that. It says in Colossians 3.18, and then I'm going to jump right over to 1 Peter. Colossians 3.18, it says, Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as it is fit in the Lord. 1 Peter 3, 1 to 6, 1 Peter 3, 1 to 6 says for us, likewise you wise be in subjection to your own husbands that if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wise. Now we understand also that anyone who trusts Christ is by grace through faith, repentance and faith, we understand that, but lead them toward or be the example they should be for Christ, by the conversation and the lifestyle of the wives, while they behold your chaste conversation, lifestyle, coupled with fear, whose adorning, let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or putting on of apparel. Let it be the hidden man of the heart, and that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. For after this manner, in the old time, the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands, even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord. Now, that is not like worship, that's reverential respect. Whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement. May the Lord's blessing to the reading of his word. Let's pray for a moment. Heavenly Father, this morning, I pray that you would help me to say nothing amiss. May we examine our own hearts and lives. Are we, as husbands or wives, or future husband or wife, are we fit to be tied? Are we truly fit to become married to another person? So Lord, may we examine our own hearts, especially the ladies today. Next week will be for the men. I pray that you help us now that we will not simply say, well, this is for a certain group and not nothing for me. We can find something, I believe, in every sermon if we are listening to the Spirit work in our hearts and lives. And so Lord, help me today to say nothing amiss. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. So there are some true stories told of a little girl who married itself, as you well know, and our culture has fallen on such a disrepute, if you would. It's in disarray. Matter of fact, in 2015, the Supreme Court legalized two men or two women marrying each other. Can I say that is not a marriage, it is a relationship perhaps, or a commitment perhaps, but marriage God has already said to us. He has already said one man, one woman for life. So that's it. But there's been such a misunderstanding of marriage. A true story is told of a little girl, as far as I know it's true, who had gone to see the Cinderella movie. She was seven years old, and she was testing her neighbor's knowledge on the Cinderella story, the animated, the old one. And the neighbor was anxious to impress the little girl. And she says, I know what happens at the very end. And the little girl goes, what happens? He goes, they live happily ever after. She goes, oh, no. They didn't live happily ever after. They got married. Now there's a lot of cynicism across the world. One man literary figure said, every man plays the fool once in his life, but to marry is playing the fool all of one's life. One couple in marital difficulty said, had gone to the counselor. He said, don't you have anything in common? She said, yes, neither of us can stand the other. And so that's, but you know, I even hesitate to use those. because it is such an important thing being married and loving one another. And I'm just going right along with what the scripture says where we are in our text in Colossians 3.18. Less snarky. Marriage is easy. It is living together afterwards that is tough. It is a difficult thing at times. Are you fit to be tried? Tied, I'm sorry. So the Lord does not define the extent of the wife's submission. He does not define it as a limit of the wife's submission. He defines this as the motive. What's the motive of your submission? It means why submit yourselves unto your own husbands? Because it's part of what God would have you to do. I'm going to jump ahead, but I think the onus is on us. The responsibility is on us. If we are treating our wives, our Christian wives, as a Christian man should treat his wife, very rare will be the wife who has very much trouble submitting to a husband who is submitting to the Lord and treating her as a man should treat his wife. And so we are be treating our wives correctly. And when we do that, so the ultimate responsibility for the home man is us while on us. And so how are we treating our wives? That'll be for another another week. But this morning is why submitting yourselves to your own husband? By the way, it doesn't say to all men, it says to your own husbands. This begs the question, then, are we walking worthy? of a husband or wife. Turning over with me now, please, to 1 Peter 3. We'll stick it right there, pretty much. 1 Peter 3. I think it's advantageous that the Holy Spirit in his wisdom chose to use Abraham and Sarah as the example. So in your outline, first of all, we see the importance of commitment Now, they were not the perfect couple. Abraham