Dwell with Your Wife

I've mentioned this before, but I will mention it again. Hearing you sing is a huge blessing to me. So remain standing as I read the word. 1 Peter 3.7 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.

So you may be seated. we only have one verse to get through today if you were here a few weeks ago I actually said it would take me two weeks I think I can do it in one of course it might take an hour and a half but that was a joke everyone's like that's fine I was at a conference and I asked somebody how much time I had left And this one guy's like, just keep preaching. The guy running the conference is in the back. He's like, no, five minutes.

So, you know, you got to go by the boss there. All right, so in 1 Peter, we are looking at the instructions that Peter is sending to the Christians who are going to be suffering persecution. And his instructions to them start out very general. He tells them, be holy. and then he starts giving them some examples of how to be holy and he tells them why they ought to be holy because they've been called out of what they were called out of and he goes through and he tells them to obey the earthly authorities and he tells them to submit to earthly masters that are unjust and then he tells wives and we went over two weeks of what wives are supposed to do he tells them to submit to their husbands and to put themselves under the authority of their husbands And one of the reasons was that wives may be married to non-Christian men.

And one of the great temptations, if you were, you know, this is a new religion at the time, remember. There was Judaism and there were believing Jews. But this explosion of Christianity is brand new. and how to be a Christian as a Gentile in the world would have been something nobody understood quite yet. In the old covenant, you would have entered the nation of Israel, basically.

That's how you became one of God's people. And in the new covenant, you could have a husband and a wife living in Pontus or Galatia or Cappadocia or Asia or Bithynia, the areas that Peter was writing to. and you could have a Gentile wife and a Gentile husband and the wife gets saved and she's a Christian lady and her husband is a wretched man still. And maybe she had been also.

But now she's a Christian lady and she thinks she's got to obey what the Scripture says and she would be tempted to not know how to react to her husband when he acted the way he acted. And so Peter wrote some practical advice. And then in verse 7 he says, Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way. When he says likewise, I wonder, what does he mean likewise?

He just told women to submit to their husband's authority and to adorn themselves not with external flashy pretty things, but with the hidden purchase of the heart and imperishable beauty. And then he tells husbands likewise to do something. And I said, well, what does he mean by likewise? It certainly can't mean likewise husbands submit to your own wives.

That doesn't make any sense. We've talked about that already. Why women and wives are to submit to their husbands. One of the things I think Peter would have had in mind is that he was telling Christian men, Gentile men who had gotten married, and them and their wife had used to go to Bacchanalian festivals, and they had been getting drunk and they'd been worshiping idols together and doing all sorts of things.

And then suddenly, just like there were women who got saved, there were men who got saved and their wives were unsaved. And I think part of why Peter says likewise is he's writing to Christian men. And he's telling them how to persist maybe with an unsaved wife. And that's why he says likewise. He also says likewise, if we just work backwards in verse 1 of chapter 3, he says likewise wives.

So now he's referring back to something even before he talks to wives. In chapter 2 verse 18, he tells servants to be subject to your masters. So the way that servants are to be subject to masters is similar to how wives are subject to their husbands. In verse 13, in verse 12 and 11, he's basically telling them to act like Christian even in a wicked world and to submit to their authorities that they're under.

He would have been writing to a group of people in the Roman Empire who would have been very unjust authorities all the time. I mean, you might think America's been tough in 2020 because the governor has asked us to do some things that we don't think we should have to do. this is nothing like what they were dealing with in the first century and so Peter's trying to help people know here's how you exist in a relationship in particular with people who are non-christian they're going to cause you to suffer at times and like I said it goes all the way back to the first chapter where Peter says as obedient children do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance but if he who called you is holy you also be holy in all your conduct So this is how to be holy. So one of the temptations, if you were a Christian man, and you were married to some non-Christian woman, is to divorce her, I think.

