Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Are you guys going to open the First Peter, chapter two?
[00:00:10] First Peter, Chapter two.
[00:00:18] You know, one of the first lessons we learn in life is one about authority.
[00:00:26] Is that right? Do we learn about authority pretty early in life? Of course. As a relatively new dad, I remember the first time I told my older daughter, Annie, no.
[00:00:39] Simple and profound word, no.
[00:00:42] She was crawling and she reached for this nasty air vent that we needed to dust, and we hadn't dusted in a while, and we said no to her, and she withdrew her hand.
[00:00:53] Wow, this isn't so hard.
[00:00:55] This plenty of good. That's easy, right? She withdrew her hand and then she reached again while watching us.
[00:01:02] We told her no again and she pulled it back again. So she obeyed.
[00:01:08] Now, of course, and you know, this happens even more and more as she gets older, you know, she, like all of us, is impudent. We sin, we disobey.
[00:01:19] She doesn't always obey like this. But you could see innately in her this understanding of authority that someone else is in charge.
[00:01:30] And that's just how it is. Not much questioning about that, but that's how it is. So at such a young age, I think we all kind of see that there is authority in the world.
[00:01:44] And about as quickly we seek to subvert that authority, we seek to disobey it, don't we?
[00:01:51] Now, in today's text, we see godly authority dealt with, and we see how godly authority should be upheld. That authority is a good thing.
[00:02:01] Such authority structures are actually used by God for the benefit of others.
[00:02:06] So it's not an oppressive thing. Instead, it's actually something full of grace and mercy. That is wonderful.
[00:02:13] So as we remember the context, we remember the suffering and scattered Christians that received this letter originally, and as we remember the main theme of this letter, which is suffering now, but glory later, let us think how submission to authority can actually be a way to honor Christ.
[00:02:37] That's what it is. It's a way to honor Christ even when we have no stature, even when we have no power in our lives. If you can imagine having absolutely no authority or power in your life, even then you can honor Christ by submitting to proper authority.
[00:02:52] You might suffer in this life, by being pushed around or oppressed. You might feel like you have no freedom or autonomy. You might feel like you are utterly powerless.
[00:03:05] The good news about submission to authority is that even the lowest of the low, the lowest members of any society, can submit to authority and honor God that way.
[00:03:17] Thus, the main idea of this text is that submission to authority proclaims the Gospel to the world and benefits societies, households, marriages and the Church.
[00:03:31] Submission to authority proclaims the Gospel to the world and benefits societies, households, marriages and the Church.
[00:03:41] We're going to read this whole section here, starting in chapter 2, verse 13.
[00:03:46] I'm going to read all the way through 3, 7. So look at 1 Peter 2:13.
[00:03:53] He writes, Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.
[00:04:07] For this is the will of God that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.
[00:04:14] Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover up for evil, but living as servants of God.
[00:04:22] Honor everyone, loves, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the emperor.
[00:04:29] Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the unjust.
[00:04:38] For this is a gracious thing. When mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly.
[00:04:46] For what credit is it if when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure?
[00:04:51] But if when you do good and suffer for it, you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God.
[00:04:58] 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.
[00:05:08] 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 he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.
[00:05:24] He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.
[00:05:33] 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.
[00:05:43] 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.
[00:05:57] Do not let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold, jewelry, and 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.
[00:06:16] 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.
[00:06:32] 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.
[00:06:47] Okay, so authority, which we see lots of examples of authority in these verses, authority in general is not very fashionable these days.
[00:07:01] And, you know, we can kind of see if you like history, if you study history, this is kind of sort of a natural deterioration in our culture. This is not true around the world, but in our culture of what we might call American values.
[00:07:17] You know, some three, 400 years ago, some British chaps, they wanted religious freedom, right? So they came over here. That is a very, you know, abbreviated history.
[00:07:27] But they came over here wanting freedom of religion as at least one thing. And sin has tarnished this ambition and mutated it into complete and utter autonomy to do whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want.
[00:07:44] That is not good.
[00:07:46] That is not freedom. That is not a classical sense of freedom. Freedom is not the ability to do whatever you want. That is not what freedom has meant throughout history.
[00:07:57] Freedom is actually the ability to do what helps society flourish, to love others, to love the community.
[00:08:06] For example, you cannot steal because that harms society.
[00:08:11] And when stealing doesn't happen, the store owners do better, they flourish, and there's more food for people to buy.
