There was a young man who decided that he was going to try to find God's will for his life. Now, he wasn't quite mature in his faith, but he knew that it had to do something with the Bible, and he realized he needed to go there to be able to really understand God's will. However, he didn't really have a close relationship with the Almighty, and so he was concerned about how he might do it. So he decided the best idea would be just to take his Bible, open it, point to a verse, read it, and claim it as his own. Unfortunately, he opened to Matthew 27, verse 5, which reads, and he went and hanged himself. Now, he didn't think that could be quite right, so he decided that he'd turn a few pages further and try it again, and he turned to Luke 10, 37, and Jesus said to him, you go and do likewise. At this point, he didn't think that Jesus would say that to him, so he thought maybe he should flip a few pages further and give it one more try. Third time is a charm. And it came up to John 13, 27. Jesus said to him, what you are going to do, do quickly. Now, the reason why I mention this story is because sometimes when we come to Scripture, we kind of bridle when we hear the message. And we kind of say, wait, wait, that can't be exactly what God is saying to me. And when that happens, such as in this passage, it should be a warning light that says we need to spend more time with the Lord. For instance, look at this passage, how it starts. Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands. Likewise, to what? Well, if we go back to the paragraph before, it says it has a reference there to servants and masters. Now, even if you want to sugarcoat that and say employers and employees, who wants their marriage to function that way? I don't. I'm sure you don't. And so I think we need to be able to do those principles that are most important. When the red light goes off, it's time to step back, look at the context, Get a cup of coffee and sit down with the Lord and spend some time in a fireside chat with him. Because 20 to 1, we've got the wrong end of the stick. And we need to go back to the basics of what we know are true and then start unraveling what God has said to us so that we don't just obey the letter of the law, but we really understand the heart of the law and so can go beyond it. In this case, we go back to Luke, excuse me, 1 Peter 2. I'm not going back to Luke. We'll start in 1 Peter 2. But in verse 13, which has already been discussed in weeks past, we are called to be subject for the Lord's sake. Now, you have to look, because what has already been talked about is being subject to the government, being subject to human institutions. Now, why would the Lord require that of us? Why would he require that we be in a position of obeying and subjecting ourselves to a government which, whether or not it's a democratically formed government, will be corrupt? and greedy and full of greed. How do we align this with the fact that God desires goodness in our life and promises that? And promises so out of his sovereignty. If we subject ourselves to a local government, aren't we in essence spitting in the face of his sovereignty? And you see, this is what's so fascinating because we know that God wouldn't have us do that. That would be sinful. That would be something so contrary to his nature. So we know that that's not wrong. Submission is not wrong. Nor is it wrong to submit in the ways that he is teaching us to do so. So how are we supposed to understand this? Well, I think if we were able to have a fireside chat with God, he'd say, well, let's go back to the basics. Let's start looking to see what is really in this passage. And what I enjoy is that if you look at these six verses, the first six, that we'll look at this week, you'll actually see that there are some values which are drawn out. Let's go to verses 4 and 5, because there we're instructed about a personal value for those who hope in God. And what does it say in verse 6? It says that they will do good and not fear anything that is frightening. Okay, doing good, I can understand. We can go to many sections of scripture to be able to find that. If we go to Matthew 5, Jesus himself says, let your good works show, let your light so shine. I better read this so I get it right. In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Now, I'm sorry, but if you do humanitarian and good works, people are not going to suddenly make the quantum leap and say, hey, you're doing it because you know God. It won't happen. If you act like a Boy Scout, they'll conclude that you are getting a merit badge. And in the same way, if we continue to do good things, they just think that we're religious do-gooders. Now, how is there the gap there? Well, again, if we do good, real good, If we do those things, we can only be generated from a life that can be given away because our hearts are overflowing with love. Our lives are satisfied by the love of God. Then people will say, whoa, that's way beyond their efforts. There must be something here. It must be a God thing. Now, in the same way, if we do good, Our whole goal is not that we should get the praise, but that he should get the praise, isn't it? You see, this is where we need to be able to start with this idea of doing good. But the second thing, and this is the odd phrase, if you look in verse 6, it talks about not being fearful of anything that's frightening. Which sounds like doublespeak to me. I mean, if you're supposed, you know, if something is frightening, that's probably something you should fear, isn't it? I mean, that's why it's frightening. Otherwise, it wouldn't be frightening. And yet, what does that look like? Well, again, if we hope in God, suddenly our personal values shift, and those things that normally would have been