You get saved You read something in a letter that Paul wrote to the Corinthians and it says Do not be unequally yoked with non And you look in the Old Testament and you see that the Jews were not to be mixed with people in their marriages. And you may think, well, the right thing to do at this point would be that I should separate from this person. without all the knowledge we have now I could see how that would not only make sense to them even from a this is how I can obey God standpoint but it would also be very tempting let's say you were saved out of some kind of lifestyle that your wife wanted to persist in and it was very tempting for you on a constant basis maybe you were getting drunk a lot and now you just want alcohol out of your house so that you can not have that temptation or maybe you're just embarrassed because you're a Christian and you're trying to do the right thing and your wife is hanging up idols around the house and wanting to go down to other religious worship centers. Who knows what kind of debauchery some of these people were in.

We can imagine some of it. We shouldn't think too explicitly about some of it. But so Peter tells husbands, he says, live with your wives in an understanding way. and in the King James and some of the other versions it says dwell with and so here what you have is you actually have a command to husbands live with her it's not the understanding part that's the focus here of this sentence and we're going to talk about what that means but the verb is live with, dwell with it's actually implied in the sentence that its conjugal rights are to be given.

In fact, if you're a husband who was living with a non-Christian wife at the time, or even a Christian wife, you weren't to divorce her, you were to live with her. In the same house, you were to sleep with her in the same bed, all the stuff you're supposed to do, and maybe even risk getting her pregnant. maybe a part of you thinks you don't want to have any more kids because she's not a Christian and she's going to teach them weird stuff and it's already hard enough and now I'm trying to go to church and everything I'm learning contradicts what we're doing at home and I'm trying to change things and she's rebelling against me because she doesn't do the first six verses of this because she's not even a Christian and it's going to be tempting to say, well, I'm not going to reproduce. or dues. I think that Peter is actually telling people, no, you need to live this life the way it's meant to be lived.

I also think that when Peter tells the wives or husbands to dwell with their wives, I think it's implied too, don't be gone all the time. Don't get one of these jobs where you're in a hotel 22 days a month and you're only home for four weekends or something. That's not being married. It is, but I think Peter expects Christian men to do more than that.

Don't have a mistress. Live with your wife. You shouldn't have some other lady whose house you go to. I think that dwelling with her is something that people overlook when they look at these verses. And maybe it's because we tend to live with one another. But I had a friend text me this morning.

So this wasn't part of the sermon because I was ready yesterday. But I had a friend text me this morning, told me his wife made him sleep on the couch last night. I think that's the kind of stuff that Peter's writing against. I think that we're to dwell with our wives. And it says, in an understanding way. And this is a really interesting passage. because the word understanding is the word gnosis which if anybody knows any Greek that word means knowledge or science and it's used 29 times in the New Testament in that form and every single time it's used it's translated as knowledge except for one time the translators of the ESV, ESV and the NASV and a couple other decided to say, live with your wives in an understanding way.

Whereas the King James and some of the others, they say, dwell with your wife according to knowledge. And it sounds different in your mind. And there's some things to think about here. One is that I do think that husbands should understand their wives. I think that wives are awful tricky. I was going to say awful and then pause and say tricky, but they're awful tricky sometimes.

And I think wives don't understand themselves sometimes. I think women have a different mode of working things out and communicating sometimes. And I think that husbands can really win their wives' hearts by dwelling with them in an understanding way, by learning your wife's little nuances, the way she says things, where she doesn't really mean what it sounds like literally, but you know what she means.

And things can get really special then when she knows that you know her. Almost like you could have a secret language. And that's something that comes over time. People who are married for a few years and then more years and more years, they start to have more of those instances where they really understand each other. And there's times that that's really difficult too.

I had a guy, his name is Michael Foster. He's got a ministry called It's Good to Be a Man. He's really like a man trainer. He's a good brother. He lives down in the Cincinnati area. I like him a lot.

One of the things that he taught me at the Builder's Summit last month was he said wives have their own different way of speaking He was explaining men are more logical and reasoning It just like A then B then C then D And you just kind of start at the beginning and you just get to the end And women are more convoluted in the way they talk things out and think it Convoluted was probably a loaded term I shouldn't have used. But what I mean is it's a little more twisty and turny to get to the same point. And it's part of the process.

And it's okay with this point that women are different. And that we should actually treasure the fact that women are different rather than try to make them communicate like men. And so part of living with your wife in an understanding way would be learning how to understand her. So when you don't get her, keep trying. Keep asking. When she's mad at you because you had to ask her what she meant when she thought she just clearly told you, just let her know that she wasn't clear and it's all her fault that you're not understanding.

