The Duty and Beauty of Wives: Part 2

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Worship Before the Throne of God: Part 3

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I'd like to continue this message on the duty and beauty of wives. This will be part two of what we covered last week.
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As we continue our study through this wonderful epistle of 1 Peter, such an encouraging book, isn't it?
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It's an encouraging book for the believer in Jesus Christ, and especially to the persecuted believers in that time period, as Peter wrote this under the inspiration of God.
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So in saying that, please turn with me as we continue to the third chapter of this wonderful epistle, 1
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Peter, chapter 3. 1 Peter, chapter 3, as we continue to look at verse 1 through 7, reading from the
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NASB translation, hear the word of the living God. In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands, so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives.
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As they observe your chase and respectful behavior, your adornment must not be merely external braiding of the hair and wearing of the gold jewelry or putting on dresses, but let it be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable quality of a gentle and a quiet spirit which is precious in the sight of God.
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For in this way, in former times, the holy women also, who hoped in God, used to adorn themselves, being submissive to their own husbands.
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Verse 6, just as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, and you have become her children if you do what is right without being frightened by fear, any fear.
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And then verse 7 basically gives us a word to the husbands. We're going to look more at that next week,
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Lord willing, but this includes in this whole section. You husbands, in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way as with someone weaker, since she is a woman.
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And show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life so that your prayers will not be hindered.
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And God richly bless the reading of His holy word from our ears to our hearts this morning. Let's pray and ask our
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Lord to help us as we look into His word during this worship and to Him within this hour.
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Our God and our Father, Lord, we would pray that our hearts would be fixed upon Thee and Thee alone.
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As we worship You, Lord, we need Your help. Lord, help us to worship
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You in the beauty of Your majestic holiness and the beauty of Your holiness in spirit and in truth,
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O God. And through the blood sacrifice of Your Son, Jesus Christ.
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Lord, nothing is going to be accepted unless it's through Christ, in Christ, through Christ.
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Father, we truly recognize that the worship we would give unto Thee this morning would not be acceptable unless it's through Your beloved
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Son. It must also be through faith. So, Lord, I pray help us.
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I pray help us, O Lord, to turn our eyes upon Your beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, buried and resurrected.
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Melt our hard hearts this morning, Lord. Give us brokenness. Break our bones if necessary.
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Give us unto us a warm affection to love You even more. Lord, all of this is not possible within our arm or flesh.
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We cannot do it. And we need Your Holy Spirit to do this within us. So, Lord, we look to You.
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Not by might nor by power, but by Your Spirit, says the Lord. Lord, we would ask this in Jesus' name for Your glory and Your glory alone.
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Amen and amen. Well, beginning in chapter 3 of 1 Peter, of this epistle, the
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Apostle Paul, not the Apostle Paul, I'm sorry, but the Apostle Peter addresses the roles of husbands and wives.
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He's speaking about submission within the home. This is a great needed topic to preach on.
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We could stay here a long time, but after today, I want to preach one message,
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Lord willing, next week to husbands. So, I think husbands need at least a full sermon. Wives, you're getting two.
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You're getting two full sermons. But we really can do a whole series on this, can't we?
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Because the home today, especially in our day, is in such a mess. It's so chaotic, and we know the reason for that.
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There's so much sin. Homes are not Christ -centered anymore.
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It's rare, even among Christian circles, that's sad to say, to even see a
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Christ -centered home. But that's the order in which
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God gives. So, the Apostle basically addresses the roles of husbands and wives, and the bulk of it,
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Peter gives instructions, is to the wives. Six of the seven verses in this passage are dedicated to the conduct or the behavior of wives.
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The command for wives to submit to their own husbands is found twice within our text.
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Twice. In 1 Peter 2, if you look at the previous chapter, beginning with verse 11, through that whole chapter all the way to chapter 3, verse 7, the
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Apostle Peter gives three difficult commands regarding submission.
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I was thinking about this, and we need to remember the commands that he has given leading up to what he is saying in chapter 3.
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They are difficult commands. They're very difficult regarding submission.
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But submission is our key word here. The first command he gives is a command for all
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Christians to submit to a pagan government and to honor an emperor at that time, which was
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Nero, who was responsible for many deaths of Christians. So that's a hard command, isn't it?
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Could you imagine reading this letter to the church and being an elder from the Apostle Peter and I read for the first time to persecuted believers in that time period, and then they hear this.
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You're to submit to technically pagan government to honor an emperor that is bloodthirsty.
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It's incredible. That's a hard command. But that's the first command he gives. The second command he gives to Christian slaves in that time period to be obedient to their masters.
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That's a hard command. Even to unjust masters. They were being mistreated.
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And unjust ones who may even cause them physical harm, that were abusive. He commands them.
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Be submissive. You see his track. The third command is to Christian wives.
