Obeying God in Marriage Peter 3:1-7

In life, we have many important relationships. We come into this world with parents, and most have at least one sibling.

As you grow up, you get to know people outside of your biological family.

You have acquaintances, friends, and a few very close friends. Some of the sweetest aspects of life are the deep friendships that you develop.

But there is one relationship that is intended to be the sweetest and most intimate of all.

And that is the relationship between husband and wife. The relationship between husband and wife is the most profound human relationship there is.

It is the first relationship written in Scripture as Genesis 2 .24 describes, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

No other human relationship is described as two becoming one flesh.

There's nothing quite like marriage. You're taking two people from the opposite sex, from two completely different families, and these two are supposed to have the deepest relationship.

Even though the two become one flesh on their wedding day, living in this way is not a guarantee.

Far from it. And many never actually experience the one flesh relationship that marriage is intended to be, because to experience it takes total commitment from husband and wife.

There's blessing waiting if husband and wife will pursue it.

Marriage between one man and one woman is the greatest earthly gift that God gives. Scripture says in Proverbs 18 .22,

he who finds a wife finds a good thing. The Old Testament book Song of Solomon is a book devoted to the romance between a man and woman.

There's nothing in life quite like the husband -wife relationship. For the married,

God desires for you to pursue a rich marriage so that you experience this great gift that he has prepared.

Just because you are married does not mean that you enjoy this rich gift. For a marriage to experience all that God has for it, husband and wife must be all in.

A husband must understand his role, and a wife must understand hers. This morning as we continue our sermon series through 1

Peter, the Apostle Peter writes concerning the important responsibility husband and wife have in marriage.

To live out God's beautiful design in marriage should be the aim of every married couple for their benefit and for God to be glorified in their marriage.

So at this time, I encourage you to turn in a Bible with me to 1 Peter 3. We'll be looking at verses 1 -7.

And if you don't have a Bible, we do have those red Bibles. This sermon is titled Obeying God in Marriage.

And I'm going to begin by reading these verses. 1 Peter 3, verses 1 -7.

Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives.

When they see your respectful and pure conduct, do not let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry or the clothing you wear, but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious.

For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed

Abraham, calling him Lord. And you are her children if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.

Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

Here's our big idea. What this text, what this sermon is calling you to do. Live out

God's good design as husband and wife. Live out God's good design as husband and wife.

We're going to see four practices how in these verses. But before we jump in, let me give you a little recap of where we have been.

The previous two Sundays we saw the Apostle Peter explain how Christians are to live in the environment of two other human institutions, as I said earlier.

The first was how to live under the governing authorities, and the second was how employees were to behave in relationship to their employer.

The slave -master relationship is closely comparable to the employee -employer relationship that we see in our day.

The call in the text one week ago was to strive to be a model employee for the glory of God. And we saw five instructions how you are to do this.

You're to do this by respecting every employer over you, suffering with the ones who treat you poorly in a manner where the

Lord's favor is upon you, following Jesus' example as you endure poor treatment from a boss, trusting that God will right every wrong, and understanding that Christ's sacrificial work enables you to carry this out.

The Lord wants us to look different than the world does in the workplace. We do this by respecting the authority that he has sovereignly placed over us.

Now this leads us once again to our text that we've already read, but now I'm going to zero in on verse one to start where Peter once again writes that wives are to be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives.

What we see Peter say in verse one is similar to the instructions that he gave to servants in verse 18 of the previous chapter.

In that verse, Peter wrote, servants be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the unjust.

Then Peter once again says in verse one of our text, wives be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives.

What Peter is saying here is that some wives have husbands who are believers and some have husbands who are not.

That's just the reality. He understands that as he writes this. To be married to an unbeliever is difficult because you don't have the most important thing in common.

You don't agree on the meaning of life. Why are you here? What are you supposed to do?

Where are you going? How do you have a vibrant, thriving marriage if one spouse is saved and one is not?