That was a joke. We have to just keep trying to understand. We have to keep trying to help each other. And women, you can make it easier too. I don't want to beat the men over the head too hard. You guys can make it a little easier on your men sometimes.

I'll tell you my experience is this. When somebody tells me something, and this is what I do at work, I repeat back to them in my own words what I think they are saying. and that's how as a software engineer I create products for people that are what they want they say what they want, I repeat it back we kind of have a dialogue and then in the end we agree on well here's what you wanted and now it's what they said they wanted and I understand it properly and if I repeat something back to my wife and she just says well that's not what I said it's like well no it's not exactly what you said because I'm rephrasing And so I need her to work with me too. And I think everyone needs to practice communication.

Turn to 1 Corinthians 7, verses 2 through 5. I do think Peter has this in mind when we talk about knowledge. Do you remember if you read like the King James where it would say, and Adam knew his wife? And there were these phrases that implied a lot more than he knew her name, right? Adam knew his wife, and then Seth comes out, right? So we kind of know what those words mean, and we'll keep it PG for the church, family integrated church here.

But in chapter 7 of 1 Corinthians, Paul says to the Corinthians, but because of the temptation of sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband, for the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.

Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement, for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer. But then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. I do think that part of what Peter has in mind here, when he says to dwell with your wife with knowledge, has to do with actually living like a married couple.

It's not just make sure you understand her and when she cries, you give her a hug. That's not exactly, I think, what Peter means. Peter's talking about having knowledge, knowledge of God, knowledge about Christ, the condition of men and women, and specifically your wife. When I dwell with my wife in knowledge, one of the things that I have is I have the knowledge that God's Word has given me.

And God's Word has told me to live with my wife in an understanding way. And then it says, showing honor to her as a weaker vessel. So now we get into one of those open in a can of worm kind of verses. Because nobody wants to be called weaker. And if you're a woman in the room, and I get to be up here, and we're not going to let women preach in this church anyway, so you don't even get to argue against it if I'm going to say you're a weaker vessel.

And that can sound offensive. We live in a culture where to be called weak at all is offensive. What do they call it? Rugged individualism in America. We're all supposed to be strong and pick ourselves up by our bootstraps and show our strength. But one of the ways that I'm supposed to know God and know what He understands as a man and as a husband, and one of the ways you are as a husband and future husband, some of you boys in here, you're tuning me out already because you don't have a wife.

I'm actually giving you keys to knowledge that God's provided so that when you get a wife you know how to treat her so that you actually know what kind of woman to look for and what kind of man to be they always say don't look for Mrs. Wright become Mr. Wright and then Mrs. Wright will show up okay so the women are the weaker vessel it says here so what does that mean does this just mean that if you go to like any married couple's house you know she can't open the pickle jar and he can?

Is that what it's talking about? Does it mean that men always, every single time, are faster, stronger, bigger? I mean, I have a friend that's in a wheelchair and he's married and his wife has to do everything for him. I'm sure they don't read this passage and think, well, he's obviously the stronger physical one. Although I think it's true that in general men and women are made differently men are in general stronger, taller they have different ways that their muscles are that enable them to do different kinds of things men would be really bad at giving birth like look at my hips it's a little weird, don't look for long but it's not the way that we're built we're built differently and we live in a culture that wants to deny that and so what you watch is you turn on your TV which frankly I wish you wouldn but if you turn on your TV you going to see women fighting It 2020 it December The big celebration in the last month is that some girl kicked a football 13 or 25 yards for Vanderbilt University like a month ago It's like the biggest, most exciting thing in our nation right now.

I don't even want my little boys playing football, it's so rough. I can understand boys needing to do some rough stuff. I think it's part of how boys interact with one another. And some boys are made to play rough, and I get that. As much as I don't want my kids getting hurt, I've got one who I'm afraid he has to do a rough thing one day. But women are meant to have honor shown to them because they're the weaker vessel.