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And how does he address this? To submit to their non -Christian husbands.
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At a time when, by the way, the status of women did not mean very much. Now I got to thinking about this.
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That's the track in which he is given. Completely impossible for anyone to do under their own power.
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Completely impossible. Takes the Holy Spirit, doesn't it? And that's where he's going.
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The Apostle Peter is talking about this. Now, the question that arises is, why does he give such hard commands?
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That's a good question, isn't it? Why? And I'd like to touch on that just a little bit before I get into...
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I only got one point today, and we're going to talk about Sarah's obedience as a godly woman, a godly wife to Abraham.
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But within the introduction, I want to address just a little bit, why does he give these reasons and these commands to these persecuted believers in that time period?
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Peter does not leave us without any reason for these commands, does he? God always gives a reason for his commands.
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Always. He just provides the theological basis on this.
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It is theological because it's doctrine. It's sound doctrine. It's sound teaching.
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Don't hear much of this today. People want to hear cute stories and everything, but to hear sound doctrine preached today, it's considered boring in our time period.
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But I'm telling you what, I hunger for sound doctrine. But he does provide the theological basis for these difficult commands within his letter.
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Now, I also want to note this, that the Christians of Peter's day were living in a very hostile environment.
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Very hostile. Very violent, hateful toward the truth.
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Where it is not always possible to win converts by the way of audible persuasion.
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Does that strike a chord with you today? Is that familiar? I believe this speaks to our day as well.
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We're living in a day that is very similar. People do not want to hear the truth. They shut their ears. They don't want to hear it.
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I've seen this. I know you've seen it. They hear about repentance. They don't want to hear repentance.
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That's a dirty word. Hear about submission. They don't want to hear about submission. They want to hear about their best life now.
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They want to hear about the blessings. The promises. But no one wants to hear about the hard things.
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No one wants to hear about suffering and affliction and a crucified Savior to hone a cross for their sin.
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You see, people don't want to hear that. They'll shut their ears and run the other way. People have itching ears. They want to hear what they want to hear.
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But we need to hear the hard things. It's the hard things that really help us grow in the grace and the knowledge of Jesus Christ, isn't it?
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It's the hard things that Jesus said when He talked about unless you eat of My flesh and drink of My blood, you have no part with Me.
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That's hard. As a matter of fact, when Jesus mentioned that, many of the disciples did not follow
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Him no more from that time period. And even the twelve that was with Him, He looked to them and He said, will you also go away as well?
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Peter said something wonderful. Peter, where are we going to go to, Lord? You have the words of eternal life.
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Where are we going to go? Well, it's the hard things that we need to hear.
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Yes, we need to be encouraged into faith. But as Tozer says, we need to allow the
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Word of God to encourage us and also allow the hard things, the instructions, the corrections.
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We need to allow the Word of God to correct us as well as to encourage us. Well, this is so true in our day, isn't it?
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And our day in which we live is very similar. So Peter encourages the converts of that time period that they may be won by godly conduct, their behavior.
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He's being evangelistic. He's being evangelistic in everything that we see from chapter 2, chapter 3.
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And basically chapter 1 is foundational when it comes to salvation.
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But then all of a sudden he goes from worship to evangelism. That's Peter.
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Peter is not what you would say like the theologian, the apostle, in the sense of the apostle
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Paul. He is an apostle appointed, of course. He walked and talked with Jesus. Paul didn't have that privilege.
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Paul was a different kind of apostle. They had their own gifts, and he was more of your...
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He was really into... used to be a Pharisee. He was more into going into the letter and the law.
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You don't see Peter going into that much. He's very common, very practical as a fisherman does.
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But he's being himself. But the Spirit of God always... Notice what they say ties right directly in on the same thing.
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Always points them to Christ. Always goes to Jesus Christ. Never to themselves.
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They're apostles. Well, he begins, and if you notice this, it begins in verse 12 of chapter 2, prior to the commands of the submission in chapter 2, verse 13, to chapter 3, verse 5.
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As I said, Peter believes that the pagans whom the Christians were living amongst in that time period would be able to even recognize and to see their godly character, their godly behavior.
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You know, there's no greater example than a living example. Isn't that the truth? And what about a godly example?
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This is the day in which we live. You do your best by telling people verbally the gospel.
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They don't want to hear it. But there's one thing they're doing. They're looking at you, they're looking at the way you react to that, even to their hostile rejection toward the gospel.
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They want to see how you react to it. Sometimes I believe they test us. Well, a godly life, a holy life, is the greatest example that we can give to a hostile, ungodly, wicked world.
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It's a lot of impact. It has a great, a lot more impact than we think. Many times
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I'm, speaking to myself, I think when I'm witnessing out there and verbally trying to communicate the gospel, and we need to do that, don't we?
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We need to tell them about Christ. But they are looking at our lives more than what they want to, what they are hearing,
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I should say. And this is what Peter is saying.