[00:08:17] So you can't do whatever you want. There must be some limits.
[00:08:21] We just need to start acknowledging that now. Authority is viewed skeptically by everyone on the political spectrum. I'm not trying to pick on anybody in particular. You know, authority might be viewed skeptically by conservatives who want to be left alone, have a small government.
[00:08:36] But even people on the left don't like authority because they want to do whatever they might want to do with their bodies and don't want other sorts of authority, even maybe other, you know, other things. These point being the political issues. These political issues are relevant to church life. They're relevant to authority. They reveal a lot about how we think of authority.
[00:09:02] People don't join the membership of the church because they might be worried about the pastors abusing their power instead of praying for them and trusting them.
[00:09:13] That is a reality.
[00:09:15] People might not want church discipline or accountability to happen in their church because it's none of anyone's business what sins I might commit or not.
[00:09:25] They don't want the church to have authority. Yet what we see here is that your conduct and your relationships matter to the public and to the church.
[00:09:36] It is so important how we live, how we live with spouses and families and you know, in some society's masters and even in society with a government, this all matters.
[00:09:49] The way we live matters because how we live can uphold and magnify the gospel or it can destroy our witness altogether.
[00:10:00] So there's a lot at stake in how we behave in the world.
[00:10:04] So again, the main idea of this passage, I believe is that submission to, to authority proclaims the gospel to the world and benefits societies, households, marriages and the church. So point number one is be good citizens, silence the ignorant.
[00:10:21] Be good citizens, silence the ignorant.
[00:10:28] When verse 13 says to be subjects at every human institution, Peter is talking about those who rule.
[00:10:39] So what Peter is saying is that a faithful Christian will be subject to or submit to the emperor or king, the governor or whoever else might have legitimate authority. I do mean legitimate authority.
[00:10:53] Is this surprising to you?
[00:10:55] I want you to actually think about that.
[00:10:58] Is that surprising that the Bible says that, that we should submit to the emperor or the president?
[00:11:07] The Bible says that we should obey the government.
[00:11:12] Now it is assumed, you might notice that the government is, look at verse 14, punishing evil and praising those who do good. So it is assumed that the government is acting within the duties God has given it. That is the purview, that is the jurisdiction of the government to punish evil and to praise good. That is what they should be doing.
[00:11:35] They should not do less and they should maybe seldom do more.
[00:11:40] So do not be rebels.
[00:11:43] Don't be cynical, don't be overly cynical of government unless you have a really, really good reason.
[00:11:50] I think these are things that we can struggle with, that we see a lot in society, these sorts of examples upheld. But I think we should have a really good reason before we rebel.
[00:12:01] Because this isn't just commanded so that we will be sheep and will be taken advantage of by the government. Verse 15 says this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.
[00:12:18] Now to be clear, even at the time there was a cult of the emperor, so a cult that upheld the emperor as if he was a God.
[00:12:29] You know, we might even see some modern day parallels of this for various leaders around the world, maybe even in our own country, but maybe not so explicit as this declaring that the emperor is a God.
[00:12:42] And so the Christians had to separate from that. They could not go that far. They're not. To honor the emperor is not the same as worship the emperor. And so they would have earned insults or even worse from people for not loving and worshiping the emperor.
[00:12:58] But as long as they honored the Emperor, verse 17, and obeyed their rulers, then no one could actually accuse them of wrongdoing.
[00:13:08] That is our goal as Christians, to keep our reputations above reproach, to avoid being credibly accused of wrongdoing. That's what we want to do. We want to live so that no one can express disapproval at your life and do it legitimately. And in doing this, this passage tells us that we silence the foolish.
[00:13:33] You know, foolish, which would mean sinful people. Now, these foolish or sinful people will accuse believers of all sorts of things.
[00:13:41] This is not surprising.
[00:13:43] Christians will be maligned, accused, slandered, lied about all sorts of things, but they will be silenced.
[00:13:52] Now, their silence may not happen.
[00:13:54] Now.
[00:13:55] I think what Peter is actually saying here is something more eschatological. That means the end times.
[00:14:01] So the end of days. This is an end of days, eternal silence. This is a promise that the foolish will be silenced by God one day.
[00:14:13] So the way to silence the ignorant is to be good citizens, be subject to ruling authorities by abiding by the laws, by paying taxes, and so forth. Unless a law is directly causing you to sin, then you have a duty to obey it.