frightening may not appear to be so. Yesterday, we had the funeral of a wonderful woman from this congregation named Beverly Kirkland. Beverly was one of these gregarious, outgoing, charming hostesses. Anytime you walked into their home, you were welcomed as old friends. There was always a wonderful time of being with her. She would focus in on you. She'd listen carefully. She gave good counsel. But more than her charm, More than anything else that she said, she was also a prayer warrior. And it was born out of this hope, a solid hope in God. You see, for 28 years, Beverly struggled with diabetes. And she had a terrible case. Not only did she send body parts home to heaven early, but she also had numerous surgeries. Every episode, every event when she went to hospital was life-threatening. And yet, I never heard her fear. You see, she understood that her hope and her life was hidden in Christ. So if she would die, she would wake up to see the face of her Lord and Savior, and that couldn't be bad. And if she lived, she would wake up and see the face of her beloved husband and daughter, and that wouldn't be bad. Every time a limitation came into her life, she was able to look and say, it hasn't changed my relationship with my God. He still loves me. He is still sustaining me through all of this. And so you see, because of her hope in God, she would actually chide herself when she'd get fearful. When something new was thrown into her pathway, and she'd go, oh, what's going to happen now? She'd back away and say, wait. Nothing's going to happen now. I have nothing to fear. Now, for those who heard this first letter, they were facing death on a regular basis. For those of us who are living in the United States, we don't do it on a regular basis, and it might help us spiritually if we did. If we could stop for a second and start taking a catalog of our fears and start going through them and saying, are those legitimate fears? Or are they fallacious? Do they just demonstrate that we aren't trusting God enough? Let's look at a few. What about this recession? What about the financial problems that are going along? Are you fearful? And if so, does that mean that you aren't trusting God who has given you work and employment for your hand? Do you trust that God will open those doors? Or are you trusting in your own ability and marketability? God help us. If we don't understand in these very basic areas, when it suddenly comes to something which is life-threatening, not just financial, we need to be able to truly look at what our lives are. Do we truly honor God? Isn't this a value that we should all strive for? So that's the first, it's a personal value to hope in God. And to give evidence of that in doing good by stretching out for others because we are free to give of our lives. And to give of the resources that God has made available to us. And in the second part, making sure that we don't fear. So that when people look at our lives, they'll see we have a totally different set of standards. And that we can live, we can live generously, we can live big because of who our God is. He is great. As we go back to the fireside chat with God, I'm sure God would say, you know, there's a second one that would be really good. If you look in verses three and four, there's not only the personal values of hoping in God, but now we see some values that God has himself. In fact, it actually says, here is something which is precious in the sight of God. Well, you know, if it's precious to God, we need to listen up. But what is that? Now, what's interesting is this is specifically for women. This is God's definition of beauty. Ladies, listen up. Men, learn. Come on, guys are a little slow at getting this, but it's OK. But isn't it interesting that in verse 4, we see what is very precious to God is a woman's hidden person of the heart, adorned with imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. Now, this is kind of illustrated in a factotum from Wheaton College. Now that my son is in the Wheaton College family, he's learning many things. It's said, generally, of men who are there, that they will date the women who are in the very wild freshman dormitory, but they will marry the quiet, studious women of Smith. Now, I won't tell you which dorm Lisa Ryken lived in when she was proposed marriage by our senior pastor, but it seems to have worked out quite well. But what does it mean to have a gentle and quiet spirit? James Strong, who was the author of the first exhaustive Bible concordance, actually gives some good insight into this. He said, gentleness or meekness towards God is that disposition of spirit in which we accept his dealings with us as good and therefore without disputing or resisting. Gentleness or meekness is the opposite to self-assertiveness and self-interest. It stems from trusting God's goodness and control over the situation. Let me ask the women who are here, is that a mark in your life? As God looks into your soul, is he pleased by the calmness, the serenity that you have because of your relationship with him? Have you learned to have him as your husband who intimately cares for you and knows you? Are you satisfied by his care for you? And if so, the way that is demonstrated is by having As the scripture says, a gentle and calm spirit. Now that does not mean that there are harried moments in our lives. It's not to mean that someone is verbally quiet, but rather it is this solid confidence in God's care for you, in God's plan for you. You know, this shouldn't just be limited to women. It should be the mark of every man as well. But this was written specifically for women. And I have to believe that perhaps there is a bit more of a nervousness that would come, especially in this culture, which does not value perhaps women as