One of the ways we honor weaker vessels is that we exhibit, that we display for people, that we find them valuable, and we cover their faults. So Ephesians 5, Paul tells husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. I think one of the implications there is that you should protect your wife from some of her sin being made public.

Some of the stuff that you know happens in your house, you don't just call the guys and blab about it. certainly don't call to complain or gossip about her. And if you have to talk to a beloved friend who you trust to care about your wife as well because you want to help her with her sin issue, then great. And it should be a person you're pretty sure of.

But you don't go on Facebook and say, I can't believe what my wife just did and broadcast her sin. Jesus didn't do that with your sin. Turn to 1 Corinthians 12.22. I want to focus on what it means to be a weaker vessel here. I want you to understand that weaker vessel is not a negative term. It is not a term to be taken as derogatory.

And in fact, I think if you understand it correctly, you'll see that the woman being called the weaker vessel actually shows that she's in a sense more valuable. 1 Corinthians 12.22 Paul says on the contrary the parts of the body he's talking about the body of Christ but he's using a metaphor of an actual physical body he says the parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty which our more presentable parts do not require but God has so composed the body giving greater honor to the part that lacked it that there may be no division in the body but the members may have the same care for one another so let me give you an example here my eyes are an important part of my body and so are my toes they're all parts of my body I'm going to protect my eyes a lot more seriously than I'd protect a toe if you told me cut off one of my eyes or cut off one of my toes I wouldn't have to think about it there are parts of your body that you would never want to have malfunction there are parts of your body that if they malfunction, like we're going straight to the emergency room and then there's other parts of your body, the more presentable parts like your face for example that it actually wouldn't matter if something wasn't quite right. If there's a glass shard coming at you, you hold your arm up to protect your face because your arm is less valuable than your face and your mind.

Do you understand what I'm saying? It's not a perfect analogy, but this is the analogy Paul gives us with the body of Christ. That there's parts of our body that we give more modesty to. We cover them up. We hide them from view. but it's not because these parts aren't important or valuable. It's actually because of their amazing value and importance.

And some of them are almost crude to talk about but if you think about your body, there are parts that you're really glad work just fine and you would never show anyone that part. Important parts. Turn to 2 Timothy 2, verse 20. 2 Timothy 2, verse 20. I want you to understand something that when Paul and when Peter say that a woman is a weaker vessel, when God says it through Peter, this is not a description of anyone's worth or value.

It's not a bad thing to be weaker. I'm weaker than some people in this room. That's just how I am. It doesn't necessarily qualify me in any way. In 2 Timothy 20, Paul says, Now in a great house there are not only vessels, so there you have that word vessel again, not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable.

Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work. So think about this. more delicate items in your house, like a vase, or a nice wine glass, or something made of something very breakable like a porcelain figurine, they get more honor because they're weaker. But it ultimately shows that they have higher value.

You all have some little place in your house where the nicer things are that you don't let the boys or the little girls around yet. And then you have the stuff they're allowed to play with. the stuff that's weaker that's more easy to break the stuff that will more likely be crushed or shattered is the stuff that you actually show more honor to because it's But not because it's less valuable or less important to you, it's actually because it's more important that you do that. And I think that, I won't say God thinks women are more important than men, that's silly and it's contradictory to scripture, but I think that that's the attitude he wants us to have when we look at them.

I think men should treasure women in that way. So women are weak, or not only in strength in general, So I realize that there's going to be some exceptions where there's going to be some super strong woman out there that opens pickle jars with her left hand and like, no problem, whatever. You get an average man, average woman, the average man always is bigger, stronger, faster, with all things being equal there.

But women are weaker in a sense in temperament as well. Men are far more even keeled. I dare say in the room with some women that men are more reasonable it's a general rule and what I mean by that is not that women are unreasonable but I just think sometimes it takes women longer to get there men just, that's like their default give us a screwdriver and a screw and we will screw it in we don't even need a place to put it women will think about it longer and they'll do it but women are a little bit weaker in temperament in that sense we are to help women be all that they can be know that your wife isn't built to fight like you are she isn't designed to preach she isn't made to take punishment like men can and should they're meant to be guarded and protected and cherished and loved and a woman who's worth her keep will enslave herself to that kind of man a woman who's worth her keep will subject herself to the kind of man that will protect her with his own life a man that sees his wife as someone who he needs to go out and even kill himself if he has to to bring home the bacon for her.