[00:14:34] The reason for this is that Jesus was a good citizen.
[00:14:39] He was a good citizen. You know, he told people, pay taxes to Caesar. When he was pressed on the issue, he submitted even to wicked Roman authorities that ultimately crucified him.
[00:14:52] This is all for the Lord's sake. Verse 13 says, and it is his will. And then verse 17, you can honor everyone.
[00:15:00] You can love the brotherhood. You can love, which would mean love the church. You can honor the emperor, and you can fear God. This one is central. We must fear God to do these others. In fact, fearing God is the greatest reason to honor rulers.
[00:15:16] Why is fearing God the greatest reason to honor your governing authorities?
[00:15:21] Romans 13:1 tells us, There is no authority except from God. So any authority anybody has, this even goes beyond government. But this is about government.
[00:15:32] No one has authority unless God has delegated it to them. He has ultimate authority.
[00:15:38] And the verse continues to say, and those that exist have been instituted by God. So if we fear God, we should honor and obey the institutions that he has created that he has given us. Fear for our own good.
[00:15:54] So be good and silence the ignorant.
[00:15:58] Point number two is, be good servants and suffer injustice. Be good servants, suffer injustice.
[00:16:09] Peter addresses servants in verse 18, which can also be understood as slaves.
[00:16:15] It's a word that's actually on Jim Gordon's sweatshirt. Doulos.
[00:16:19] This is unplanned.
[00:16:20] That is the word Here for servants or slaves, you can see it. There's a visual example.
[00:16:26] Now slavery then of course was maybe different than we typically think of. It wasn't necessarily race based. It did not involve stealing people from their homes and their land and taking them elsewhere, which would be wicked in any circumstance.
[00:16:40] However, even in a more fair system, this could be argued that this is contrary to nature. I would agree with that. But even in a more fair system, unjust and wicked masters still existed.
[00:16:53] Peter's acknowledging this reality.
[00:16:56] We know of some masters and servants that were even church members together.
[00:17:02] If you read the letter called Philemon, Philemon is written to a man who owned a slave named Onesimus who was a member of that same church.
[00:17:14] So we know of these. But there were times when a slave or a servant would become a Christian, but the master would not be one.
[00:17:23] We can understand that this would be difficult. But Peter doesn't tell them to revolt in the name of the Lord. He tells them to submit with all respect.
[00:17:34] I think this is maybe a little hard to grasp. He tells them to submit with all respect.
[00:17:39] And he calls this a gracious thing, grace, meaning a free gift from God.
[00:17:47] Now the key to understanding the graciousness of a servant joyfully suffering is found in Christ.
[00:17:57] We have a beautiful, wonderful picture here. The way that a servant could be expected to do this is because he can look to Jesus.
[00:18:06] He can see Christ. Verse 21 says that Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps.
[00:18:18] Now setting an example is not the only or even the primary purpose Christ had in his death. I don't want us to think this is only so that we can follow his example. But this was his intention to set an example for us to suffer. Well, believers can look to Christ and emulate his steadfast suffering and humble graciousness.
[00:18:41] We can see ultimate suffering. And that puts our suffering into perspective.
[00:18:47] Now, are you suffering?
[00:18:50] I'm sure some of you are.
[00:18:52] We've probably all suffered in some ways before, you know, some great suffering, some less great.
[00:19:03] Now a couple of weeks ago now, I was in the Atlanta airport.
[00:19:08] I don't like airports. I was taken out of line with my family as we were boarding a plane to come home from there.
[00:19:17] We had no seat assignment. For some reason, I don't understand why not?
[00:19:22] And so we had, you know, booked these tickets several, several months in advance. Anyway, we're taken out and then I get shoved into the tiniest little seat with the world's biggest under two year old in my Lap, probably.
[00:19:39] And it was difficult. And I, you know, suffered temporarily for about two and a half hours. It was difficult, I can't lie. It actually was a really trying time.
[00:19:50] But because of this, because of my tiredness and my frustration and my confusion and maybe a lack of communication, I wanted to give the staff a piece of my mind.
[00:20:01] I did.
[00:20:04] But I either thought this or I think more likely Katie said this to me. I don't remember.
[00:20:09] Is that what Christ would have done?
[00:20:14] I don't think so.
[00:20:16] He committed no sin when suffering, not one.
[00:20:21] He never deceived anyone or lied. You know, people reviled him, they insulted him, but he never shot back an insult.
