Verse feeder, chapter three. I'll read verses one through four, if you'll follow, please. Chapter three, one through four. Likewise, you wives, be in subjection to your own husbands, that if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be one. by the conversation of the wives. While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear, whose adorning, let it not be that outward adorning of the plating of hair or the wearing of gold or putting on of apparel, but let it be the hidden person, the hidden man of the heart in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and a quiet spirit, which in the sight of God is of great price." Suffering has been our theme for a while now, is a common condition of the human nature. It's not just unique to Christians, it's something the whole world around us experiences. As physical beings, we are subject to all kinds of suffering that sin has brought because of sin that has brought this suffering upon the human race. But God's people can make sense of suffering. God, through his prophets and apostles, has told us how he uses suffering for our good, and ultimately for his glory. And by faith, we believe that to be true. Peter is led by God's Holy Spirit to write about suffering, main theme of his letter, and how to respond when we suffer, particularly suffer wrongfully. Peter has led us to focus on the lowly servant and slave, and he offers counsel and encourages them to look at the sufferings of Christ and to follow his example. And in chapter three, he now turns to another group of saints who are exposed to being mistreated for their faith in the person and work of Christ in whom they have found their salvation. He begins in chapter 3 verse 1 with our phrase, likewise you wives. We believe that this statement was not an uncommon condition, but one that required Peter to address this condition of being married to an unbelieving husband who had caused the wife to experience a real kind of suffering. There's grief and heartache and deep disappointment that afflicts a Christian woman when her husband shows no interest in the things that bring joy to her soul. There's sadness when she considers a lifelong journey with a partner that she cannot share her faith with. There will be no fellowship around spiritual matters with an unbelieving husband. Peter is affected by this reality. God's heart is. Through the Spirit, he inspires Peter to address it. It's not some insignificant thing that happens rarely. When Peter wrote it, it was a very common problem that he was addressing. Peter has been made sensitive to wives who are bearing the load mentally, emotionally, and spiritually alone. Peter's concern for these wives leads Peter to offer good counsel that provides for them hope. Wives, is what he is saying, you can have an influence on your husband, and God may, as a part of his eternal plan, save him by the means of your good behavior. That's what Peter is saying to them. And so Peter, in our text here, in verses one through four, he lists five essential traits or qualities that are important to her influence on her unbelieving husband. Peter's counsel is from God. This is God's wisdom that is being given to us. This is God's will for his daughters who are living in a difficult marriage. The wisdom of Peter's counsel It's not just for 2,000 years ago, it is for today. And it is something that we must learn and understand, be familiar with. Not just women, but men. There's a lesson for us as well. Peter begins his list, as we started last Sunday, with God's original design for the marriage. He says, wives, be in subjection to your own husbands. And so Peter is writing to many Christian wives, and every condition in their family is different. They may be married to an unconverted man, but all the conditions vary. They're not the same. He doesn't get into all the details of all the variables. He just states a simple principle that God has given to the home and to the woman in particular. Wives are the ones that are being spoken to here, and he is speaking to them who are married, those women married to unbelieving men. And so he gives us general principle that all wives, whatever the conditions might be, are responsible to practice toward their husbands. And this would be true of all wives, by the way. Paul takes the same information, doesn't address it to a situation where you have a wife married to an unconverted man. Paul deals with this information as a Christian home, where you have a Christian man and a Christian wife. And so the subject of subjection is not just about a woman married to an unbelieving husband. This is a condition, a principle to live by. On the top of Peter's list, it's number one. He has five things to give, but this is number one. Why is it number one? It's because it's where God begins. In order for a wife to succeed in her home as the woman that God has made her and assigned her a position in that home, she must embrace this or none of the other things matter. That won't work. You can't ignore the first step and expect everything else to fall in place. It just won't happen. And so God has given this position Four wives who choose to marry. Submission, as we mentioned last Sunday, is a voluntary action that the wife gives to