You cannot have a super deep marriage where the two spouses are unequally yoked.

This is why Scripture warns in 2 Corinthians 6 .14, Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.

For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?

It is important to stress this to the unmarried in this room who desire to be married.

The most important thing about your prospective spouse is this.

Does he or she have a relationship with Jesus? Sometimes a prospective spouse will say,

Yeah, I'm a Christian. People say things just to win someone over. Then you get married and you realize,

Wait, I was being sold a bill of goods. The question for every woman is this.

Is this man going to lead my family to follow Jesus? For men, is this woman going to be a mother who is going to support my biblical leadership and be a wonderful example of a godly woman?

The unmarried can get caught up in romance and then as time goes on in the marriage, one spouse realizes that he or she is married to someone who is not truly devoted to the

Lord. So as you date, be careful because to be unequally yoked in marriage will make marriage very difficult.

Marriage is already hard if you're equally yoked. How much harder when you're unequally yoked?

And if one spouse remains an unbeliever, you will miss out on that enormous blessing that God has in store for two believers who understand their roles in marriage.

But as Scripture warns about being unequally yoked, Peter understands that even with this warning, do not be unequally yoked.

There will be husband and wife who are unequally yoked. And in that place, they need to know how to live in that environment.

A wife who has an unbelieving husband is still to submit to him.

As Peter writes, she must be subject to your own husband. This is God's good design.

The husband is the leader of the home while the wife is in the supporting role. This goes back to the

Garden of Eden. As Genesis 2 .18 says, Men are called to be in the leadership role while women are called to be in the role of supporting one's husband.

This role that women have is incredibly important. Once again, as I said a week ago, the word submission in our day is a swear word.

It has all kinds of negative connotations. And just because society says that the word submission is bad, obviously we don't listen to society, right?

We listen to the Word of God. That needs to be our focus. People immediately think that for one to be in the role of submission, a subordinate role, is somehow inferior.

Like this person is, as a human, inferior. But this is not the case. Women are not inferior to men, but they do have a different role than men.

And in marriage, that role is not to be the head of the house, but to submit to one's husband.

But here is the hard part. Peter writes in verse 1 that they are to be in this role as helper whether one's husband is saved or not.

As Peter writes in the middle of verse 1, they are to do this even if some do not obey the

Word. So what does submission look like? One example of this is that when important decisions are made, husband and wife should discuss these decisions together.

But ultimately, it is the husband's call because he is the head. Let's say a wife has a conversation with her husband about him switching jobs.

And the wife believes switching jobs will be the best for the family. And the husband is hearing her out.

A good husband will hear his wife out and hopefully make the right decision. But what if he doesn't make the right decision?

And in the wife's mind, and more importantly, in God's mind, it is not her place to hold continuous bitterness toward her husband.

She should still support him even though she disagrees. She should still encourage him and treat him well as the leader of the home.

Now if husband and wife are both believers, it will be much easier on big decisions to have agreement because you will both be seeking the

Lord together about what is the right decision. But if a wife has an unbeliever as a spouse, he will likely make big decisions that the wife doesn't agree with because he's not seeking the

Lord as his wife is. But even then, she should still honor her husband even if he leads foolishly.

What Peter says to the wife who is married to an unbeliever is that if you do this, you may win your husband to Christ.

As he writes at the end of v. 1 and v. 2, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives when they see your respectful and pure conduct.

In other words, while it is good for a wife to share the gospel with her unbelieving husband, it is also an important witness in how she submits to him.

And she submits to him not because he's such a great leader. A lot of times they're not, right?

But rather she honors the marriage structure that God has put in place. She honors that her husband has been placed as the head.

In this setting, the husband may come to faith through the godly submission of his wife as he sees, man, she's a wonderful wife.