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Notice verse 12 of chapter 2. If you go back a little bit.
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Keep your conduct, your behavior, excellent among the Gentiles.
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Keep your conduct, your behavior, excellent among the Gentiles so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, your good deeds as they observe them, glorify
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God in the day of visitation. And notice what Peter says to the wives, to a ungodly non -Christian.
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That, in verse 2, that they observe your chase and respectful behavior.
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Notice that. Observing your, the way you act, the way you react, the way you conduct yourself.
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That's character. That's character. That's what he's focusing on. Everything here is evangelistic.
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So Peter believes the godly life or godly conduct, godly behavior, living a holy life will lead non -Christians to glorify
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God. Peter is very evangelistic. And this is so obvious in the command which is given in 1
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Peter 3. Commanding wives to be subject or be in submission to their own husbands.
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Their own husbands. Not someone else, their own husbands. It's personal.
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He gives them the reason actually behind this command and he states this, so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won.
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They're not always won. It's not always guaranteed, is it? And I believe many can speak from experience in this room here.
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And many others that's hearing me by sermon audio can hear, can testify that a wicked person that someone's married to may not always be won.
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But they may be won. There's always hope. Without a word.
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By the behavior of their wives, by the conduct of their wives. And I don't want to go into the details of that, but we always trust
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God. I know if you've been married to someone else that was very, very difficult in your life, we always hope for the best in their life, don't we?
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Hope that they do come to Christ. Always trust in God that they will come to salvation.
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Always. But some may testify that that's not always the case.
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I believe a lot of people overlook these little words that they may be won.
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So part of the theology behind these commands, what is it? Is to submit, is grounded in a deep, deep love for their souls.
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Souls of others. And isn't that the way the true Christian is? They are concerned for their souls.
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Because this life is so short in comparison to eternity. It's a grain speck in comparison to a wide, infinite space, a duration of eternity, which will never, ever stop.
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It's sobering. Only one life to soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last.
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Brother Keith shares that all the time. Always reminding each other, this life is so short. And it doesn't mean that you go for the gusto now.
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No, no, no, no. It's opposite. You live for Christ and you live for others.
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Not for yourself. Wow. Well, may
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I add that it's not only for a deep, deep love of souls. It is even a deeper love for the
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Lord Jesus Christ. That's the one. He's the one that really matters. Because everything we do we'll witness as unto
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Him. Notice that in Acts 1 .8. Read that very closely. After they received the power of the
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Holy Spirit. And by the way, the power of the Holy Spirit given there to believers was the power to evangelize.
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Was the power to go out into the world and be witnesses unto Christ. He says, you be witnesses unto me.
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I'll give you power from on high. The power of the Holy Spirit to be a witness.
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But I believe that power is to be a life of worship. Our lives are like a worship unto
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God. A sweet smelling aroma unto God. That's what we need.
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That's what we desire as Christians. So it's unto the Lord Jesus Christ. But it's also a deep love for souls as well.
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So to act in a submissive way, in a submissive manner. To think of others more than yourself.
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Is really the point that Peter is bringing out here. It's theological. But another theological basis behind these commands is based upon faith in God.
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Those three words. Jesus said it to His disciples. Have faith in God.
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And then He said, and then He adds Himself right in there because He's God in the flesh. He says, let not your heart be troubled.
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You believe in God, believe also in Me. You believe in God the Father, but believe in Me.
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And in My Father's house are many mansions, many dwelling places. And I go to prepare a place for you.
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Isn't that glorious? And then He says, if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again. He's coming again.
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Glory. With just simple childlike faith in God. Those three words. Lord help our faith.
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Help my unbelief. I cry out to God all the time. I said, I have small little faith.
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But Lord help my faith. Peter commands Christians to submit to every human institution.
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He says it's for the Lord's sake. For the Lord's sake. He goes on to say in verse 15 of chapter 2, this is the will of God.
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This is what God desires. And in verse 19, Peter reminds Christian slaves to be mindful of God as they are suffering unjustly.
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So it's all a faith in God. Faith in God. And now we see in chapter 3, 1 through 6 here, as we come to our text that Peter commands regarding how
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Christian women should adorn themselves, and then says in verse 5, for in the way in former times,
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Old Testament times he's talking about. He's taking them back now. The holy women also, who hoped in God, that basically means they trusted in God, used to adorn themselves being submissive to their own husbands.
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The same thing as he begins with, he says, wives be submissive to your own husbands.
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So now he comes to the point in verse 5, within this letter, he says,
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I gave you the commands, now I'm going to give you an example. And then he goes, where does he go to the example?
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He goes to the Scriptures. He goes to the book of Genesis.
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Isn't that glorious? He doesn't tell cute little stories. He doesn't even go to his own wife.