her husband. She willingly places herself under his headship, which God gave to the husband. This is not forced on her. This is her contribution and submission to the Lord who requires this of her. So Peter is answering the question that I'm sure every wife married to an unbelieving husband was asking. I'm sure this was coming up in the church where Peter was pastoring. This is not an unusual question that was being raised. What should I do? I'm married to an unbelieving husband. What should I do? How should I behave? Does God have any counsel for me? Those are common questions that would be raised. And God's spirit is speaking through Peter and he is saying, yes, God has counsel for all wives, including wives married to unbelieving husbands. And so the first thing is to begin where God begins, where Peter began, start here. Because without subjection, there will be no consistent advancement in your influence that you will have in your husband's life. This is your contribution. This is the action that you give. Subjection is a verb. It's calling upon the wife to take these steps and to put herself willingly in the place where God has placed her in the structure of a marriage. There's no way around this first action. Wives be in subjection. All wives need to have a proper knowledge and understanding of subjection. Not only is it hers to give voluntarily, willingly, and no man has the right or authority to demand it, the wife gives it, but this is a lordship issue with you. The one who gave you the order and the structure is God, and you have a choice to make, to do or not to do, to obey or not to obey. And so this is a lordship matter between a woman and her Lord. Submission is not a matter between her and her husband, it is between her and her Lord. Only she can contribute and give this gift to her marriage, the placement that God has given to her. And the wife, it's important that as we think about subjection because of what follows here, the wife must also recognize that the power of your influence is connected to your willingness to accept God's role for you in your marriage. This first action actually opens the door for your godly behavior to be seen and felt by the husband without words ever being spoken. So Peter says, if you choose to submit to your husband, there is a power released. Your influence is going to be felt. If you choose to withhold it, your influence, you're going to fight to have an influence. Just not going to happen. But when you take on this position willingly as something God has given to you, it will happen. You will have an influence. on his life. And this is a lesson for all of us, no doubt. This is how every believer has an influence over others, is it not? We are, as Noah said, we bump up against the world all the time and we're to have an impact on the world. We are light, we are salt. And so there is going to be an impact felt without a word ever being spoken. Remember Paul, what he said in Ephesians 5, early on about the influence of your light upon the world. Just move in the darkness. Live your light in the darkness. There will be an impact. Your life is crying out to them constantly wherever you go in the darkness. Awake! Awake! And the same is true for the woman in her home. You don't have to speak words. It's the light of your life, your behavior, your conduct, your acceptance of what God has designed for you. That's light. And it has an influence, an impact upon your home, particularly a man who is an unconverted man. But this would be true even with women who are married to believing men. The influence of your life in that man's life is still going to come through this channel. You can't ignore this channel of submission and expect to exert an influence upon your husband. And so in verse two, if you look at verse two, Peter describes how this works for us. Right, he has just stated in verse one that if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the behavior, the conversation, behavior of the wives. Verse two says, while they behold your chaste conversation or behavior coupled with fear. So Peter is analyzing all that he's seen and experienced in his ministry. And he's considering it in the light of all that God has said about marriage. And the Spirit is leading him to put these ideas together. And so here Peter describes how this works while they behold while they, the unbelieving husband, beholds. As you live a godly life, your husband is observing. Make no mistake, he is watching, he is considering. He may pretend not to see, but God is forcing him to consider What is actually taking place in your life that causes you to behave in this manner? He's beholding. He's observing. God is not lying here to you while they behold. They cannot get away from it. It's real. It's true. Your behavior is getting his attention. What behavior particularly? Well, initially he called it submission. Here he breaks it down into some different parts. While they behold your chase behavior coupled with fear. describes her conversation or behavior. These would be number two and number three on our list of five things. Submission, there's chastity, and there's reverence. These are the things that the woman brings to the marriage. that will impact her husband. She may