What is that about her? And then it becomes clear it's because she loves the Lord and he's drawn to that and the

Lord may use that in his life to bring him to faith in Christ. At minimum,

God is glorified as she honors the Lord's design as she submits to her husband. Now, some women might say, well, why don't

I just marry an unbeliever and eventually he's going to be saved? Don't do that. Because 1

Corinthians 7 actually says do not think that that's going to change.

You want to get it right at the start. But if you find yourself in this position where you're married to an unbeliever, you must still honor

God in that environment. So live out God's good design as husband and wife. The first practice how?

It's through wives submitting to whatever husband to whom you are married. Submitting to whatever husband to whom you are married.

Here's the second practice how? You're to live out God's good design as husband and wife. And that's through understanding that inner beauty is most important.

We'll see this in verses 3 and 4. As Peter is explaining the role of a wife in marriage, he then takes the time to address something that godly wives and women in general need to hear.

Verses 3 and 4. Do not let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry or the clothing you wear.

But let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious.

So Peter gives a command not to care too much about the external.

He uses the word adorning and he uses this word three times. The English translation shows up three times in this text.

Adorning means to put on something in order, to ornament oneself, to decorate oneself, to put on beauty.

What Peter is describing is the focus on the external in the culture of his day. And he gives some examples by saying the focus was on the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry and focusing on the clothing that you wear.

All these descriptions that Peter lists are a focus on the outward, on appearance.

What you hear looks like, what jewelry you have on and what clothing you wear.

Women focusing on the external was a problem in Peter's day and it is of course a problem in ours. It's always been a problem.

It's been a problem since the Garden of Eden, since Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden, because this is a sinful desire that women have.

They focus too much on the external. And that's what Peter is addressing here. And obviously women do that, but men of course make it even worse by desiring that in women.

And we need to be honest about this in our society. When it comes to what a woman is supposed to be, it's pretty much all about the external.

That's what young women are taught by our society. Beauty is defined as one's physical appearance and how they present themselves by what they put on.

This is what Hollywood is like. This is what clothing and cosmetic corporations who target women focus on.

It's all about appearance. Think of how big those industries are. It's because women fall for those tricks.

They believe the lies of society that you need to do this, you need to do that. All this pressure that comes.

And truly, the clothes designed for women is often immodest to show more than others should see.

God created men to be attracted to women, and so Christian women should not put men in a difficult position by wearing something that is immodest.

This of course does not mean women shouldn't put on makeup or dress nicely. These are not bad things, but that should not be where the focus is.

Every Christian woman's goal should be to please the Lord in the way she lives her life. That should be the focus.

That's the highest goal. And do you know what the Lord thinks about the woman who is prized by society because of her effort to have such a pristine outward appearance but does not fear

Him? Proverbs 11, 22 tells us, Like a gold ring in a pig's snout is a beautiful woman without discretion.

Isn't that an amazing verse? A gold ring in a pig's snout. That's what God thinks about her.

His opinion alone matters, and that's what He thinks about that kind of woman.

Even though He made these women to be beautiful, He's not impressed. In the most important area,

He views them as ugly. In verse 3, the word adorning, once again, means beautiful.

And what Peter writes is, Do not let your beauty be external. Do not let that be your focus.

I am blessed to be married to a woman who does not have that focus, and ever since I met her, she's had the right focus.

Not to embarrass her, but I'm going to talk a little bit about Breanna right now. So Breanna and I met online.

Neither of us ever wanted to do that, but Landon was sharing about God's providence.

God used that to bring us together. I don't know how else we would have met, so we met through that. Her profile was different than other women.

Her page was focused on describing her Christian faith, and her desire to meet a man who shared that faith.

Her page only had two pictures, and neither picture showed was particularly spectacular.

One picture was of her face, which I liked, of course, and another one showed her with big glasses on a hike, showing that she likes to be outdoorsy.

Both of her pictures were modest, and I thought she was pretty in those two pictures.

But I didn't realize how pretty she was in physical appearance until we met. On our second date, we went to the

Como Zoo, and she found me gazing at her, and I cared nothing for the animals. Zebra, giraffe,

I didn't care. Their beauty paled in comparison to hers.