was given Hagar by Sarah, a maidservant, and they had a relationship resulting in a child, Ishmael. And later, there were severe problems with Ishmael and the truly promised one, Isaac. And there are still problems today between Ishmael and Isaac. We see it across the world every day in our world. Their lives were continually disrupted. They moved from one place to another. Abraham really never settled down. I don't think he ever had a place in a promised land, per se. And so he never had put his roots down. And so there was all this going on. And Abraham really told some half-truths or whole lies about, well, if you tell them that you're my wife, they'll take you and just say you're my sister. And she was his half-sister, which is true. But it was a lie, whole lies. If I'm not mistaken, he did it twice. So Abraham and Sarah, however, survived all these difficulties, and they navigated every stage of life. She's the only lady who has her age at death. It's either 127 or 137 in the entire Bible. I think she's the only woman that has her age when she died. They went from the romantic to the rheumatic, with A-R-H-E-U, all together. They stayed together. The basic principle was this commitment. isn't interesting in our lives. I'll have to say, I'm going to preface this with a caveat, dealing with counseling with people, a couple comes to counseling, and if one of them, either of them, does not want it to work, I find very, very rarely will it work. If one of them's committed, sometimes they see the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. Can I tell you why it's greener over there? Because you spent time watering it. Where you are now, you're not putting any water and effort in this one, and so the grass is green. And when you get over there, you look back and you stop watering, and the grass gets brown on that side, and you look back where you were, and the grass is beautifully green over here. It's up to us. So there are difficulties, I understand. There's a commitment. The exceptions are, and I remember different ones I've talked to, and I remember Burt and Big and Niner, we talk about how long they've been married and how they get together, et cetera. She's still alive, as far as I know, about 98 or 99, somewhere in that general neighborhood. And so it's interesting how people have stayed together. I just saw, I read this week where a couple had been married, was it 80 years? They're both like 106 and 102, they've been married 80 years. That's quite, that's double what we are. Stephanie's like, I don't think we're going to make it to 80, sweetie. She's like, I hope not. So here we are. The key is commitment. So how big is that? So the importance of commitment. Second is a word for the wise. And here we've got five or four or five things here to put in. First of all, the word for the wise. And the first word, of course, is submission. Back in 1 Peter 3, verse 1, toward the back of your Bible, likewise, you wise be in subjection. Can we just stop for just a moment? Likewise, comma. Now we need to go back. It's like, oh, there, likewise. So what is the example? 21 through two of Peter, 1 Peter 2.21. For here unto were you called. Because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow his steps. Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. Who, when he had reviled, reviled not again. When he had suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judges righteously. Who, his own self, bear our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were a sheep going astray, but ye are now returned unto the shepherd and bishop of your souls. And in the letter there would have been no pause for a paragraph or no pause for a chapter, likewise ye wise. You talk about a tall order as the example of Christ. Likewise, you wise be in subjection to your own husband, like as Christ was in subjection to the Father is the idea, I believe. Likewise, you are to be in subjection to your own husbands, that if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be one pointed to, shown Christ by the conversation of the wise. So that's the word submission there. That's why it's so important. through her own husband. You say, well, Pastor Tim, it may be wonderful. It may do all be good and well if the husband is wonderful and caring and all those things. And Pastor Tim, I'm sure that in the Bible times, it was a lot easier for a woman to be in subjection to her husband. Well, let me just give you just a moment for the plight of women in the ancient world. Under Jewish law, a woman was a thing. She was the possession of her husband just as much as his house or his flocks or his material goods were. She had no real legal right whatever. For instance, under Jewish law, a husband could divorce his wife for any cause, while a wife had no rights whatsoever to initiate a divorce or separation. In Greek society, a respectable woman lived an entire life in seclusion. She never appeared in the streets alone, not even to go to market. She lived in