[00:20:31] He did not threaten anyone, though. He is the God of the universe and created them.
[00:20:38] You can think of how perverse it is that sinful humans were physically pulling, punching and kicking and beating God, if only they knew what they were really doing.
[00:20:51] And he took it.
[00:20:53] He did not give them a piece of his mind.
[00:20:56] Instead, verse 24 says, Jesus bore our sins in his body on the tree.
[00:21:04] The sins of his people were heaped on his back, so that one day, by faith, you might have your burden of sin removed completely.
[00:21:15] That's why he did that. He took them up to the place of sacrifice and he atoned for your sins. He covered them with God's forgiveness through his death. Do you trust that Jesus did this for you?
[00:21:30] Do you really believe that?
[00:21:33] Then you must live who humbly before others, even if you're a slave, because Christ suffered for you.
[00:21:42] So we know how God saved his people. It was through Christ bearing sins on the tree.
[00:21:48] Now all this language of bearing sins on the tree, this is from Isaiah 53. But for what? What purpose?
[00:21:55] What purpose? Why did he do this?
[00:21:58] So that you might die to sin, live to righteousness, depart from living sinfully, and live in a righteous way. Christ's death has earned the ability for believers to truly live without sin. By the power of the Spirit, he has given us this ability. Think of your sins and how much it would be just to bear those sins, all the sins for your life, even future ones. And Christ bore the sins of all his people, past, present and future.
[00:22:34] So it is clear why Peter uses the example of Christ's suffering for servants and slaves.
[00:22:42] By his wounds you are healed.
[00:22:45] Who would know that imagery of being wounded better than a slave with a brutal master?
[00:22:54] A slave with a brutal master would certainly know what a wound is like. And by the wounds of Christ, you can be healed.
[00:23:02] You can be healed from the beating Jesus received. All the way until he was nailed to the cross and killed. He was accomplishing a great and lasting spiritual healing.
[00:23:16] So live by faith in Christ, students, and even if you suffer as a slave, then you can be sure that your soul is healed and you are glorifying Christ in your suffering.
[00:23:29] And God actually calls that a gracious thing, that a slave might suffer like Christ.
[00:23:36] So in that way, be good servants and suffer injustice if you must. For Christ's sake, consider the magnitude of your sins and wounds.
[00:23:46] Jesus, suffering and death was more than enough to cover your sins and heal them.
[00:23:52] Again, be good servants, suffer injustice.
[00:23:56] Now, point number three is, be good wives, show your character.
[00:24:04] Be good wives, show your character.
[00:24:13] You know, I'm sure all of you are equally interested in how to be a good wife, right? Everybody is equally interested in this. Let's be clear. This is directed primarily towards wives.
[00:24:25] But there are principles in this section for all of us and even in, you know, parts that are specific to women. We all live at least, probably somewhat close to at least one woman.
[00:24:37] And men, you know, I hope you all get to be married one day, and I hope God gives you the wonderful gift of daughters.
[00:24:43] Now, Peter moves from calling servants to submission to their masters into calling wives to submission to their husbands.
[00:24:54] Very sharp transition there. People might think, yikes, women and slaves in the same thought.
[00:25:03] You know, read the room, Peter.
[00:25:05] This is how he. This is how he goes into it. Now, these are not the same thing, but we can kind of see the logic of the apostle as we dig into it. So he's not trying to say that submission for wives is the exact same as the submission of a slave. Obviously, there should never be wounds or brutality from a husband to a wife, but submission primarily, and here's how it is all related. Submission is a matter of obedience to God first and foremost.
[00:25:37] That's how these are connected.
[00:25:39] Submission is a matter of obedience to God first and foremost.
[00:25:45] Not necessarily to a master or a husband or a president, but to God.
[00:25:53] Submission and obedience to husbands, similar to servants, not dependent on whether the husband is a believer either. Peter says, you know, now this is what he says. You know, if you happen to be married to an unbeliever, you know, this is not a license to necessarily do so intentionally.
[00:26:13] But if you happen to be married to one, you have the opportunity to show him Christ in your conduct.
[00:26:20] And that can be used in a wonderful, mighty way by God.
[00:26:25] Now here's how wives can glorify Christ to their husbands and even the watching world.
[00:26:30] Peter gives two.
[00:26:32] He says, be humble in your appearance. Number one, be humble in your appearance. So what Peter says must be understood in context.