much as men, though we strive to get closer to that ideal. I think sometimes we need to be able to stretch out, and as the church, lead our culture well. If we could show A confidence in God, not just the hope of the future heavenward, but if we can show that hope, and if we can show that beauty now, indeed, the rest of the world will come after us to find out what that is. It's interesting that so often we don't think of this as very attractive, or we don't celebrate it as often. I find that often as we go to scripture, we do not continually focus upon our relationship with God, to find that place of intimacy and love. I enjoy the book of Hosea, and I don't know if you've read through it. It's a bit of a tragedy, actually, because Hosea and his wife, Gomer, were supposed to illustrate the relationship that God had with the nation of Israel. But the tragedy of this was that Gomer was a prostitute, and even after she got married, she found it hard to be with one man. And so she went back to the lifestyle that would gain her, the high life, the fast track, the good things of life that she missed. And it got to the place where God really tore Hosea's heart to pieces. He says, I want you to go show love to your wife again. And initially, what I want you to do is I want you to give her the things that she wants, but give them in the hands of the lover she now seeks. And it seems as though God would be enabling the sin. But he said, I want to make a point here, and that is that that's what I have done for my people. So often they are so attracted by the sin, and they do not understand my love for them. So for now, Hosea, illustrate this by yourself." It got even more tragic because finally she couldn't even sustain the lifestyle she had, and she could no longer find enough lovers who would sustain it. And as a result, she had to go into slavery itself. And then God tells Hosea to go and to buy her out of slavery. You can read of his bidding in chapter 3, verse 2. And after he has come now to own her, he had the right, the legal right to kill her because of her infidelity, because she was now his property. And instead, He was told by God to go and announced to her that he will continue to be faithful to her and she was continued to be faithful to him. And that is what the Lord does with us. You know, so often we run after the things that we think are so important. And it takes a while before we hear God shouting out his love to us, saying, come back to me. And you say, wait, Carol, this passage is about submission. Yes, we're getting there. But first, you must hear God's call of love, or you will never be able to understand his command to submit. You see, if we have this hope in God, and if we have this personal value of desiring to demonstrate beauty by knowing him so intimately, then we can start going back to this passage which says that there needs to be submission. But look how it's done. Look in verse 1 and 2, and especially verse 2. What does it say? How do we show submission? Well, it's with conduct. It's with the conduct of their wives that are respectful and pure. So what are we talking about here? Well, of course, what we're talking about is exactly what's going on in marriage. It's interesting, though, because this phrase is even more desperate than what it looks like. And that is because it says that the husbands, even if your husband is not following the word, Now, as much as we can tell, obviously, the word is the word of God. There is no manual for marriage, as many will attest. But the word of God does tell us and teach us about marriage. And if we look at Ephesians 5, again, scripture helps us to understand scripture. If we look at chapter 5, we see that it says that a husband is to love his wife and a wife is to respect her husband. In other words, the thing that a wife needs is love, and the thing that a husband needs is respect. And that's interesting because I've been to enough marriage seminars, Christian marriage seminars, where that's not been the message. It's been love for everyone, love, love. And that's great. The wives go away tanked up and saying, you're supposed to love me. And the husband goes back and say, I wish I could do it better. And no one's happy. In his book entitled Love and Respect, Emerson Eggeridge cites a national survey of 400 men who were asked to choose between two different negative experiences. Either A, to be left alone and unloved in the world, or B, to feel inadequate and disrespected by everyone. Let me repeat that. To be left alone and unloved in the world, or to feel inadequate and disrespected by everyone. 74% said if they were forced to choose, they'd rather be left alone and unloved in the world. Ladies, listen to that. Your husband needs respect. He needs to be respected by you. And this is not a choice, and this is not if he deserves it. This is a command from the Lord who made your husband and who gave your husband to you as a gift. You need to respect him. Oh, and let me make one more caveat, because sometimes we do this love and respect thing according to our definition. And that's wrong. It's totally wrong. You see, one time I decided that I was going to love my wife and love her well. You know, she's an elementary school teacher, and we needed money. And there was this great product which was called Discovery Toys. It's like the Tupperware of toys. And they were educational toys. And I thought, wow, this is great. We'll be able to make money. Kimberly can do the thing that she does so well. And it will be wonderful, right? And after about five months of doing this, she said, can I give up now? And I said, I thought you enjoyed this. She said, no, you thought I enjoyed this. And I said, oh. And she said, it's killing me. My love was killing her. Listen and