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Does he? He goes to a godly woman as a Jew. Keep in mind, he's a
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Jewish man. And he has read about Abraham, the father of faith.
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But he also, as he's thinking, as the Spirit of God is directing his thinking and writing, he's thinking about godly wives and holy women of old, he thinks the same.
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It's beautiful. Well, last Lord's Day, as we looked at, we looked at verse 1 and 2, the heart of a godly wife, and we also looked at verse 3 and 4, the true beauty of a godly woman.
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And today, I want to just summarize it to one point. Verse 5 and 6, verse 5 and 6, two verses of Scripture, the examples of submission that's given, the examples of submission that's given of holy women of old.
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There were many holy godly women in the Old Testament. Many, many. Actually, Sarah is not the only one, but there are many.
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And you see this as he speaks this in verse 5. For in this way, in former times, the holy women also, who hoped in God, trusted in God, used to adorn themselves, being submissive to their own husbands.
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And then he brings it out in verse 6. Just as Sarah obeyed
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Abraham, calling him Lord, and you have become her children, if you do what is right, without being frightened by any fear.
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Well, you definitely see here that Sarah adorned herself. These holy women of old adorned themselves by cultivating moral, spiritual, inner beauty.
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It was the character that was their inner beauty. They did not rely on their outer beauty, their outer adornments to others, but nurtured a heart that was submissive to their own husbands.
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It had to be cultivated. These holy women trusted in God, and they lived a
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God -centered life, and they always desired to please God in everything that they did.
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And that is a holy woman of God. A woman that desires to please
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God in everything that they do. And they recognized God's order in the home, and they were submissive to their own husbands.
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That's what Scripture is saying. That's what he's saying. So again, many examples are found throughout the Bible. We can go to many, many, but actually
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I'm going to stay to the text here because Peter brings out one woman. This one godly woman in the
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Old Testament that's cited as an example of submission to her own husband,
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Abraham. I believe it has a lot to do that Abraham was the father of her faith, so now he goes to Abraham's wife,
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Sarah. Now we know that she was not always perfect. Matter of fact, she messed up a lot of times.
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And it was her idea that actually coerced Abraham because of the promise of the seed, that God gave the promise to take a
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Hagar. And you know what happened there. Ishmael came about, and from that time period, things have been really messed up.
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I believe Brother Ben did a really great job on being too late or too early. That's another example right there.
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They got ahead of God, and they were not waiting God. They were not patient on God, and especially Sarah. It was her idea.
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And that was disbelief and leaning on the arm of flesh. What a lesson that we can all learn from that.
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I think we've all fallen prey to that, haven't we? We've gotten ahead of God.
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I've gotten ahead of God. I've leaned on the arm of flesh sometimes, and I found myself going in circles on the backside of a desert because I leaned on the arm of flesh one time, and the whole time.
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And that was saying, it's almost like God, I remember this time period when
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I messed up. I got ahead of God. I wanted to do something
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I thought would be in the ministry. So I joined the army to try to become a chaplain.
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Come to find out, once I got in there, you had to have pastoral experience. And at that time, I didn't have pastoral experience.
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Then I said, I'm basically stuck in the army now. So God says, see, that's what you get for getting ahead of me.
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And then many times, God put me in a place, and Teresa, I know, remembers this, in a barracks, and there was an old church right across the barracks, and it had a bell, not a bell on it, but it would play a hymn every day.
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And guess what that hymn was? Be still my soul. God knew exactly what
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I needed. Be still my soul. And it's like God put me on the backside of the desert, and now
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I couldn't get out of the army. God says, see, you shouldn't have got ahead of me. But what a lesson it was for me.
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Well, there's lessons here. That's the reason I brought that out, that personal lesson to myself. There's many more other details, and not until God's good time, but He put me in the backside of a desert to have me, where I couldn't do nothing but to sit back and trust in Him.
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Well, here the example is given from Scripture. That's the greatest example, isn't it? Holy women of God did not rely on their external looks.
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They didn't rely on her prettiness, trinkets, other sorts of external beauty to make herself appealing.
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No, she did not rely on, as Peter says, the braiding of the hair, the wearing of gold jewelry, putting on the dresses to make herself attractive.
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In other words, it's not saying that all that's bad.
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He said you don't rely upon those things because those are external. What really matters in the sight of God is the internal man, your inner man, the heart.
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And that's what He's saying. You must look at the heart. So Sarah's beauty, like so many godly saints, was not simply skin deep.
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Her attractiveness was the fruit of righteousness and a humble heart that simply trusted in God, right?
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A humble heart. You don't hear that much today, but she definitely had humility and she simply trusted in God at this time period in which
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He's talking about. Now, she didn't always trust in God, but she did trust in God when it came down to it.
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Kind of like Abraham, too. You remember when he went into Egypt and he lied about Sarah not being his wife but being a sister.