She was a catch that only a man seeking the Lord would find. As attracted as I was to her physically,

I was more attracted to who she was on the inside. As these verses say, do not let the focus of your adorning be on the outside, but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart.

The physical is temporary while the heart is eternal. This is why Peter says the focus of the woman should be on the heart.

As Peter writes in verse 4, godly women are focusing on the impartial beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious.

Think of the opposite. Proverbs 11 .22 Like a gold ring in a pig's snout is a beautiful woman without discretion.

That's what God thinks of her. And then you see here, imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious.

So God is pleased at godly women. When he looks at a godly woman who loves him, he sees beauty.

When he looks at what the world sees as beautiful, he sees ugly. So we need to have the right understanding of what true beauty is.

Good character is beautiful. Sometimes you hear people say this person is a beautiful person.

And what they mean is something deeper than the physical. What they mean is this is a good person. It's a beautiful sight when someone honors

God with their life. This is what God looks for. This is what Peter is stressing to wives as he tells them to submit to their husbands.

You are to carry yourself in a godly way by submitting to your husband and focusing on your character rather than obsessively focusing on your appearance.

Spend time reading the Word. Spend time in prayer. Spend time having rich fellowship with other believers.

Sharing the Gospel with your friends and family. Focusing on obeying the Lord in thought, word, and deed as you go through your day.

This is where a woman's focus needs to be. Not always thinking about one's appearance and what others will think of her appearance.

The Lord's definition of beauty matters. Not what the world says. So live out

God's good design as a husband and wife. And the second practice how is through understanding that inner beauty is most important.

The third practice how you are to live out God's good design as husband and wife is through realizing that submission to husbands was done by great saints of old.

We'll see this in verse 5 and the first half of verse 6. For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves by submitting to their own husbands as Sarah obeyed

Abraham calling him Lord. So as Peter encourages women to submit to their husbands and focus on inner beauty rather than outward, he looks back at the past.

He points out women from the past who were examples at living in this way. These women hoped in God and they adorned themselves inwardly.

While they probably had some focus on their outward appearance, that was not their main focus.

Their main focus was on the inward person where God looks on and is pleased with how his child lives her life before him.

These women of old made themselves beautiful by having godly character. And one of the ways that godly character was shown was by submitting to their own husbands.

The example Peter gives is Sarah. This is Abraham's wife, of course. Abraham was the father of Israel.

And Scripture also describes him as the father of all who believe. God made a promise to Abraham and this is known as the

Abrahamic Covenant. In this covenant, the Lord promised that through his offspring, all the nations of the earth would be blessed.

The chief offspring in mind is Jesus Christ. And anyone who believes in Jesus has their sins forgiven and receives eternal life.

And my prayer, as I say that, is that everyone here would believe that. Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.

You have that sweet relationship. You have eternal life. And he is the offspring that ties everybody together in faith.

Now Sarah is a prominent person in Scripture because this offspring started with her.

She was old and barren and God, in order to show his power, made her pregnant when it was physically impossible for her to become pregnant.

Science would have said you can't become pregnant. God made a way. The Lord caused

Sarah to be pregnant and she gave birth to Isaac. And eventually, Jesus the Messiah was born through whom salvation comes to anyone who believes.

So what an important woman Sarah was. Peter highlights in the first half of verse 6 that in Genesis 18 -12,

Sarah addresses Abraham as Lord. This word means master.

It's a submission. This person is above me. Now you might be thinking that this is strong and wives don't address their husbands in that way anymore.

And that's true. Anybody call their husband Lord? I don't think I've ever seen that in my lifetime. And you're probably not going to start after this sermon.

But in that culture, a wife calling her husband

Lord with a lower case l was a way she showed respect. In our day, women don't do that.

But something has not changed and never should change. Women are to respect the leadership of their husbands in marriage.

Looking back at verse 2, Peter once again writes that husbands are to see your respectful and pure conduct.