choose not to do those things, live alone, live apart from, without any influence over her husband. But if she desires to have an influence, these things must exist in her life. Verse two, while they behold your chase behavior. Chase. This is an adjective, and it's descriptive of her behavior. What kind of behavior does she has that Peter's talking about in verse 1? It's chaste behavior. And by chaste, he is referring to conduct that is consistently pure. And from the language of the texts, we know that he is referring to the purity that is not mingled with self, but rather a pure chase behavior that's not focused on self, but on her husband. It's pure. It's not self-serving. It's not trying to get something done so she behaves a certain way in order to achieve it. No, it's pure without any contamination to it. She is not focused on self above her husband and her motives for what she does, her motives are pure. They're not self-serving. They're not selfish. He sees this. That's what Peter is saying. The Spirit is leading Paul to say, he sees this. He's beholding this. He's standing in awe of this. Chase behavior coupled with fear, and fear is also an adjective. It's descriptive of her conversation, her behavior. Chastity describes her behavior, and fear describes her behavior. The idea of this, she responds to her husband in a manner that is respectful. She honors her husband's position that God has given to him in the home. And the husband sees this. An unbelieving husband is quite startled by this because it's not common in society to see a woman who conducts herself toward her husband in this manner. And he is beholding, he's watching, he's considering what is at work in her. And he must be baffled to think, why? What's at work in her that causes her to behave in this manner toward me? I know that I have no interest in the things that interest her. I know that I'm not committed to the same things that she's committed to. He knows that, and he's observing her behavior in spite of those things. A chase and reverential treatment and response toward her husband. And then in verse three, who's adorning Let it not be that outward adorning of the plating of hair and the wearing of gold or the putting on of apparel. Here in verse three, we have the fourth thing on Peter's list. And here again, it's in a negative way. Peter is counseling these wives married to unbelieving husbands to not engage in. That's on the list. Number four, don't engage in. Don't become focused in. Don't make this the priority of your life. If you want to win your husband, don't do this. He uses here the word adorning. An important word in scripture. Adorning, he says, her adorning must not be this. And then in verse four, he'll say, but your adorning ought to be like this. So there is a contrast being made, a negative and a positive. Two important things that women need to consider about their lives if they're going to influence effectively their husbands, particularly the unbelieving husband. Adorning, as many of you knows, the Greek word is kosmos, a word that is not unfamiliar to us in the English language. The word is used to describe God's world. There's an organized system that governs God's creation when the word kosmos is used or the word world shows up in the English language. It speaks of order and beauty in his cosmos. Sin, for sure, has damaged it, and Satan has set up his government, even within God's government, but God is over it all. And we are told that God's love for his created universe, think of it, the things that we see that sin has damaged were all created by God. born out of affection for that which he created. He has a love for his own creation. He has a love for his elect who are born into this earthly realm. And this will lead him to restore his cosmos one day when Christ returns and all things are brought to an end. There's another example where this is used that needs to be brought in this morning. Look at Titus chapter two for a moment. As we think about this adorning, Paul is writing to Titus who's dealing with a lot of difficult problems on the island of Crete. Churches are out of order, as he wrote in the first part of his letter that, I left you there, Titus, to put things in order. Things are out of order. Churches are not functioning like they're intended to function. You gotta get them back in order. And of course, he says the first thing that's necessary is you gotta find the right men. He starts, you gotta get good men. Men who are qualified, men who can handle the word, men who are not afraid, who are fearless in the face of opposition. You have to have men. Good men. And those men need to be teaching, teaching, teaching until the old men and the old women begin to look like they ought to look. Young men and young women begin to look like they ought to look. And when this is happening, verse 10, he says, regarding here, verse 10, relating to some of the young men, not purloining, but showing all good fidelity. so that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things. And so as he moves all of this information about the teaching of the word of God and letting the word of God begin to impact the members of that church and members are changing and looking godly. A church without