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And then God allowed the plagues to come on Egypt at that time and to the Pharaoh and basically the
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Pharaoh said get out of here. Because he knew it was because of him lying like that that those plagues came about.
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It's almost kind of like Jonah. He knew exactly what he was doing.
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He was trying to run. He was running from God and hiding from God. He couldn't hide from God. He found that out.
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And when the storm came and even the pagans recognized after they drew lots, said this man right here, this is the reason why the storm's coming.
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And you know what happened after all that? Many believed. It's incredible how God in His sovereignty uses and orchestrates all these things to bring people to Himself.
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Isn't that glorious? But it brings so much hope and encouragement to us because when we see things like this in our life, we don't need to get discouraged or despair.
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God's in control. God is sovereign. He is working His will. Isn't that glorious?
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It's glorious. It causes the worship. Worship. So she always was ready and willing to yield to her husband's position of authority in the home and which was in compliance with God's original plans and purposes from the beginning.
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As it said, just as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord. And by the way, that word
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Lord is noticed in your Bible. It's with a small l. A small l.
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It's not a capital L. It's actually in translation it means
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Sir. It's a respectful title. So she's given respect.
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She doesn't worship him. That's not what it means. It's basically saying that she's obeying him, but she's giving reverence to him.
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She's respecting him as her own husband. So it means Sir. And you have become her children if you do what is right without being frightened by any fear.
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Now, the example is given from the book of Genesis. So go with me to the book of Genesis.
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And what comes to my mind here is Genesis chapter 18. Genesis 18.
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I don't have the time to read through this whole chapter, but this whole chapter is very significant.
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And it's very important before we go into chapter 19 of Genesis because in chapter 19 is the doom of Sodom.
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But there's two important things I believe we can learn from chapter 18. There's two things that come up.
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First is the promise, the birth of Isaac is given by God Himself.
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We're going to see this. God Himself comes to Abraham.
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It's amazing that God Himself would appear. God Himself would come down to Abraham and give the promise.
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Well, this promise is very critical because through this promise, the seed, the
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Lord Jesus Christ would come. And that's the reason why it's so important. But it's amazing that when we look into this chapter,
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I want us to read verse 1 to 14. Let me begin reading.
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Now, the Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre. And the hymn here is
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Abraham. He appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre while he was sitting at the tent door in the heat of the day.
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It was very hot. And he had tents. You know, Abraham was constantly on the journey, wasn't he?
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He had tents. He never considered this world his home. He was looking for a city which has foundation, which builder and maker is
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God. So he was putting up tents everywhere. He's just here for a short time. He knew that.
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And then in verse 2 it says, And when he lifted up his eyes and looked, behold, three men, three men were standing opposite of him.
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And when he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth.
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There's a reason why he did that. Before we go any further, I've heard many other translations, commentators, preachers on this.
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And some people feel that those three men were Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost. But that's not true.
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Here, there is a theophany. One of these men is
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God Himself, Yahweh. The other two is two angels.
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How do we know this? If you go to beginning in chapter 19 of Genesis, Scripture always speaks, doesn't it?
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Scripture interprets Scripture. Notice it says, Now the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, as Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom.
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Those were the two angels that were with God. God sends these two angels to destroy this city.
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They do the destroying. Even though God is the one that is orchestrating and ordering it,
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God is on His throne. But here, Abraham recognized that one of these men was not a normal man.
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He might have not recognized it right at a glance, but he does eventually recognize it.
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And he bowed himself to the earth, in verse 3, and said, My Lord, that is
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Yahweh, Yahweh, my Lord, if now I have found favor in your sight, please do not pass your servant by.
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And then he says in verse 4, Please let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree.
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Now, it's almost like he's in a mad dash to give hospitality that's pleasing to them. And he says,
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I will bring a piece of bread that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may go on, since you have visited your servant.
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And they said, So do, as you have said. Amazing. In verse 6,
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So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah, his wife was there, and said,
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Quickly prepare, you can almost see him in a frenzy, and he goes to his wife, We've got some hospitality to do here.
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We've got an important guest. So quickly prepare three measures of fine flour, knead it, and make bread cakes.
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That was a special dinner. And Abraham also ran to the herd, and took a tender, and a choice calf, and gave it to the servant, and he hurried to prepare it.
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Notice they're in a big hurry here. And he took curds and milk, and the calf, they had quite a meal there, milk and curds, and meat, good meat here, almost kind of like the meal of the prodigal when he came home.
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They took the fatted calf, and killed it. The calf which he had prepared, and he placed it before them, and he was standing by them under the tree as they ate.
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He had a meal, it was communion, it was fellowship. And then in verse 9, And when they said to him,
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Where is Sarah your wife? Now this is one of the purposes of their visit. Where is
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Sarah your wife? And he said, There in the tent. She's there in the tent.
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And he said, I will surely return you, to you, at the time next year, at this time next year.
