Conduct matters

--- Open your Bibles to 1st Peter chapter 3 and we're really in the heart of 1st Peter here studying the middle chapter and what we want to do in this is really try hard to keep the main thing the main thing so what I want to do is kind of go back and remind us of where we have been and the fact that Peter wants born-again believers because that's who this letter is written to is born-again believers to remember to rejoice in the hope that they have in their new inheritance their inheritance they received at birth their natural inheritance is one of death and decay but now being born again they have a new inheritance and to rejoice in that hope and he also writes to remind and explain what our conduct should be like while we wait for the fullness of that salvation fullness of that inheritance now conduct is a major theme in this book the word that is translated into the ESV conduct it may be behavior if you're a King James lover it's conversation our conversation but this word conduct is used five times more in the book of 1st Peter than any other New Testament book so we should take note of that and that should give us a clue that this is a real theme for what we're studying God intends for us to grow up in our salvation to be nourished by that pure spiritual milk and then to proclaim to the lost world who he is what he is like to proclaim his goodness and we do this less by preaching and convincing and more by our behavior and how we respond in situations and the some of the situations that were brought up or how do you respond to government authorities to reckless or ungodly civil authorities how do you respond in social situations with masters or employers or that sort of thing and then this chapter begins with the word likewise so here we're coming to another example in the most intimate of relationships in our homes and both when it pertains to the wives and the husbands it says likewise so let's read verse 1 and 2

and so Lord we bow our hearts one more time before you as we just invest in this scripture Lord and we invite you to invest in us and to open our hearts our minds and our spirits that we might receive this pure spiritual milk and thereby grow into what you want us to be we pray in Jesus name amen well you can tell that this opens up kind of a hot-button topic for women and for our culture and so what I want to start with so that no one shuts down before we get to the good stuff I want to start with three things that the Bible doesn't teach okay so the first thing that the Bible doesn't teach is that all women should be subject to all men this isn't a male-female issue okay it says that wives should be subject to their own husbands so this is a marriage issue not a gender issue and we may well find in a workplace environment or something that a woman is the boss over men and they should rank under her and follow the instructions that are given so the Bible doesn't teach that women should submit to men okay next thing the Bible doesn't teach is that women have less value than men or that wives have less value than their husbands individuals of all ranks have equal value but different purposes so it's a purpose issue not a value issue the third thing is that the Bible does not teach that a wife should blindly obey whatever her husband says this is just plain silly in the same way that if a police officer who is a government authority told you hey go rob that jewelry store or if your boss who is an authority over you as the accountant said change those numbers before you file that tax return both of those things could land you in jail right and in the same way to think that a wife should blindly submit to anything that her disobedient husband may tell her to do that is immoral illegal or harmful is not in keeping with the rest of the Word of God so those are things that this doesn't say now let's talk about what does the Bible say about Christian marriages and when I say that term Christian marriage one or two or more of you may have thought well my husband doesn't believe so I'm not in a Christian marriage but I want to reason together and discuss what is a Christian marriage okay we're only talking to women so I'm going to address the wife so let's assume everyone in this room or everyone that's listening to this you are born again as the wife when you determined that you were a sinner and that you needed to be saved by God's grace and you invited him you receive forgiveness for sins you invited the Spirit of Christ to come and dwell within you the Holy Spirit dwells within you you are now united with Christ right so you have a union a spiritual union with Christ you also have a union with your husband you are united to your husband and marriage but who did you bring with you into that marriage you brought Christ with you into that marriage and so you have established a Christian marriage okay and this might be like a lightning bolt for someone in here and I hope it is because it helps us to understand that God's love and his grace are powerful enough to spill over through us into our marriages we might be tempted to think that because my husband is not a believer somehow his emptiness spills over into me and causes our marriage to be not effective but again that's just silly have you ever known empty to spill over into full have you ever known darkness to spill over and conquer light no light dispels the darkness and the full spills over into the empty so if you are a born again believer well Paul the Apostle Paul says it first Corinthians 714 you may want to jot that down he explained this is hard for us to completely comprehend but the Apostle Paul said the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her husband so the Holy Spirit that lives in you can give you the power to represent him in your marriage you have a ministry you have a ministry of marriage a ministry to your marriage so I wanted to establish that before we got in you know further into this because I think that that's pretty beautiful and like I said I can't even fully comprehend it but okay so three things we're gonna talk