women's apartments, and she did not join her menfolk for meals. For her, it demanded complete servitude and chastity, but for the Greek culture, the husband could do whatever he wanted to do. So she had all of the duties. He had all the privileges. In Rome, well, Roman Cato said, if you were to catch your wife in an act of infidelity, you can kill her with impunity without a trial. One man, Roman, said he dismissed his wife because she had once appeared in the streets without a veil. Another Roman leader divorced his wife because she saw her secretly speaking to a freed woman in public. So I'm thankful. We hear so much of this. Well, the Bible's so filled with, and so patriarch. Jesus raised the level of women and the eyes of men like no other. It was the culture who had that. Jesus said, no, men and women are equal. They're different responsibilities, but men and women are equal. He's the one that, Matter of fact, a lot of ladies help Jesus in the ministry. If you read through the Bible, the church, yes, has the pastors a man, yes, and leaders typically are men, deacons and trustees, whatever. But the ladies are invaluable. Church would not get along without ladies in the church. So we are to work together. Part of that verse says, that if any obey not the word. Now that's that first class conditional clause we've learned about. It's just, it's a done deal. It has happened. Specifically, there were some women who had husbands who were not obeying the word and they were not living righteously and they were to be submissive to them. Again, a caveat, I'm not saying in abuse. I'm saying typically they were to be submissive to them. The wife should be submissive to her husband regardless of his spiritual state, regardless of his godliness or lack thereof. Now this is pretty much, I will tell you ladies, no matter how good your husband is or how loving, it's almost impossible without the Lord's, but it can be Him possible. Impossible on your own, but it's Him possible with Christ. Spurgeon says, could any man be one to Christ without the word? Yes. It was even so in the apostles day when they refused to attend the little Christian meetings that were being held and so could not hear what was being said. Yet at home they saw the change that the gospel of Christ had wrought in their wives and they said, She's quite different from what she used to be. Certainly she's better than the healing ladies. There must be something in that religion which can make such a change as that in this way without the word. He says, many of them were won to Christ by the godly conversation of the wives, end of quote. So when a wife lives in front of an unbelieving husband, lives the Christ-like life, Often, not always, but often the husband will start feeling guilty. And he will say, why have you changed? And that often will then point and lead to the husband getting saved. So submission is necessary really for leadership. leadership is necessary for in life. So in my office, I've gone from being the head of my department, I've got like three or four people now I've got to answer to and do what they say, at least three. And so there I've got two above me in my apartment, and then of course you have the executive director. But submission to leadership is a part of life. When Chris goes tomorrow morning, when he goes to pick up his load, he's going to be submissive to whoever's picked out the jobs he's got to go to tomorrow. And so it's part of that submission. We've got to be submit to those who are in authority over us. And in the home, we understand it as well. It was Adrian Rogers who said, anything without a head is dead, and anything with two heads is a freak. So we have in the home, we have one person One person who's to be in charge, but does not mean the husband and wife are not equal. Submit there means not a synonym for servile manial bondage. The appeal is to free responsible people. So you are to choose. It's not like you must do this and you must do it. It's like I need to choose to do that. So the husband is head of the home, does not make the wife inferior. Does not make the husband superior. The idea that if we are submission to somebody, we are inferior is plain false. That's hogwash. In the 1970s, when my, 60s, when my father-in-law went to Tennessee Temple, there would be those, the Billy Bible crew that would, the man would take his Bible and he would have a huge, a lot bigger Bible than mine. He'd be walking down the street and hear about five, 10 feet behind him come the wife and the kids. look at me and I'm and here come on hurry get up here that's not and Dr. Robertson would give them down the road for acting like that that is not how a man husband leaves his family and leads his wife he is the lead yes but not like that Women are not to be a doormat for your husband to step on. It says in 1 Corinthians, I've got Bible for it, but I would have you know the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God. There is an order in God's plan for the