[00:26:42] You know, for example, Peter literally, if we take things literalistically, Peter literally wrote in Greek to not put on garments.
[00:26:54] Obviously he's not telling them to wear no clothing at all. So we need to understand context to actually understand what he's saying.
[00:27:01] When Peter speaks of braiding hair, gold jewelry and other, you know, nice clothing is kind of the context. He's forbidding a couple of things. First, Peter's forbidding spending way too much time of one's appearance.
[00:27:16] Now why would we spend so much time on appearance other than for vanity's sake?
[00:27:22] Now, I want to be clear.
[00:27:23] He's not giving us a time limit for getting ready. He's not. I'm not going to give you a time limit for getting ready.
[00:27:31] It would be different.
[00:27:34] The purpose, I think for you is to be mindful of why you spend whatever amount of time you might spend getting ready. Is this for vanity?
[00:27:45] You know, something fleeting and temporary, self centered?
[00:27:51] If it is, that's the issue. That's the hard issue. Not necessarily the minutes and seconds or hours it might take because we certainly aren't to go around looking horrific on purpose. That's also not what Peter is saying.
[00:28:07] So just be mindful of the time you might spend. And second, I think he's forbidding something similar. He's forbidding spending exorbitant amounts of money. Again, no number given. I think this one maybe is especially hard when we live in a very wealthy country.
[00:28:29] You know, nice expensive clothes, shoes, accessories really does add up.
[00:28:37] You know, maybe we wear designer stuff, name brand things. We see wealthier people with this stuff and maybe we covet it, which is a whole other sin we should avoid.
[00:28:46] You know, there's an Instagram, or at least there was, I don't know that it's still active. There's an Instagram account called Preachers and Sneakers. Anybody heard of this? Preachers and Sneakers.
[00:28:57] Okay.
[00:28:58] Yeah.
[00:28:59] Wow, that makes me feel really old. I thought that was a pretty, pretty new reference anyway. Preachers and Sneakers, old Instagram account. I flipped through it to see some examples just so I could say them for your sake, you know, and also to demonstrate that this is not just a problem for women.
[00:29:17] This account has Featured Steven Furtick's $2,000 sweater.
[00:29:21] It has featured Mike Todd's shoes that range anywhere from $1,000 to $4,000. This is exorbitant amounts of money. This is problematic.
[00:29:36] We ought to be careful and mindful of how we, how long we take to look a certain way. How much we spend to look a certain way and to live and present ourselves humbly. That's what Peter is saying, to be humble in your appearance. So again, look nice and everything, you know, clean, take a bath. But just be mindful of whether you are being modest in your appearance.
[00:30:02] This is church, not an NBA arrival tunnel. It's church.
[00:30:07] You're not sga. You're not Westbrook.
[00:30:10] Let's be Tim Duncan together. No one's going to get that. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Grant Brian gets it. Yeah, look up Tim Duncan. You'll see.
[00:30:21] Very normally dressed man.
[00:30:23] Anyway, be humble in your appearance. Another way that Peter says to do this another way, he says that wives can glorify Christ to the watching world is by adorning your hearts.
[00:30:36] Adorn your hearts. And you don't have to be a wife to adorn your heart.
[00:30:41] You know, part of the reason we want to be humble is to emphasize the adornment of the heart. We don't want to distract from the character.
[00:30:49] Don't let immodesty steal attention from your beautiful and gentle spirit.
[00:30:56] That's all that's happening when we are immodest is we are distracting from the beautiful and wonderful heart that God is forming in you. This is pleasing to God, which is reason enough to do it.
[00:31:09] Seek spiritual growth.
[00:31:11] Pray for a gentleman and quiet spirit.
[00:31:15] And if and when you're married one day, remember that Peter says the holy women adorn themselves by submitting to their own husbands.
[00:31:23] Now, whatever you do, remember you are doing this for the Lord. This is for obedience to God first and foremost.
[00:31:32] And when you decide that your appearance is most important, then you're showing up Jesus.
[00:31:38] But we want Jesus to be the focal point of our lives and of our churches. And he was humble.
[00:31:45] He was the perfect model of humility. Isaiah 53, 2, 3 says, he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.
[00:31:57] He was despised and rejected by men. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not.
[00:32:12] The humble Christ was one from whom people would hide their faces.
[00:32:18] Let's not steal the glory, let's magnify the Lord instead and do everything we can to turn eyes to him.