Sarah and women of old are an example to women in our day in focusing on the internal and not the external and showing the internal by respecting their husband's leadership.

As women do this, they are following the godly line. This is why Peter says you are her children if you do good.

In verse 6, historically, there's a godly line and there's a sinful line. And the godly line is smaller than the sinful line.

That's why Scripture calls it a remnant. If you do what Sarah did, if you follow the saints of old as a wife to your husband, you are in that godly line.

You are in the godly line of the holy women of the past. And as a woman does this, she is respecting

God's good design. And Peter writes too, he says you are her children if you do good.

When a man leads and a wife embraces her supportive role, marriages are intended to flourish.

Then Peter continues in the second of verse 6, he says, calling him

Lord and you are her children if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening. What Peter writes here when he says you might not fear anything that is frightening, we might not understand at first, what does he mean by this?

Peter is coming back to what he said in verse 1 when he wrote that wives are to submit even if some do not obey the word.

In other words, even if you have an unbeliever as a husband. The idea of a believing wife submitting to an unbelieving husband can be a scary thought for women.

It is important to say that Peter is not advocating women staying silent if they are abused.

If that is happening, that needs to be addressed. There are sadly situations where a woman is being physically abused by her husband and that is when the authorities need to get involved.

The abuse may also be verbal and that is where outside help of some kind is needed. Where the husband needs to be told you can't do that.

So Peter is not advocating for submission when one is being continually mistreated, but what he is advocating is that a wife submitting to her husband must be pursued by the believing wife even if her husband is not a believer.

This is God's structure and as she does this she honors the Lord. As a believing wife does this she is showing her faithfulness to Him.

So live out God's good design as husband and wife. And the third practice how? It is through realizing that submission to husbands was done by great saints of old.

Submission to husbands was done by great saints of old. And here is our fourth and final point. The fourth and final practice.

You are to live out God's good design as husband and wife. And that is by husbands leading your wives in an honorable way. To this point all of the focus has been on the responsibility of wives in marriage.

So husbands have been like you have been sitting back, okay, well we are hearing what they are supposed to do. Now it is your turn.

Now we get to the responsibility of husbands. And you might wonder why so much focus on the wives?

The answer is because Peter has been mostly focusing on the role of submission. Citizens submitting to government.

Slaves submitting to masters. And now wives submitting to husbands. But he is not going to stop this instruction to wives without saying something to husbands as well.

In verse 7 he says this, 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. Peter is not shy about saying what needs to be said in order for a marriage to function properly.

As I said earlier, the word submission is a naughty word in our day. For Peter to say that women are the weaker vessel is even more controversial.

People ask me, what are you going to preach on this week? Submission to husbands and women as the weaker vessel.

Good luck with that. This is controversial. In some environments this would be controversial.

I'm grateful for a church where you guys, you want to hear the word. You want to hear the truth. And I'm grateful for that.

In some places you'd be kicked out for saying this. But what does he mean by this? Peter is telling the husbands that they need to understand that women are different than them.

This is the reality. God made men and women very different.

And you can see this at a young age. A few weeks back I told our two kids,

Alethea and Isaiah, that when we went to the library that they could each pick out five books.

And I didn't see the books that they had picked out until they actually went up to check out.

And Alethea was first and she put her books down. And her books were princesses, unicorns, and horses.

Then I looked at Isaiah's books. The Hulk, Captain America, and Iron Man.

Having a boy and a girl, Brianne and I have seen how different boys and girls are.

Very different. God made men to be stronger. Generally speaking, he made them to be stronger mentally, emotionally, and physically.

Now the brawn girls can lift more than I can. There are exceptions to this.

But generally speaking, men are stronger than women. Men run faster.

If you look at the world records, everyone is held by a man. If you look at the world's strongest man competition, the men are lifting the most.

That's just a fact of life. It shouldn't be controversial to say that it's a fact of life. Why would

God do this? He does this because as leaders, men need to be strong.