ages. Now, our society, we've taken this word patriarchy, and oh my goodness, that's the worst thing in the world to have men leading anything. And there are some bad men leaders, there's some bad lady leaders, we understand it, but the Bible principle is God has said, So let's be careful not to jettison what the Bible principles are to fit in with the culture of the day. God the Father, God the Son, and then the man, and then the woman. It's clearly, is a woman inferior creature, inferior to the man because she's under his authority? Absolutely not. Is Christ inferior to the Father because he's under his authority? Absolutely not. They are co-equal. The Spirit, Father, and the Son are co-equals, three persons, one God. If you know anything about Christian theology, you know that the worship of one God has revealed Himself thusly. We saw it in Hebrews this morning, chapter 10. The Father, the Son, and then the Spirit of Grace there in the end of chapter 10. It's not a matter of equality. Everybody knows that a woman is equal to the man in God's sight, and man is equal to the woman. In Galatians 3.28, there's neither Jew nor Greek, there's neither bond nor free, there's neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. That is God's plan. People, though, as you well know, it's like anything good can be taken and used for the wrong. The internet could be good, but many take it and use it for wrong. I just heard this week where they relaxed the rules on AI and pornography, where they're going to let AI have developed some pornographic responses to the things. We have to pray for our culture, pray for our leaders, pray for our children. May we guide them correctly. But we find that God is no respecter of persons. He's no respecter of the face. It is all of grace. We are one in the sight of God. But does equality do away with submission? And no. Jesus was equal to the Father, and yet He submitted to the Father. The wife is equal to the husband, and yet she submits to the husband. And not just say it, then that means the husband's responsible. So who's going to stand accountable for our home all these 40 years? 41 in December? Me. It's going to be me. Now I'll have to say, I don't want to confess so much, but when we were first married, I lost sight of the beauty of marriage and my beautiful wife, and I lost sight of that, and I was looking for something, I don't know, I'm looking for something that, and it was right there all along, and I remember my wife, I can't, I don't know how many times she asked it, but I'm almost sure she said, we need to go to counseling. I said, counseling? Did I, did you not tell me that? Yes, okay, I see. Okay, just confirm me that. I said, counseling, my dad's a pastor, your dad's a pastor, why would we need marital counseling? And so I have thought many times that the Lord kept us together because Ian came on the scene a lot sooner than we anticipated having a child. Got married in December and he was conceived, I don't know, maybe in the next summer, six months later. And so we were parents. I remember when she told me, you're gonna be a dad. Oh my goodness gracious, I'm going to be a dad. I've just been married for a few months and I'm going to be a dad already? This wasn't planned, I know, but God has different plans than yours, doesn't he? And so, I don't know, it could well be that he used, because wouldn't that, you who have given the pleasure of giving, or given the gracious of being a dad, doesn't that, especially the first child, that responsibility hits you like, I've got just a wife, now I've got a child and maybe children. And so that responsibility comes on. And so there we are. If we lose sight of the beauty of our partner and we start thinking for ourselves only, The devil's, I think that one of the devil's modern day attempts to make women and women, men and women alike under the guise of making them equal. There's the gender equality has been very popular of late. God made us equal, but he did not make us the same. Equal, but not the same. He made us different that he might make us one. If it was not the difference, there could be no really oneness, I think. It was Stephanie's differences that drew me to her, because she was so much different, and a lot of things I was not, beautiful, etc. I hope it was my extraordinarily good looks and suave personality. It was the differences that drew her to me, I'm hoping. And boy, I think of the ignorant things I did when I was dating, et cetera, and maybe last week. But ignorant things I do. You know, differences, I remember, you know, I really wouldn't want to get close to a bearded cheek. I remember in Moldova, the first time I was speaking at a church in Moldova, and in front of everybody, the pastor grabs me, go, muah, muah, and we cheek to cheek. And I tell you, I don't like that beardy cheek thing going on. And so it makes us different. He makes us different so that we might be one. So God made us different that he might make us one. The Bible, I think, is