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And behold, Sarah your wife will have a son. Now you got to remember, Sarah and Abraham was very much up in age.
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They're actually, if I'm not mistaken, you can look, you can check this out, I believe they were like in their 80s.
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Yeah. That's pretty much up in age to have a child, isn't it? And you mention that to someone today, it's ridiculous.
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But this is God speaking. Your wife is going to have a son.
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He's going to have a son. She's going to have a son. And Sarah was listening at the tent door.
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She was listening in, which was behind him. And now
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Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age. And Sarah was past childbearing.
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Way past it. What was her reaction? Look at verse 12, and this is, this is what
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Peter is really thinking of in his text in 1 Peter 3. Sarah laughed to herself, or within herself, saying, after I have become old, shall
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I have pleasure? My Lord, there it is, my Lord being old also?
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In other words, you've got to be kidding me! And the
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Lord said to Abraham, why did Sarah laugh? Saying, shall
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I indeed bear a child when I am so old? You know, God knew why she laughed.
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God's always asking questions to probe that person. It was probing
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Abraham's heart. Why did your wife laugh? And then
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God says, is there anything too difficult for the Lord? Is there anything too hard for the Lord? What a question!
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Is there anything too hard, too difficult for the Lord? At the appointed time,
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I will return to you at this time next year, and Sarah will have a son.
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Not might, she will have a son. And when God says it, it's going to happen.
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And Sarah denied it, however, saying, I did not laugh. She was almost terrified, for she was afraid.
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And He said, no, but you did laugh. It's almost humorous, isn't it?
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Well, here the emphasis is that laugh, that laughter was within herself, to herself.
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She did not go around, she did not go around making a loud profession of her faith or her submission to Abraham, did she?
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She did not publicly go around calling Him Lord. But it was in quietness and a gentle spirit.
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Her inward adornment of beauty, her inward life, she recognized Him as the Head. She was submissive to Him.
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She obeyed Him. And it was this recognition that was displayed by her actions, not by her words.
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And that's actually Peter's point. It was her actions, it was her conduct. You know, it's so true.
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Actions speak louder than words. That's a biblical principle.
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She had true inner beauty. She had true godly character. She had godly modesty.
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And most important, she had true submission to Abraham. You know, she was really truly submissive.
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Abraham has these three guests come, hurry up, make a meal. And she gets right to it. She didn't say, oh, hold on, hold on.
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No, she basically, you know, sometimes that can be kind of rude. And I always check with my wife first before we have someone over to make sure it's okay.
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But, and she's always been very good at that. But the point here is her submission.
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It was to Abraham. And that's what Peter is basically saying. This is an example of godliness.
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And these women who follow Sarah's example are her children. That's what the Scripture says.
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Jewish women. Jewish women are descendants of Sarah by natural birth, right? But to her daughters, in the best sense, they must imitate her personal character.
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And that's exactly where he goes. It's her personal character. Children should carry the family likeness.
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Amen? I mean, that's important. Especially if they're godly. They should do good.
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Let nothing terrify them. And the text is speaking to Christian wives to be submissive to their own unsaved husbands.
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That's a tough one, but let me tell you what MacArthur says about that. I got his notes here on that.
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1 Peter 3, verse 6. There, he says this, along with the text.
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There are potential fears for a Christian woman who sets out to be submissive to her unsaved husband.
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There are fears. And that's exactly what the text is saying. He goes on to say this. As to where such submission might lead, but Peter's instruction to the wife is not to be intimidating or fearful, but a principle.
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She is to submit to her husband, but this precludes any coercion to sin, disobedience to God's word, or imposition of physical harm.
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End quote. So true. It is sad to say even so -called
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Christian counselors today ignore that. And they put the wives in harm's way.
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But sometimes the wife must make decisions, hard decisions, to get away from a very abusive husband.
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Right? Well, that's another sermon altogether. But you do what's right, and we need wisdom from God to do what is right.
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But Scripture, wisdom is justified of her children, Jesus said. Sarah was one of the many holy women who in former times hoped and trusted in God, believed
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His word, adorned them, she adorned herself with a submissive spirit, gentle and a humble heart.
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To honor Abraham, but also to honor and glorify
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God. And that's the point. That is always our submission here, our unsubmission here, always points to how our attitude is to God.
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Look at Satan. Satan is the first apostate.
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Think about this. Think about this for a minute. He was in heaven when he went apostate.
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In heaven. This is where we long to be. Heaven's our home.
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That's the glory and the blessings that God gives in His holy city that shines, and here he is, an archangel.
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He's one of the head angels in rank. Lucifer. And that's where he became a devil.
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He rebelled against God, and what did he say? I will exalt myself up against the most high.
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I will do this. I will do that. I will do that. And he became unsubmissive to the authority of God, and God cast him out of heaven.