learn. Husbands, you are supposed to study your wives. This is a good thing, guys. This is a really, really good thing. You are commanded by God to study your wives. Oh, yeah. Dig in. Enjoy it. And ladies, you are supposed to respect your husbands, but not according to what you think is respect, but according to what they need in respect. I have seen men light up. because a woman, their wives in particular, has said, I really respect you. That's part of the danger of being in an office where you wield power and you have an expertise and there may be a woman who's there and she says, wow, I respect you in the business place. And you see what happens is a man may interpret that as what? Well, look here. He interprets it as something very, very special. And he interprets that as what he needs to fill his tank and resources. And that's why a husband must protect his heart as he walks out of his home, so that he is not susceptible to the respect of other women, but he is listening carefully for the respect of his wife. Wives, you are your husband's greatest protector of his heart. Respect him, and he will be able to do great things, just as you will be able to increase your ministry and your outreach if your husband will love you well, according to what you need in love. Boy, I sound like I'm preaching here. As we get back to this, that's why it's so interesting, because again, look at what God is saying. What He is teaching here is the submission to your own husband is seen in your respectful and your pure conduct. Doesn't that make sense now? When we see that this is what a husband needs, and when we see, when a husband can see that in his wife, and can see the purity that she has in her desire to honor God, first and foremost, he will not only be excited, he will be thrilled because of moving in the same direction. And look at the miracle. God will use this to grab the attention of a husband so that they might both follow God. Isn't that amazing? He will take what normally would look just like respect or the intimacy within a marriage and he'll say, no, this is because your wife has found complete satisfaction in me and I have made you my agent of love to her for this brief moment. Don't waste it. Don't waste it. Now wives, You have the opportunity of fulfilling a husband's heart by respecting him and by fully loving your Lord, trusting him, seeking your beauty, your standard of beauty from him, hoping fully in him. And that is how you will help your husband turn around to love you. For he will be filled with a joy to be married to you. And then you will receive the love you desire so deeply. Love by God's agent who lives in that same house with you. And you see, the interesting thing is God gives us a command not only for our joy, but so that others can see that we are His people. You see, this idea of being submissive to governments, of being submissive to your husbands, is that other people who are looking in to see our lives, to see our lifestyle, our intentionality, will see that we're not doing it because it's a good idea. It's an excellent idea that we know only because we know the Creator, only because He has commanded us. And we find our deepest joy and satisfaction there with him. And so we live this way. I had a wonderful and delightful joy of meeting a couple here at 10th a number of years ago. I can't remember how long it's been. Mariah grew up in a Quaker home. It was a good moral training. She had four younger brothers, and she was very surprised. She was at a place in her life where she herself was about to start out in a career, and she wasn't sure exactly where her life was going. She had been married for about three years, and she kind of needed some type of satisfaction. She wasn't really happy with life. She went home for a family reunion and was surprised, shocked, to find that all four of her brothers had become Christians in the following year. And it was especially stunning for one of her brothers, one that she was very close with, who had been a drug addict. who had had quite a lecherous lifestyle, and suddenly there was none of that. He was clean, and he was really satisfied. And as she said, he had such a calmness about him, I had no idea what it was. Well, he talked to her about Jesus making such a difference in her life. And she said, yeah, OK, well, maybe I should read the Bible. OK, I'll read the Bible. And so she started to read the Bible. And then she thought, you know, I see so many people in the Bible praying to God. I better pray. So she started reading her Bible and praying. And then as she got to the New Testament, she thought, you know, I should find a church. You know, that would be a good idea. How do you go about finding a church? Well, she looked out her window and she happened to live across the street from 10th Presbyterian Church. And she said, duh, there's a church. So she decided to come over. And it was fascinating. Because as she stepped inside the church, as she went through the first worship service, she looked and she said, oh, this is right. This is good. And she started to come. But she always wanted to have her husband Dana come. You see, Dana had grown up in a Jewish home, but he had never really practiced Judaism at all. And so she asked the Lord in prayer when it would be a good time to share the gospel with Dana. She said that the one time that she tried forcing the issue, it was a disaster. Dana just looked and said, I really don't want to hear about it. Thank you very much. That's your thing, not mine. Enough said, OK, honey. And so she happened to get to 1 Peter chapter 3. And she looked and she said, if that's what the Lord wants me to do, that's what I'm going to do. Because I'll do anything to have Dana come to the Lord. I really want us to be a Christian couple." As