against, pretty sure it's against she men and he women and the dozen others now of identifying genders. In the beginning, God made them male and female. Now that is, I know there are some struggles from some people. But God's plan for the ages has been but two. When a woman's submission to her husband, she's not inferior at all. When a woman accepts the attitude of submission, something wonderful happens. An unsaved husband can perhaps be pointed to Christ, be pointed to the gospel, and receive the same Savior that his wife knows. Likewise, ye wives, three, one, be in subjection to your own husbands, that if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation or lifestyle of the wives, while they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. When Evangelist's wife said, it is the woman's job to love her husband. It's God's job to make him good. Submission, again, is not inferiority. In fact, it's a sense of superiority. You're never more like Christ when you're in submission, and you're never more like the devil when you're in rebellion. Rebellion, it says in 1 Samuel, it says the sin of witchcraft. It's a very negative thing, rebellion. Passive voice means the actions upon a middle voice means the wife initiates the action by submitting and participates in the effects and results of the submission, conveys the idea of a wife choosing to put herself. It's a willing spirit. That's what I'm saying to men. Men, if you're not treating your wife right, it makes it doubly, triply, quadruply hard for the wife to submit to you. If you're this demanding my way, highway, no matter what, and you're just all the time nagging and berating, that is not the Christian man. You need to be in the Word of God, becoming the man of God, so that your wife can submit to the man of God that you have become. That's the ticket. It's not about you demanding all these kind of things. It's a team effort. It's a mission. For example, I found this quite helpful. We have a college football team, and we have an All-American running back, perhaps something like Emmett Smith, or Archie Griffin, or Eddie George, or Barry Sanders, or old Jim Brown, or Walter Payton. So we have an outstandingly All-American Heisman Trophy, potentially winning, gifted running back. All's he has to do, and probably even now getting paid for it already, but graduate and get into the pros and make millions and millions of dollars. However, we have a quarterback who's good, but he's never going to go to the pros. He's going to enter the business world while the Heisman Trophy running back will become a star. Now, who has the superior talents? Obviously, the running back. But who's calling the, now this is old time, before the offensive coordinators, our coach, who's calling the plays? The quarterback, he doesn't have the talent, but in the scheme of things, the quarterback calls the plays, he asks for advice from the players, can you do that in run, can you block for him, yes, yes, okay, here we go, 45, see, whatever, I don't even know how to say it. Here we go. And so the quarterback, even though he doesn't have the ability of the running back, he still, by whatever the coach's orders, he's in charge. The husband is the leader. He's the one that has given responsibility to lead. Now, I have to say my wife is far surpassed me in Excel. So, when I read Excel a little bit here and there, I don't Excel, I'll say, I got a question and she'll say she learned this, I learned how to put a new table in there, or I learned how to make a new graph, or I learned how to put a new code in there. Oh, that's wonderful, yay. So, but when I have a question, however, I can say, Stephanie, I got an Excel question, she can probably answer that question. But who's ultimately in charge? It's the husband, even though your wife is excelling you probably in many things, or many, many things, or two or three things. But you're responsible to call the plays at God's direction. So submission, secondly, speech. It says in our text also, one by the word, or by the conversation. So no man has ever, I repeat, no man has ever nagged any, wife into submission, in my estimation. Nagging has never gotten anyone anywhere, pretty much. And so you just can't, nagging the wife. And wife also, wives cannot nag their husbands into submission. Matter of fact, the Bible says, the contentions of a wife are as a continual dropping or dripping, drip, drip, drip, drip, like a leaky faucet. It's better to dwell in a corner of a housetop than with a brawling woman in a white house. So nagging is not gonna work, ladies, and for men either. You can witness to your husband, yes, does not mean he can't witness. Does not mean he can't state your opinion during a disagreement, does not mean that. She ought to do that to influence her husband in the right direction, but what she should not be doing is nagging. The same drip, same drip. Ours is, we have the one cat that attacks our rugs. We got some new rugs, and I'm telling you, they're gonna