A man who's willing to wake up early and work multiple jobs and do whatever it takes to lead family worship and take his family to church and dwell with her and love his kids and deal with her with all her sinfulness and with all her goofiness and potentially just like once a month like getting weirdly emotional for no apparent reason. That kind of man is the kind of man that women should want to actually subject themselves to their authority. 1 Timothy chapter 2 okay so this little thing about me I do not have sermon notes I am not a note guy and when I have notes this always happens when I'm jumping around and I have no idea where I am now it's why I never use notes I'm like I'm going to take notes this time and we'll just see how it goes but in 1 Timothy 2 Paul says in verse 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man rather she is to remain quiet he says for Adam was formed first then Eve and Adam was not deceived but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor and there's a lesson there that even from the beginning of creation there's a headship of the male that God has given us.

And so a woman like Proverbs 31 would talk about turn to Proverbs 31. This kind of woman should be valued. Men should want to seek this kind of woman. If you don't find this kind of woman your goal should be to try to help her become this kind of woman. If you're a young lady in here today you should be desiring to become this type of woman. If you're a young lady, you should memorize Proverbs 31.

It should be the very first thing you memorize. There's a lot of really good stuff there. If you're an old lady, memorize it. No discrimination here. How's that? If you're a boy, memorize it.

Memorize scripture. But in verse 10 of Proverbs 31, the writer says, An excellent wife who can find? It's a rhetorical question. He's like, nobody. she's far more precious than jewels he's basically saying this is really hard this is really hard to be an excellent wife and men you should value them more than jewels if you get a good one even if you get a bad one you should try to help her become that way wives are wives have a lot of good value look at the end of it verse 28 Proverbs 31.

Her children rise up and call her blessed. Her husband also, and he praises her. That's the kind of living with your wife in an understanding way and showing honor to her as the weaker vessel that a husband's supposed to do. This paragraph appears to be about the wife, but this is what a husband should do. He should praise her. Many women have done excellently, but you surpassed them all.

I mean, that's superlative there. that's like when guys go on Facebook like I have the prettiest wife in the whole world and people are like well of course you're supposed to think that about your wife you've surpassed them all and it says charm is deceitful beauty is vain a woman who fears Yahweh is to be praised Again your beauty and your adorning your external adorning it all temporary I've never been to someone's house where I looked at their wedding pictures and thought, oh, they look so much prettier now. Like, it's just like, we age and it just doesn't work that way. Very rarely, at least.

But as you've grown in Christ, has your husband seen you grow? And men, has your wife seen you grow? Is that what you desire in your partner, that godliness? So 1 Peter tells us, there are heirs with us of the grace of life. Women are heirs with their husbands of the grace of life. And this is why we show them honor.

There's two possible meanings here that people have come up with. if you're talking about husbands and wives that are married and they're both Christian, then it's easily just seen as this is a declaration that, hey, like, honor your wife. She's an heir with you. She's a co-equal in Christ with you. There's nothing different between men and women. There's no slave or free man or Scythian or, you know, men or women.

Everybody in Christ is one. We're all part of one body. There's nobody that's better than another. We're all saved by grace through faith alone. And I think that's a good attitude to have when you're talking to your wife. If she's your Christian sister, you don't think of yourself as like somehow her superior, even though you're her authority.

And women, when you submit yourself to a man, even an ungodly man, it's not because you think of yourself as being inferior. You're doing it because God has told you that's the structure that you're to follow. But if you're a man who's married to a non-Christian woman, and I know in this room we're not dealing with that, but if you are, and if somebody ever hears something like this, or maybe you're helping somebody else, I think that there is some promise in the Scripture that unbelieving spouses, when they're loved by their spouses, you have some hope that God is working on them.

