanding way is to consider misunderstanding.

What does it look like for husbands to live with their wives in a misunderstanding way?

I think there are two ways.

I think we can misunderstand our wives by not treating her as the weaker vessel.

That's one way to misunderstand our wives.

The second way that I think we misunderstand our wives is not treat her as an heir in Christ just as we are heirs in Christ.

These are the pitfalls of misunderstanding.

So, first, misunderstanding by not treating her as a weaker vessel.

Well, what does it mean that the wife is the weaker vessel?

I think there are lots of connotations to this.

Of course, physically.

That I think is just easily misunderstood by men.

Oh, no worries.

Music cue.

That is just misunderstood by men.

Likewise, women, because of because women are physically weaker, women are not made for environments of hostility.

Women, for example, cannot secure their own rights.

The rights of women must be secured by men who are willing to defend them against aggressors.

That's where the rights of women come from.

And so this is a vulnerable position to be in.

And it's also a reason for honor.

Because one other way to think about this is like this is I I learned this illustration in college, and it's sticky, so I'm gonna use it.

It's like a a man is like a now gene.

This is back when we weren't afraid of BPAs.

Which you're real.

You know, what's where's which one's more glorious?

Well, what are we talking about them being used for?

Which one is honored?

Is honored?

Yeah, there's a weakness, but there's a glory.

There's a glory to that weakness that's demonstrated with.

In it.

So the way that men misunderstand this is they, in order for their wife to get anything across to them, or in order for their wife to be heard, or for their problems to be understood, then often men will create an environment where their wife must enter a space of hostility in order to relate to their husband.

If your wife must enter a place of hostility in order to be understood by you, then you are dishonoring her as the weaker vessel.

If you hear the difficulties and the issues that your wife is facing, and you're and the problems that she is bringing to you, and you think that they keep mounting because she won't just take action or she won't enter into this place which requires a masculine response, then you're just neglecting your responsibility for her.

You're berating her.

You're destroying this gentle, this opportunity for a gentle and quiet spirit.

The second way that men misunderstand their wives or don't live with understanding is to treat them as though they are not heirs with us in Christ, in the very same way we are.

Absolute equality with the husband.

So that her insights from the Lord, her closeness with the Holy Spirit, so that the words working in her heart is the same.

It is not a lesser degree.

It's the same as yours.

And so what misunderstanding looks like there is to not honor the work of the Lord in your wife's life.

Think of it as some second tier, some second class to patronize, talk down to, ignore, put off in, you know, really my securing a place for her is actually just putting her off into some other fantasy world.

That doesn't call her into participation for the fullness of what Christ requires of her.

Because you don't take it seriously.

You don't take her seriously.

The one who Christ died for, so that she might be redeemed and an heir.

You know, why that language?

Why the language of heir?

An heir with you?

Because sons are heirs.

Sons are heirs.

But in Christ, women are heirs of God, co-heirs with Christ, just like you are.

Husbands.

And so do you see the dynamic that is that's required of you, husbands?

You you need to honor her as the weaker vessel.

Because she's an heir with you.

She is just as much a son of God.

Oftentimes we say like we are, like it we translate things.

There are new Bible translations which are like clever.

And it where like it's translated like you are you are sons of God.

It'll say sons and daughters of God.

But no, that's not it.

You daughters are sons of God.

Because the point is that you're heirs.

You're heirs.

And so husbands show misunderstanding in that way as well.

Okay, that's about understanding, and I've mixed in honor as well.

But this last thing, I want to focus on honor.

Husbands, you're called to honor your wives.

Now we don't have, especially out here in like the egalitarian West, there's no honoring.

We don't really honor.

Like you in Florida, half of North Florida is the South.

South Florida is South America.

And so I was sort of in between both of those.

And so there's a little remnant of the South growing up that you get.

And there's yes, sirs, yes ma'ams, there's like a woman enters, you you give her your seat, you oh you hold doors open, you open doors, car doors, you close car doors, you uh when when a woman enters the room, you stand.

Can you imagine in uh Colorado?

Seems like somebody'd be like, yeah, I'm I don't know, tight from my marathon training or something, trailed running.

I don't know.

It'd be something like that.

That's why you're standing.

And so we'll think like, okay, honor probably just means like something you do in your mind to your wife, husbands.

You think there's just something that I do in my do in my mind.

It must manifest.

Otherwise, it is not real honor.

There must be real demonstrations of honoring your wife.

Would be in words.

You look beautiful.

It would be in gratitude.

I can't believe that I get to come home and see you.

It can be in actual demonstrations.

Hey, I planned something for us.

Let me take the kids.

It's recognition of the of, you know, your eyes have to be like God's eyes.

Because God is seeing all of the things that the world is not seeing and not valuing.

And your job as the husband is to see those things and honor them as good and beautiful.

You're the one who sees the gentle and quiet spirit.

That doesn't get to be shown.

Part of our culture is it constantly desires to eliminate the private space.

Your private space is meant to be completely eliminated.

And that's because we think of everything as being devoured by the masculine, because we have no sense of the goodness of the feminine.

And the feminine is the private space, which becomes fruitful.

That's the space that's generationally fruitful, by the way.

And so, husbands, your eyes must be tuned to that.

And there must be showing of real honor.

And here's what's at stake.

If you don't, God will not hear your prayers.

So that you, it says, I'll read it to you.

Why do all that?

Why live in an understanding way with your wife?

Why be heirs, uh why honor her as the weaker vessel, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

Consider this if you do not honor your wife, and you do not live with her in an understanding way, seeing the glory of the way that God has made her and celebrating it as glorious.

If you do not honor her, who is subject to you, then the one whom you are subject to, who is God, will not honor you.

And there will not be understanding for you.

This is a high stakes.

If you plan if you continue, if you plan to continue praying and having it mean anything.

So this is the instruction.

For husbands, I think it is fundamentally, it can be described as a call for care.

Care for your wife, as your wife.

And for wives, I think it can be can fundamentally be described as a call for courage.

For courage.

So I want you to consider those things.

So you move through your week.

Consider what that would mean as it enters your household.

Call for care for husbands, courage for wives.