godly people has got a problem and usually the problem is in the pulpit. There must be godly people. And when that occurs, you know what is happening here? We adorn the doctrine of God's salvation. And here is that same cosmos being used here in adornment. Our lives are meant to beautify the doctrine of the salvation of God. We bring beauty to God's salvation. They look at us and they see the order and the structure. They see how truth has made a life that is well balanced. And when they see that life, they recognize, are able to consider that the salvation that God has provided brings beauty to life. It doesn't leave people in chaos, unbalanced. But there's order and structure in their life. This is the cosmos, the adornment of the doctrine of salvation. You and I both know there's a lot of information about the salvation of God that does not adorn it. People are not adorning it because their lives are not conformed and shaped after the teachings of the Word of God. That's the word Peter is using as you go back to 1 Peter chapter 3 and verse number 3. This adorning that he is referring to speaks of the beauty that's found in order and structure, not just theologically. Being well-balanced and structured theologically in your mind where you grasp and understand the things of God, and that structure impacts the way that you live your life. There's order and structure in the way you live because of the truth. that has been established in your mind. That's a biblical design. That's intentional by God. And here he is speaking of women. Adorning speaks of the beauty that's found in order and structure. When things are brought into conformity to God's will, there's lasting beauty in it. And this beauty is not expressed in outward, physical, material, vain things that women can pursue. That's what he's saying here. Beauty is not in these things. This is not evidence of God's order and structure in your life. He mentions things like the plating of hair. Peter's not saying that you ignore your hair. That's not, you know, you just don't worry about your hair. Let it just sort of become, you know, the rat's nest, as they say. That's not what he's saying. Peter is not saying to ignore your hair, but he is cautioning godly women who want to influence their husbands not to get caught up in cultural practices, doing things with your hair to be seen that was, well, an extreme practice of Peter's day of weaving gold and jewels into their hair. And Peter is saying, this is not adorning that I'm speaking of. Avoid these outlandish and extravagant things. This is not true adorning. So every woman has to consider what adornment is. Particularly those who are trying to reach their husband who is lost. Peter adds that the true beautification is not in wearing expensive jewelry, right? He talks about that as well here in verse three, in the wearing of gold, in wearing expensive jewelry. Again, he's not forbidding the wearing of jewelry. Some of it may be expensive, but again, extravagant and costly is not how you beautify your life. Don't be fooled. You can go to a lot of money and a lot of effort and a lot of time focusing on the wrong thing. Don't! This is not the adornment that will influence your husband. True beauty and adornment is not in the purchasing, in the wearing, the putting on of many expensive clothes that you buy. That's not the adornment. You may think that this adornment of the plating of hair and the wearing of gold and the putting on of apparel, it's gonna really impact my husband. I'm gonna come home with a new dress or a new hairstyle or something other that's special that draws attention to myself, that this is going to impact my husband. Peter is saying, no, this is not how you truly impact your husband, not in these things. And again, I'm cautioning here, Peter's not speaking against stylish clothing and fixing your hair or wearing of jewelry. He's not speaking of those things being evil. He is simply saying, these are not the things that change your marriage. If you focus on the external, physical, material things, you're missing the point of how God will use your life to influence your husband. It's not through those things. True adornment that your husband will behold, he will take notice of. He'll take notice if there's a lot of effort and investment and time spent on your physical, material interests. And we're told that he will behold your interests in that which is spiritual. So the fifth thing on Peter's list shows up here in verse number four. But let it be the hidden man or the hidden life, the hidden person. Let it be this, not that. the hidden person, that new man, the new life, which is deep within you. Beauty that comes from a deep place in her being, where God's Spirit dwells in her, in her mind and her affections, in those deeper places beyond the physical realm. True beauty cannot be corrupted because it comes from a spiritual being, a spiritual life that is being developed by the Spirit of God. Verse four, but let it be the hidden man of the heart in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit which is in the sight of God of great price. Even Let it be, what a contrast, but let it be. A contrast between that which is spiritual, internal in a woman, that which comes