In 1 Corinthians 7.14, Paul says even the unbelieving spouse sanctified by her husband probably is sanctified maybe I copied and pasted wrong that's weird for the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband it says otherwise your children would be unclean but as it is they are holy so I think that the Bible wants you to love your unbelieving spouse the Bible wants you to see your unbelieving spouse as an heir of the grace of life maybe the grace that Jesus Christ will one day give them through your testimony and through your witness to them but also maybe just the grace of life is just giving you children being married to someone and having children is a great joy and that's a gift that God gives both to believers and non-believers turn to Philemon we don't go there too much so we'll go to Philemon so if you don't remember what Philemon is about Paul's writing a letter to this guy Philemon he's over there in Cappadocia area I think and he's telling him that he's supposed to accept back this guy that was a slave who had escaped and in verse 8 he says accordingly though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required. So he's telling them, hey, you need to take back this slave guy Onesiphorus or Onesimus is his name. He says you need to take him back even though he escaped.

And even though he kind of did you wrong basically. And this isn't like American slavery and if you don't understand the difference between every time there was slavery in the Bible and slavery in the United States let me know and we can go through what all that means. But this guy is supposed to go back and he's a bondservant of this guy Philemon. And he's going back and Paul is getting ready to tell Philemon, hey, you need to forgive him because you're a Christian, he's a Christian.

And he says, I'm bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required. Paul's the apostle. Like we still, like people everywhere today around the country, there are probably dozens of men that stood and said, the greatest Christian to ever live was Paul. Like we all love Paul. He's a great guy. And Paul has enough boldness to say what he wants to say when he speaks.

He's mostly speaking for God. He was a prophet. One of the last prophets to ever live. But he says, yet for love's sake, I prefer to appeal to you. I, Paul, an old man and now a prisoner also for Christ Jesus. He says I appeal to you for my child Onesimus whose father I became in my imprisonment I am sending him back to you, sending my very heart.

I would have been glad to keep him with me in order that he might serve me on your behalf during my imprisonment for the gospel. Now listen, he says, but I prefer to do nothing without your consent in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion, but of your own accord. now how does this relate to me telling husbands that live with their wives in an understanding way and show honor to the woman as a weaker vessel since there errs with you the grace of life I think what I want you to understand is that I can stand here all day and if you wanted I could really get deep and I could tell you husbands how much you're failing, you all are, I am I'll admit it I could tell all you little guys that you'll fail too. You can go listen to a hundred sermons on being a good husband.

You can grow up in a nice church. You can get married and you'll fail. You're going to fail repeatedly. And then you're going to say, I won't do that again. And then you'll do that again. So I can hammer it if somebody wanted.

Somebody said, give me law. No gospel, just law. I can do it. But what I want you to understand is that I don't want you to go home and pretend to live with your wife in an understanding way because you think I just gave you a checklist about how to be a good husband. I don't want you to look at your wife and let her know hey I'm not divorcing you, am I?

I'm dwelling with you, aren't I? the point of this isn't to get you to have a little good list of behavior that you can try to follow so that you can feel like you're a good Christian what I want you to understand is I want you to be like Paul wanted Philemon to be, he wanted his goodness not to be by compulsion but of your own accord that's what I want, I want you to sit there and I want you to think to yourself I want to love my wife the way Christ loved the church. That's what I want you to think about. That from your own heart you desire what's best for her.

You desire to dwell with her. You desire to live with her in an understanding way. You desire to deal with all of her little sin and her idiosyncrasies and all the weird things and all the stuff that like if you didn't have sisters you didn't even know women did and then you get married and you're like whoa. I want you to want that stuff. I want you to wake up and want it.

Because Jesus Christ woke up and He wanted a bride. And He came and He did everything necessary. Look at Philippians 2. This was our Christmas sermon verse. If you weren't here. Philippians 2.5 Paul says, Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant.

So Jesus Christ came and took the form of a servant. He's God in heaven. Took the form of a servant. Became a man and basically came to serve. He said I came not to be served but to serve. Right?

You go to John 13. Read John 13. He literally wash Judas' feet. I wouldn't wash most of your feet. Jesus washed his betrayer's feet. Son of the devil.