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The first apostate was in heaven, and Jesus says, I beheld Satan fall like light, and he was cast out.
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And a third of the angels decided to go with him, and God cast them all out. And God even, if you read in Jude, God even put some of them and reserved them in chains of darkness.
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And I believe God did that to demonstrate that He could have put them all in chains. But God had a plan.
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God says, I'm going to use these fallen creatures for my glory. To fulfill my plan.
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So people and men that are saved and many sons come unto glory see the greatness of His sovereignty and how
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He works. Isn't that glorious? So it was God who ordained a man to be the head.
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That's the order. Not a tyrant. Not a tyrant to a slave.
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A servant leader to a wife. His own wife. Just as Jesus Christ is the head of the body.
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Just as Jesus Christ is the head of the body, which is the church, and the church is to be submissive to Jesus Christ, so is the wife to be submissive to her own husband.
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Because it's the type of the church being submissive to Christ. That's really the point.
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So that we as members of Christ's body should live in humble submission to His righteous authority.
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Jesus is truly our Lord and Savior. Amen. Let me give you an application here. The major theological motive behind all these commands in which
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I mentioned in the introduction of submission is found in 1 Peter 2. 1
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Peter 2 verse 21 to 25. I'm going to read it real quick because we can't get enough of Jesus. If you go back to 1
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Peter, look at chapter 2, look at verse 21 to 25.
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We already looked at this, but we can't get enough of this, can we? For you have been called to this purpose.
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That's the calling. Since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, for you to follow in His steps, who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth.
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And while being reviled, He did not revile in return. While suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting
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Himself to Him who judges righteously. Notice the perfect example of perfect submission.
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Jesus Christ showed and demonstrated it and conducted it. Verse 24,
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And He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.
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For by His wounds you were healed, for you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the
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Shepherd and Guardian of His souls. He goes to Jesus Christ, and I really believe within this application, to wives, and Lord willing, next week, husbands, we're going to have our turn.
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But what Peter is ultimately asking, these suffering, persecuted Christians, in this letter he's writing, to do, is do this, to be more like Jesus Christ.
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He doesn't point to Himself, He gives examples from the Scriptures, but He points them to Jesus Christ.
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Jesus is the ultimate example. The image Peter uses in verse 21 is a powerful one.
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I want you to see this. Look at verse 21. For you have been called for this purpose, for since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow.
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And what is the image in which He is given here? The image is a powerful one because it speaks about the word hypogrammon.
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Hypogrammon. I think I pronounced that right. It refers to letters of the alphabet which children who were learning to write would trace.
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That's the example. That Jesus is that example.
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He is the original copy. And you are to trace after His pattern.
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That's what He's talking about. And that's the word in the Greek, that it's tracing out to be like Him.
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He is that pattern. Peter points out that the ultimate Christian ethic is found in the life of Jesus Christ.
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He summarizes what Jesus experienced. He summarizes how Jesus responded. He summarized everything, how
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Jesus suffered, how Jesus lived. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. We could never get enough of Jesus.
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He is the perfect example. He is the example. So what Peter is asking
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Christians to do, or should I say commanding them to do, is not to obey some random command that is detached from everything else, but what he's saying that what is learned by Jesus Christ but to become more like Jesus.
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This is very practical to us. To be more like Jesus in our everyday living.
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To be more like Jesus in the way we talk. And to be more like Jesus in being wise.
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To be more like Jesus in the way I live, in the way I think, in the way I act, in being submissive to God.
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To be more like Jesus. That's who we follow. He's the master, amen?
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We don't follow men. We follow Christ. Actually, that's what a disciple means.
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A learner of Christ. A follower of Christ. Jesus said to his disciples, what did he say? Follow me.
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Follow me. And I'll make you fishers of men. So we see this in verse 24 and 25.
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Peter reminds them of the gospel. The gospel with Isaiah as a background. Peter reminds his readers of the atonement of Jesus Christ, the great sacrifice of his suffering made on their behalf.
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And then Peter asks these Christians to be more and more like Jesus and to follow in his footsteps.
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That's what he's saying. It's very practical. Knowing it was on their behalf that he suffered and that he died, that he was buried and that he rose again.
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Aren't you glad for Jesus? We would be lost without him. We'd all be doomed.
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But God, rich in mercy, gave Jesus. This is how we practice submission.
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This is how we practice biblical submission, is to walk in the footsteps of Jesus Christ and to conform to his pattern.
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His pattern. Well, there's great examples in Scripture, right? But the greatest is
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Jesus. I love that. Ultimate, perfect example for us as believers is to follow as Jesus Christ and him crucified, him and him alone.
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Hebrews 12, 1 and 2. You read chapter 11 and you see from the beginning, he goes way back and he talks about the word of God and he gives a definition of faith, right?
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The writer of Hebrews does. And then he talks about faith. Faith, faith, faith. That's the hall of fame of faith, right?