God created men to be protectors, to be the ones who take the bullet. When there is a problem in the household, the man is the one that needs to be addressed first.

As Harry Truman once said, the buck stops with me. When evil takes over an institution, it's the men's fault.

It was their responsibility to protect the institution from evil, and they let it happen.

When the Titanic sank in 1912, this was a society that was greatly influenced by Christianity at that time.

The western world, Great Britain, America. Guess what? The men went down with the ship.

The women and children got on the lifeboats. That's what men are created to do. Men are not created to be cowards.

We're created to be strong. And I think what gets men who are doing that more angry is when they see men being cowardly.

You're not being what God created you to be. Some men think it's just about hunting and fishing and maybe being a blue -collar guy, a guy who can fix everything.

And those are masculine attributes. Those are good things. But the main area where men need to be men is they need to be men in the home.

They need to be men in the church. They need to be men in their community. Evil advances when men don't do what they're supposed to do.

Evil advances when men are absent. Where was Adam when

Eve was tempted by the serpent? He was supposed to be the protector. It was a sin of passivity.

God does not create men to be passive. He creates us to lead. And you might think that in our day, we don't see quite a significant contrast between men and women.

And that's true. And that's sad. Men are being feminized. And they have been feminized for decades.

Women have been placed in roles they're not supposed to be in because men are not stepping up. So men have become more feminine and women have become more masculine.

And what I find interesting is that when true biblical men are around, the world doesn't know what to do with them. They're seen as violent.

They're seen as scary. Oh, you're not allowed to say that. You're not allowed to do that.

What did Jesus do? He took the court of whips and He goes to the temple and He cleans house.

In our day, we'd be like, oh man, what is He doing? That was holy.

He did the right thing. He did what a man was supposed to do. He saw a problem and He said, this needs to be addressed.

Men's strength is seen as negative. But when men are strong and they use their strength for good, everybody's blessed.

Everybody. True men of God lead their wives and children spiritually and they provide for physical needs as well.

And that includes protecting their family from danger. This protection includes physical and spiritual protection.

Husbands protect their family from intruders. And if anyone suspicious is around, husbands also protect their family spiritually by keeping bad

TV shows out of their house and any false teaching. It might be music that needs to be kept out.

This world needs men to be men. The truth is, there are not a lot of real men out there.

And we need to pray that more rise up. This is why we have a men's breakfast every month.

Every month, the men gather as a reminder for the men in this church to fulfill the important responsibility that God has given them.

What Peter writes to these husbands is that they need to recognize that women are not built like them.

You learn this fast when you get married. Men might have a buddy they room with before they get married and you can say certain things and you can do certain things and they just kind of bounce off of him.

You can't do that with women. Women are more sensitive. Peter is calling husbands to understand this about your wife.

God created women to be that way. You need to recognize her needs and listen to them.

You need to be sensitive to her desires and not just your own. Some of her concerns and desires will be different than the husband's because she's made very differently than a man.

And the husband needs to listen to her. It is important to love one's wife in this way.

In a way, this is a form of submission that husbands need to follow. As one author wrote, submission is the responsibility of a

Christian husband as well. Ephesians 5 .21 Though not submitting to his wife as a leader, a believing husband must submit to the loving duty of being sensitive to the needs, fears, and feelings of his wife.

So the leadership that the husband exercises is a servant leadership. It's a leadership. It's not domineering.

Domineering, God hates. It's a leadership where the wife is blessed. How can

I serve you? How can I help you? And as a husband honors his wife by caring for her in this way, he needs to remember that as men lead in marriage, he is leading his wife toward heaven as they share in the grace of life, as Peter writes at the end of verse 7.

And lastly, Peter talks about the connection between how a husband treats his wife and what this does to his prayer life.

And this is an interesting comment by Peter at the end of verse 7 where he says, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

The Lord watches closely how a husband leads his wife.