be shredded before I know it. Every morning, it's like all these pieces of the, whatever those threads are, they're all over the bathroom floor, because this one, this one, same cat I've always complained about, she gets in there, scratches, and she loves, and she'll get under the bed, same way she gets under the bed and scratches under there, all those things. Yes, I know I need to get rid of her, I understand that, but I can't, so there we are. where would I have sermon illustrations if I didn't have Hissy Missy at the home? So the Bible says, though, she can, by her behavior and language and words, point her husband to Christ and perhaps even lead him to a saving knowledge of Christ. Of course, again, it has to be through faith and understanding repentance and faith. But just the opposite can happen. If she doesn't do those things, it's only going to make it harder for that husband to see Christ in her. An unsafe husband who lives with that kind of wife, the nagging wife, lives with a constant dripping faucet. But the godly wife, he lives with a sermon. He eats with a sermon. He walks with a sermon. He talks with a sermon. Godly speech. And finally, next to finally is serenity. Verse 3, who's adorning, let it not be the outward adorning of plaiting of hair, the wearing of gold, and putting on of apparel, 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. So God's word tell us that serenity makes a woman beautiful. Some say that this passage that women ought not to then go to a beauty shop or wear jewelry, etc, etc. But look closely. The idea conveyed is, let not your adornment be merely external. That's the whole idea. But pastor, look what it says. Okay, let's look what it says. Pastor, it says that women ought not to braid their hair. It says women ought not to put on gold. And if you're going to follow that logic, it said women should not put on a pair of clothes. That didn't make sense. What he's saying is, don't let your spiritual life be seen simply by the external. Far more important is what's internal, what's really inside you. And man, I would say the same. It's not so much about your external, it's what's on the inside that really makes a difference. He's simply saying that ladies can have a ministry with their husbands only if their beauty goes deeper than the external adornments. Sarah was the example. She was a beautiful woman. Men were arguing over her when she was 80 years old. Can you imagine that, 80 years old? A beautiful woman. And yet, she did not have such elaborate garish adornments that hid her inner beauty. I think of Esther. Esther, when she was going before the king, I think she rejected most of those, the makeup and all the things that went with it. And when she went in, just went in as she was, and the king was smitten by her. I think probably love at first, wow, made her queen. If you put an emphasis on the external, you're fighting a losing battle. The external is corruptible. It ages. But the inward beauty of a godly spirit, whether you're a man or a woman, should be something that grows with the ages. You shouldn't get snarky and more growly and more grumpy the older I get. I shouldn't be getting that way. Right? Yes, pastor, you shouldn't be getting that way. We should be growing. Our spirit should sweeten as we go older. Should it not? I'm not getting a lot of amens on that one. It should be. Your walk with God should be closer than ever the older you get. If it's not, we're not growing in the Lord as we should. Growing is a lifetime thing. What you win them with, you must keep them with. What you win them with, you must keep them with. A polling company did a survey of college students and asked these college students what they looked for in a person to date. Physical appearance ranked near the bottom, personality, sincerity, and character were at the top. There was a young officer, true story, who was blinded during a war and met and married one of his nurses who took care of him in the hospital. One day he overheard someone say, it was lucky for her that he was blind since no one who could see her would actually marry such a homely woman. He walked toward the voice and said, I overheard what you said. And I thank God from the depths of my heart for blindness of eyes that might have kept me from seeing the marvelous worth of a soul of this woman who is now my wife. She is the most noble character I have ever known. If the formation of her features is such that it might have masked her inward beauty to my soul, then I am the great gainer by having lost my sight. Outer beauty fades, but inner beauty grows stronger over time. I'm telling you, whoever said those words probably wanted to crawl under a bench somewhere and hide after saying something like that in his response. Peter writes also of a meek and quiet spirit in our text. Verse four, but let it be of the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit. Meek was a word Roman soldiers who were under the command of headquarters. They were not