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That's the chapter of faith. That's the faith chapter. Faith by faith, by faith, by faith, by faith.
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And all these great examples. And ultimately, he goes all the way through.
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They suffered by faith. By faith, they moved mountains. By faith, some were delivered, some wasn't.
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That was all by faith. Great men and women of God, by faith, by faith.
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Moses, Abraham, Enoch. You just go through all these great examples of faith.
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And then finally he gets to Hebrews 12. It's almost like the icing on the cake.
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You get to the mountaintop and then he points. There he is. There he is. Jesus Christ, behold the
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Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. Hebrews 12, 1 and 2. Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, all these great godly examples, and they let us also lay aside every encumbrance, every weight.
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You know what's that talking about? To the Jews there, they had a sense of picking up weights of legalism.
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Tradition. How I could do more for God. Do this more for God. All our doing is not enough.
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It's all religion. It's do's, rules, don'ts. Do this, don't do that. Performance is not going to do it.
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That's weight. Weight. You know what he's saying? Throw off that weight.
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Throw it off and it'll make you lighter. And make you run faster. And it gives you strength.
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It makes you endure. To the glory of God, referring to legalism, throw off that weight.
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Strip it off. Throw off that weight. It's almost like, here it is. This weight is throwing me off. It's gone.
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Get it off. Lighten it up. And the sin.
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See, that's different. The weight, the encumbrance. And then he says, the sin, which so easily, so easily entangles you.
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That word entangle means trips you up. Almost makes me think of a soldier going through barbed wire or something.
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He's all tangled up in barbed wire. He's got to get that barbed wire off him. Because sin will mess him up.
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Then he says, okay, that so easily entangles us and let us run. Then you run.
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With what? Endurance. Patience. That's the perseverance of the saints there, beloved.
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You want to endure to the end, right? We all want to endure to the end. We want to make it to the other side. But the only way we can make it to the other side is looking unto
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Jesus. Anything that distracts me from looking unto Jesus is wrong.
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It could be something good. But I need to keep my eyes on Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Looking unto
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Him. That's what he's saying. You run with patience, endurance, the race that is set before you.
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It's not a short -term sprint. This is a marathon. You set the pace with patience and run the race that is before us.
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And then he says in verse 2, looking unto Jesus. You know what that word looking, I think there's another translation.
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I like this one actually better. Looking unto Jesus is wonderful. But it means fixing. You know what that word fixing means?
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I've got my eyes locked in. I have fixed my eyes on Jesus Christ.
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There's nothing that's going to get me my eyes off Jesus. I am fixed upon Jesus. My eyes are fixed on Jesus.
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Fixing our eyes on Jesus. And then he says this, the author and the finisher, or the perfecter of our faith.
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He's the originator and He is the preeminent example of our faith. Jesus Christ and Him crucified of our faith.
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Who? For the joy. He had the joy set before Him. What was the joy? Well, before He endured the cross,
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He had to have a joy. And you know what that joy was? He prayed it in John 17. It was the glory. The glory of God.
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I'm reading through Body of Divinity right now and I have to tell you what. You talk about worship and you all know what
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I'm talking about. I know Sister Lillian and Sister Linda and all of you have read Body of Divinity and Ben and the rest of you.
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But you know what I'm talking about. Oh, good night. Every sentence that man says, he's got chapter and verse, chapter and verse.
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And I look it up and I say, this man had Bible in his blood. This man was all about the
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Bible. He was all about God. Glorifying God. Jesus knew
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He was going to get to the glory. The glory in which He, for a short time, gave up to come and descended into this dirt to take up our sins and take it to the cross to be the sacrifice.
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That's what He did. The joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross. And you know why He endured the cross?
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He saw the glory. He knew the glory. He not only saw it,
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He knew that glory. And He was going to return to it. Despising the shame, has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
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What does verse 3 say? This is the key right here. For consider Him, consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
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And do you know what that means? Don't grow weary. Don't faint. Don't give up. That's the key.
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That's the key. We must fix our eyes on Jesus. Amen? And that by God's grace, by God's grace and help, we would do that.
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Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank
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You for this time together, Lord, to worship You in spirit and truth, O God. And we know that You visit.
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You have given us a visitation today. Lord, change us. Change our hearts,
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O God. And may we truly be members of Your body and character and lifestyle and adopting that same submissive spirit and hope and trust as the examples of faith did.
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And may we clothe ourselves with humility, clothe ourselves with humility as we look unto
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Jesus, as we fix our eyes upon Him. And may we have the true beauty of the hidden person of the heart which is precious in the sight of You, O God, with imperishable quality of gentle and a quiet spirit.
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This is precious to You. We see externally so many times, but it's what the inside, the inward parts really mean.
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Desire truth, to love truth, and to love You more. So, Lord, help us by Your grace to do so.