If a husband does not care for his wife, this affects his relationship with God. One of the ways a person's relationship is shown with the

Lord is one's prayer life. Prayer is this constant conversation that one has with the

Lord. A husband who is not fulfilling his calling as a husband has somewhat of a fractured relationship with the

Lord. The Lord is not pleased. What he wants to hear from this husband is that he's not fulfilling his duties.

What the Lord wants to hear is repentance. Come clean before Him. Promise to do better in the future.

Change course. And as that happens, the Lord's going to listen.

This person is moving in the right direction. And then his whole prayer life is going to improve.

He's going to see prayers answered because he is treating his wife well.

Think about that. This intricate connection between your relationship with your spouse and your prayer life.

Very important to understand. The most important relationship a husband has is with his wife.

And if his relationship with her is not healthy, what does that say about him? If he is the cause of that, if he is neglecting his responsibilities, if a husband has a healthy marriage and he's leading well, the health flows down from that in other areas.

A pastor who has a growing church but loses control of his family, that's tragic.

That's not how it's supposed to be. A healthy pastor is one who has a healthy home and the health carries over to the churchy pastors.

It starts in the home. First and foremost, a husband's relationship starts with the Lord. As he seeks the

Lord's will for his life, everything flows down from this. He's a good husband. He's a good father.

He's a good community member. He's a good neighbor. Everything flows down from that. He's a good churchman.

So this is what we've seen this morning. We've seen the call to women as wives. We've seen the call to men.

And by the way, if you're single and there's no desire to be married, this sermon's still for you because even if you're single, we need to honor this marriage covenant.

We need to encourage those who are married. We need to encourage our friends who are married to live out this relationship.

And of course, for those who are not yet married, this is what you want to have in your marriage. You want to pursue God's design.

So live out God's good design as husband and wife. And in this text, we've seen four practices how.

Wives submitting to whatever husband to whom you are married. Understanding that inner beauty is most important.

Realizing that submission to husbands was done by the great saints of old. And as we just saw, husbands leading your wives in an honorable way.

Leading your wives in an honorable way. This is God's calling for husband and wife.

And as they carry this out in marriage, marriage is a beautiful thing where both spouses experience the blessing that comes from serving one another and God is glorified.

And my prayer is that this church would be a church full of strong marriages where husband and wife carry out this great calling that God has put on each of their lives.

At this time, we will pray and next Sunday is a switch in topics.

Peter focuses on the persecution of his audience and so we will look at that next Sunday. But let's pray at this time.

Father in heaven, marriage is such a gift from you

Lord. But it is something that one experiences the gift of it if it is pursued in the right way.

The world does not understand marriage. Only Christians understand it. That's the truth.

And even Christians, Lord, we can sometimes forget our responsibilities as husband and wife.

The husband is supposed to lead and the wife is supposed to be the helper. And as this happens, it pictures

Christ's relationship with the church. And this order is a beautiful thing as it is lived out.

And so my prayer, Lord, is that you would apply this to everyone here right where they are at and that this church should be full of strong marriages.

Encourage everyone in this. In Jesus' name, Amen. As we always say, if you have any prayer requests, we do have that box.

You can put a prayer request down there. You can talk to us too and we'd be glad to talk to you after the service. I'm Mark, Keith, myself, and Doug.

And if you have any questions too, we'd love to hear those from you. And again, this is a big week.

We have so much going on later on today. I don't need to announce those things again. You know what's going on.

But find ways to get involved outside of Sunday. It's a blessing to be together. We're called to meet together, as Hebrews 10, 24, and 25 says.

And it's a blessing you experience as you meet with fellow Christians. And iron sharpens iron.

So we want to be in the habit of doing that on Sunday and also during the week as well. And by the way, spontaneous gatherings too are good.

So those are really sweet as well. So as we close today, we're going to close with the benediction.

So please receive the benediction from Numbers chapter 6. The Lord bless you and keep you.

The Lord cause His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn His face towards you and give you peace.