weak by any means. It was also used of a stallion, a stallion who had been broken to the bridle and harness. He was not weak at all, but he controls his strength and places that under the rider's authority that takes more strength than simply running free. To be a meek person and place yourself under the authority of another takes far more strength than just shooting from the hip all the time and all these things just spouting off and just doing whatever you want to do. To remain quiet sometimes and just to let God work out. The next word there is quiet. It doesn't mean mousy. It means tranquility or sincerity, the beautiful sincerity of a strong woman who places herself under the husband's authority. And the converse is true, often of tempestuous, restless wives who do not place themselves under the husband's authority. It's not milquetoast, but rather strength under control. A horse is powerful, but responsive to the slightest tug of the master is a gentle horse, and yet all that power is right there. I was asking my wife, I don't know, maybe you like to race your truck, but it seems like, and I've got a pickup now, but I see sometimes the pickups that have, they look like this tick, and we live at 23, and they'll hit that. They start up the corner cone, especially the motorcycle sometimes, and they... I guess I'm probably going about 100 miles an hour, but honestly, every once in a while, you hear them racing out there. And for some reason, men want to just get in there and just... They want to sell what's under the hood and see how fast my truck or my motorcycle will go, etc. I don't know how fast mine will go. Someone told me recently their truck couldn't get over 100. I've not gotten there yet. It's OK. I understand those things. But strength under control is you have the power, but you don't exercise it. You're letting God take that. And that's the woman, that meekness, or the man, the meekness. Serenity shows the presence of Jesus in her. And finally, service. Verse 5 and 6, just briefly touch on it. For after this manner, in the old time, the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands, even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, whose daughters you are, as long as you do well and are not afraid with any amazement. So that word Lord does not, again, mean worship, but respectful. Peter literally means here that she meets his needs. Sarah was Abraham's servant in a way, yes, not in the sense of a slave, but in the sense of a help meet. Sarah met Abraham's emotional and physical needs as best she could. She completed him. I love this. She did not finish him off. She completed, not finish him off. She was the bow to Abraham's violin, and they made beautiful music together. That is God's design. Husband leading in a godly way, the wife submitting to a husband leading in a godly way, and making beautiful spiritual music together. Are you fit to be tied? Now, so often we're fit to be tied, and we've got so much going on, and I just can't handle it. I'm about to pull what little bit of hair I have left, and I'm just fit to be tied today because there's so much stress in my life. That's not it. Are you fit to be married? Are you walking with the Lord? Marcel Massot was the very famous meme. And he was asked the difference between regular acting and pantomime. Marcel's response was interesting. He said, in the case of a bad actor, the words are there even if the actor's no good. But in the case of a meme is not good, there is nothing left. A meme must be very clear and very strong. How's our lives? Christians, husbands, wives, all of us. Are our lives echoing that we are growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord? Are we fit to be tied? Can it be said of you and I, I trust that it can. Let's pray together, please. Heads are bowed, eyes are closed. Before I pray, I wonder this morning, I'm not specifically talking about salvation. A little bit, yes. Salvation is receiving the forgiveness of Christ. He died on the cross to pay the penalty for your sin. Sin of the world, I believe, for God so loved the world. It means that you, A, admit that you are a sinner, B, believe truly that Christ died, was buried, and rose again for you, and C, call. Confess your sin, repent, and then call. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. I know I've used that verse many times, but it's still yet true. Will you call? Has the Holy Spirit spoken to your heart? And perhaps we are here this morning, and husband or wife, if you're involved in a marriage in some capacity, are we living the right kind of life for our spouse? Most of all, are we living the right kind of life for our Savior? Heaven and Father, I pray that you speak to our hearts. If we have been neglecting our walk with you. It may already be showing up in our marriage, our home, our family. Lord, forgive us. May we take seriously our need to spend time with you daily. So Lord, work in our hearts. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.