from her own walk and relationship with God, that's deep within her mind and in her affections. This is that which is not corrupted. Everything else mentioned can decay and rot and pass away, but not this. This is not corruptible. He describes it here as the ornament or the accessory that adds true beauty. The accessory that adds true beauty is a meek and quiet spirit. The adorning of a godly woman who hopes to influence her husband spiritually will beautify her life with this ornament. This is an ornament, an accessory to her beauty. A meek and a quiet spirit. Meek, also an adjective. It's describing her. She has a gentle nature about her. This is what a meek, influential woman looks like. She is gentle in nature. She's not offensive. She's not argumentative. She's meek. This is an accessory that beautifies her. And she's quiet. Another adjective, a way to describe this woman that is in our text here. Quiet means a peaceable disposition. She's calm, she's composed. She's not unraveling. She's not losing control. She's quiet. Before anyone can push back against the importance of this ornament that Peter is referring to, he quickly adds, which is in the sight of God of great price. Which, referring to meekness and a quiet spirit, is always, is continuously, God is always attentive to this spirit of a woman that is born from within her, her own relationship with God that finds its way out in this manner. Make quiet spirit. That's how it works itself out. And God always takes note of wives who, in the face of great difficulties, possess these qualities. Peter says that God places, do you see, a great value. God, God, who possesses all things, can look down upon a human woman and see certain qualities and says, that's of great value to me. And we can only imagine the reward and honor that will be bestowed upon those who've adorned their life with these accessories. Let's read this one more time and then I'll close. Listen to verses one through four, putting this all together for us that we have mentioned. Likewise, you wives, be in subjection. There's the first, right? Be in subjection to your own husbands for this reason, so that if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by your behavior. While they behold this behavior, while they behold your chase behavior coupled with fear. Whose adorning let it not be that with outward adorning of the plating of hair or wearing of gold or of putting on of apparel, not that adorning, but let it be the hidden person, that hidden new life, spiritual life of the heart, of her inner being and that which is not corruptible even the ornamentation, the accessory of possessing a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. So Peter, under the direction of God's Holy Spirit, has provided counsel for wives, all wives, but especially those who are married to unbelievers. And he gives a list of things to do, actions and dispositions that can influence your husband. You cried out, what should I do? Well, okay. God through Peter has given the list. Here's what you do. Cement. And you know what that means. Be chase. Exercise reverence. Don't focus on the external outward, but focus on the inward beauty. This is God's counsel to wives, particularly those who are married to unbelieving, disobedient husbands. These same wives are cautioned against vanity. And this is an important thing for women of our day, like women of their day, to keep in mind. Beware vanity. Beware focusing on that which is outward, material. Don't let those things preoccupy your mind and your affections. And wives are encouraged to be what in the end is incorruptible. They will never perish. The sacrifices you make will be eternal. They are incorruptible. according to Peter. They will never perish. And if they are in the sight of God, if you can imagine God looking upon you and saying, ah, that's of great price. That's of great price. That God admires such a quality as that. in a woman's life is quite encouraging to you. He notices, he takes note. So women and wives today are under great pressure from the world. We see it all around us. They struggle with their own flesh, at times even wanting and desiring things that are in the world. How important it is that you find your worth, your self-worth, not in the external things, but in those things which are internal within you. and how careful we as Christian men need to be concerning our wives and what we ought to encourage and see and recognize as valuable to us that we know is valuable to God. We can put our focus on the wrong things with our wives and with our daughters and how careful we must be. Your words, men, your smiles carry a tremendous weight in your home. May you be careful in the kind of influence that you give to your children. Father, thank you for the reminder of these things, and I pray that our dear wives that are here today would not just be challenged, but find encouragement in the clarity. We don't have to wonder what you think about certain things, but you have spelled them out with great clarity for us. Thank you, Father, for showing us your desire for your daughters today. and help us as men be committed to promoting those things, doing our part to advance those qualities as well. We ask in Christ's name. Amen.