And Jesus humbled himself to become a servant, not to seek his own interests, but to seek the interests of others. And he put himself as a servant underneath other people who didn't belong as his authority. And you men in here should have wives that are trying to do that. And some of them aren't doing it so well. And that's okay. We'll work on that too. but you have a person who in her heart that's what she's trying to obey and you can make it a little bit easier on her by loving her and if Jesus was able to do that and Jesus basically deserves all love and affection and adoration we can give him, your wife deserves it too and if she's not doing it well you love her until she does it and if she never does it you rest in Christ because he's the one that you can trust in so finally you get to the end of the verse Peter says in the end of the verse so that your prayers may not be hindered so he gives men this big long command basically live with your wives in an understanding way show honor to them as the weaker vessel why? because they're your heirs of the grace of life with you he says so that your prayers may not be hindered so there's some lessons here you're to be a praying people.

Timothy, 1 Timothy 2, Paul tells Timothy something interesting. 1 Timothy 2, 8, he says, I desire that in every place that men should pray. but he continues he says lifting holy hands and then listen he says without anger or quarreling and one of the questions is as you're living with your wife in an understanding way and as you're dealing with the daily pressures of being the head of the household and trying to work and bring home money and trying to budget and trying to raise kids and trying to spank them or tell her it her turn to spank them all the different things that happen in the household And as your sin is starting to butt up against her sin or maybe her sin is butting up against you and you're not even sinning right then, whatever it happens to be, as there's quarreling, as there's anger, your prayers are hindered. Have you ever had one of those moments where you kind of like prayed an angry prayer?

God wasn't listening, even if you're a Christian. Paul says, I desire in every place men should pray lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling. So if you're quarreling with your wife, you don't have any confidence that God's listening to your prayers. In 1 John 3.22, John says whatever we ask, we receive from him because we obey his commandments.

You don't have to turn there. Peter told us in chapter 2 of the epistle that we're reading, that we're supposed to be a living building, right? A living dwelling place, offering spiritual sacrifices. verse 5 acceptable to God through Jesus Christ your job is to be a holy priesthood it's literally your role you were saved, you're a child of God you've been adopted you're a saint so you've been made holy and set apart by God but one of the things we are is we're priests we are now intercessors, we're mediators we're people with direct access to God and you get down and you pray that your kids are going to be saved and maybe you pray that your wife will change in some way.

Maybe you pray for our country. Maybe you pray for an end to abortion. Maybe you pray for help with your own sin. But if you're offering your gift at the altar and you there remember that your brother has something against you, Jesus said, leave your gift at the altar and go. He said, first be reconciled to your brother, then come and offer your gift. If you have a quarrel with your wife, if you're angry with her even if she did something really really wrong and you didn't do anything wrong that time if you're even angry with her God he doesn't promise to listen to your prayers so you can get down you can pray all you want for her to change God's waiting for you to confess your anger God's waiting for you to do something about the quarreling when I say God's waiting for you it's a figure of speech don't jump on that one God does what he wants when he wants so the exhortation is this love your wife dwell with her try to understand her don't give up they're difficult I know they are and I'll tell you what there's nothing like becoming a pastor to start hearing more stories like all of a sudden people just want to tell you stuff I get these text messages from people that I've hardly known and they just tell me these stories about their wives I know that men are difficult too but Jesus Christ he came into the world and saved us from our sin so now you have power you're not powerless you have the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit indwells you and the Holy Spirit convicts you of sin and so you go to God and you say God help me to do this thing that I can't do without the power of the Holy Spirit Peter didn't write the letter as a general epistle men are from Mars, women are from Venus try to understand them, that's not what he said Peter's telling Christian men this is how you are to live your life in a wicked and perverse generation so that you might be holy and not conformed to this world but transformed by the renewal of your mind and I'll tell you this if you men can even try to approximate to do some of the things that Peter is telling you to do I think it will also work for the transformation of your wife in ways that maybe you can't even predict, but ways that God will bless you with.

Let me pray. Father, we thank you that your word is always true, that there is nothing about your word that we need to be afraid of, but that you always provide. That you are always the one who knows what we need. You knew when you had Peter pen these words that even today, thousands of years later, we would be reading them and studying them and trying to understand how they applied our life.

So I pray that as we deal with the consequences of our fallen nature, that you would help us to repent of our own sin, that we would be able to help others with their sin and bear one another burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. In whose name I pray. Amen.