children came along, years later, she was still praying for Dana. And when their firstborn turned five, she finally come to the place of saying, you know, I pray the Lord will do this, but it's been 13 years. And I've been praying, and I think I've been faithful, but now we're at a bit of a crossroads. Because it's time that our son have the opportunity to learn about God. And I'd love to bring him to church, but I also know that Dana might want him to go to the synagogue since the synagogue is just a block away. And she said, Lord, I trust you to help my husband make a good decision. And so she went to Dana and she said, Dana, what should we do about this? Dana kind of pulled back, and he thought, you know, religion is kind of your bailiwick, not mine. But he didn't say anything. Dana's a very thoughtful guy. So he went, and he thought about it, and he came back, and he said, you know, I've never really had anything to do with Judaism. But why don't you take him to church? That seems like a good idea. Why don't you take him to church? And you see, she had her heart's desire, because she was willing to submit to her husband, even though he didn't know the word of God. Well, what's interesting is that as they became more and more involved, as their second son came to the church, It was just at a point when Dana was going through some difficulty of his own, a lot of stress. He was finishing up his PhD. He now needed to start to make money. So he had to find a job. He had to be able to get established. And he realized at that point that there was a lot more to life. And he was wondering if he was really on top of what was needed. He was one year out from finishing all of this. And he was starting to already try to make plans. And it was just at that time that Mariah started reading a certain Christian book by an author named Merrill Carruthers. And Merrill's whole theme in his books was trusting God that all things in his plan would work together for good. And what would happen is that Mariah left the books around the house, hoping that Dana might pick one up. But she never saw any changes. But you see, when she was at church, Dana was picking the book up. And he was reading it, and he made sure he put it down just according to the dust lines so that she might never guess. For one year, he did that. And you see, Dana told me that it was because he wanted to make sure that coming to God was something that he was doing not because of his wife, but because it was true. And so a year later, Mariah had come to a junction in her life as well. Dr. Boyce was preaching through Romans. And by the time he got to chapter 5, Dana's prayer was changing from, Lord, please help us become a Christian couple and Christian parents, to, Lord, I don't want Dana to go to hell. Could you please save him? And she said, I don't care if I never see the results in my lifetime, just save Dana. Two weeks, two months later, Dana turned around to Moriah one day and he said, you know, I need to know more about God. And she said, well, you know, you need to know about Jesus first. And he said, okay, tell me about Jesus. And she said, to this day, she said, I was so stunned. I don't even know if I told him the right thing. But I shared with him how Jesus had changed my life. I told him I'd go and get him a Bible. I told him he needed to start praying because God wanted to hear from him. And he said, of course, you're going to have to go to church. And she thought, man, that's going to be the deal breaker. And he said, no, I want to go to church now. I need God. I need Jesus. As Mariah said, of all things, our first Sunday was stewardship Sunday. And I thought, the paint isn't even dry on this Christian boy, and you're doing what to him? And the second Sunday that he was here, he was standing up as his son was being baptized and received into membership in this church. What a way to start your Christian experience. But how much they've grown. You see, what God says is true if we would just obey it, if we would just live it out. Indeed, it is a silent strength that God works through our lives to be able to share his glory with others. To think that someone might understand grace because of the way that we live, isn't that remarkable? That someone can see the divine through the shabbiness of our sinful lives? God is truly remarkable. Now, I think there's a lot more that we can see here in these values. I don't think that they're quite as limited as the passage is. The passage says this is for those who are married, married to men, married to sinners. But I think at the same time that we can ask the same questions of us. What are our personal values? Do we hope in God to the place that people can see it? That we do not have fear, but rather we reach out beyond ourselves because we no longer have to protect us. God is our shield and defender. We can give our lives away in his name. Do we have such a concept and a value of beauty, or for men, handsomeness, that we realize our individual, our inner lives with him is of such importance, that we are confident in his sovereignty and goodness, that we will not be shaken by the circumstances in which we find ourselves? And what about when we find ourselves in relationships? Do we have the joy, the love, the confidence in God that we can be helpful, encouragers, those who can hold each other to accountability, lovingly, gently, but firmly, because of the standard that we have in Scripture, because of what God has taught us, all because We know him, and we are satisfied by him. By God's grace, may that be true for us. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, may we live, may we grow, may we show forth your beauty in such a way that others will be asking about you. For it's in Christ's name we pray, amen.