[00:32:27] But humility to magnify Jesus extends beyond women and wives to men and husbands. So that's where Peter goes next. So this now to point number four. Be good husbands and show honor. Be Good husbands and show honor.
[00:32:46] Now, Peter addresses husbands here in verse seven, very briefly, not because it's less important, but because the main point is about submission in this context. Husbands are not the ones subject submitting.
[00:32:59] However, he wants them to not abuse their authority.
[00:33:03] He just wants to throw this in there because it is important. Husbands must live with their wives in an understanding way by showing them honor.
[00:33:13] They need to understand and know them. They need to honor them. Peter calls women here the weaker vessel.
[00:33:22] And since nowhere else obviously teaches that women are weaker intellectually or spiritually, we should just assume the obvious, that this is talking primarily and maybe solely about physical strength.
[00:33:36] Because of this, there is a natural sort of fear that women might have of men.
[00:33:43] Men should understand this.
[00:33:46] Especially married men will understand this. And again, I hope you know, at least a lot of you boys get to be married one day and you'll understand this. You can understand the vulnerable position that women have in marriage. They're weaker. The Bible is telling them to submit to their husbands. This takes a lot of confidence and faith in God.
[00:34:08] Now why should men behave this way?
[00:34:11] Because women are also heirs of grace with them.
[00:34:14] This would have been controversial culturally for them to have heard that they are heirs. They are receiving the exact same grace, the exact same way.
[00:34:23] They are co heirs of the grace of life. That is why they should be treated this way. Christ redeems women just as he does men, so they should be treated as fellow image bearers of God.
[00:34:39] Now, briefly, since most of you are not married, what is the significance for you now besides just thinking for the future?
[00:34:47] Even now you can start to think this way. Young men, you know the comparative weakness of women is not a laughing matter, something for jokes. It is a matter of duty for men to love and protect and be gentle towards women.
[00:35:02] That's what it is. That's how we can live today. And if you are married one day, and for those of you in the room that are married, you'll need to live with your wife, seeking to understand her, to honor her.
[00:35:14] And if you don't, there's an interesting warning here.
[00:35:19] Might be surprising. He says, I'll read it again. We read it quite a while ago.
[00:35:24] It's on the next page here.
[00:35:28] Your prayers. So that your prayers may not be hindered.
[00:35:32] Your prayers will be hindered.
[00:35:34] If you don't live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to them, your prayer life will be hindered.
[00:35:43] You should think about that.
[00:35:45] And young women learn to trust a godly man.
[00:35:49] Don't fall into the temptation to usurp his authority by manipulation.
[00:35:55] Let your future husband lead and encourage him and adorn your heart with faithfulness.
[00:36:01] Submission to authority proclaims the Gospel to the world and and benefits societies, households, marriages and the Church. It proclaims the Gospel to the world because Christ submitted. Christ was humble. We can follow in his example and tell and show people at the same time what he was like. So be good citizens, and in so doing you'll silence the foolish world. Be good servants of Jesus Christ and even be good workers one day.
[00:36:30] You know, suffer injustice if it happens to you in a dignified way. And remember in those times the suffering that Christ endured for his beloved children.
[00:36:41] You know if you are still enslaved to sin, it is only by his wounds that you can be freed. So trust in Christ that His suffering was sufficient for you. If you believe in him with full faith, you know one day seek to be good wives and husbands by adopting the gracious humility of Christ in your appearance and conduct. If you feel offended or puffed up by the call to submit, then continually think of the humility of Christ.
[00:37:12] God the Son became flesh and dwelt among us and died a brutal and shameful death.
[00:37:18] If you humble yourself, you can approach this Savior confidently and he will make you an heir of the grace of eternal life.
[00:37:29] That will always be true if you approach him with faith.
[00:37:33] Let's pray.
[00:37:34] Father, thank you for what you've given us even in authority in the world. God, thank you for governments that rightly punish evil and praise good Lord, Give us humility to be good citizens. Lord, if we suffer injustice. God, we pray that we would remember the sufferings of Christ and we would suffer well.
[00:37:55] God, help us one day or even today to be good husbands and wives to honor Christ in all that we do. Lord, help us to see that how we live in society, in our homes, in our marriages, in the church. All of this affects our witness that by living in a humble manner we can uphold and magnify the gospel that saves.
[00:38:20] Lord, we pray all of this in your Son's name. Amen.