about this morning that God cares about in relation to this passages that we're going over and the first one is that God cares how we conduct ourselves in general in life God cares how we conduct ourselves and to remind you I want to go back to the previous chapter first Peter chapter 2 in verse 12 we read last week this charge keep your conduct among the Gentiles which in this book always means unbelievers so keep your conduct among the unbelievers honorable and then it goes on to say so that they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation could we hold on to that thought and bring it into this chapter keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable verse 1 so that even if some of them don't obey talking about husbands they may be one without a word by your conduct by the conduct of their wives when they see your respectful and pure conduct okay so this is a little bit less about a formula for a happy and a little bit more about giving all of who we are to the Lord walking in humility before him entrusting ourselves to him and letting him use us to proclaim who he is to those who are lost I resisted the temptation to listen to a lot of teachers or read a lot of commentaries on this because often these verses are lifted out to express things regarding marriage and that's okay to do that but we're studying first Peter and I wanted to hold it in context of what we're studying because although this may improve your marriage following these guidelines may very well improve your marriage for one thing we know that a man's greatest needs is for respect. And so by putting this into action, your respectful nature toward him, particularly in front of children or other people, that may well improve your marriage. But it may not. That doesn't mean it's not working. What I'm getting at is that the context of this book is evangelism. It is how should we look while we remain on this earth? And we're moving through different, for examples, and we're getting to, for example, in marriage, how should we look so that others will see Christ through us? So that's the first point. God cares about our conduct in general. The second point is that God cares about marriage in specific. He cares about our marriages and how a Christian marriage operates. How a Christian marriage operates is important to God. God is ordered and he is organized in his creation. And he established a created order for human relationships in the beginning as he created man, male, and female. He created them and as he designed them to come together, it tells us in Genesis chapter two that a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife. I like the NIV that says, be united with his wife and the two shall become one flesh. This is God's intention. And the apostle Paul, when he quoted that exact verse to the Ephesians, he added this onto it in way of explanation. And he said, this mystery is profound, but I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church. So the apostle Paul helps us understand that when God was creating man and woman, male and female, and intended for them to come together and be united, he was putting something into motion that would remind us generation after generation after generation of something else. And that is the union of Christ and his bride of God and you. There are similarities. And so as a man and a woman forsake all others and come together to be united together to form a new union, it represents our personal intimate relationship with God. As we forsake all others, all other idols, all other pseudo gods, and we form a union with Jesus Christ. And now we live to faithfully serve that bridegroom and faithfully enter into his kingdom. And so it's a great model. It's all glorious. But the problem is we left the garden and it's not easy anymore. Nothing is easy anymore since we left the garden. Back there it was all beautiful and wonderful. But now it's hard because of this relational problems that we started talking about last week. We talked about the fact that all of our relational problems stem from sin. Either I sin against you or you sin against me and I have a sinful reaction to your sin against me. And so that is where we live now. But this word conduct is fascinating because the meaning of the word actually means to a turning back. Conduct means a turning back. Turning back to what? Well I like to think as we're looking through this that it means turning back to what it was like in the garden. Turning back to what God intended before things were so muddled with sin. So our conduct is a turning back. Jesus came to change things and he came to change us and he came to put his imprint within us to possess the Holy Spirit so that now we have a hope that our conduct can be. I'm not going to get there. I'm not going to get there. Maybe some of you are really good. No but we're not going to get there. But we have the Holy Spirit within us to turn our conduct back to what God originally intended. Now without the Holy Spirit this is impossible. But I remember the Bible says with God all things are possible. With the Holy Spirit this is possible. But it's going to require dying to ourselves, growing in our spirits, and dominating the flesh. So we're still on point two. We haven't changed. But I want to start pointing out some of these words in our study guide that we studied this week. Because God cares how a Christian marriage operates. And we looked at this key word subject. Be subject to. And it's the Greek word hupotasso which means to rank under. To rank under. It's a military term. And we can understand that in any chain of command that a chain of command is important in many environments. I don't want to get on an airplane and not have the pilot and the co-pilot and the flight attendants all figured out what their job is and who is to do what. A chain of command is important. But because of pride and sin in our lives as wives, now it's difficult for us. And we bristle. Our natural response is to bristle at the thought of ranking under our husbands. We are naturally given to rule over and overrule just about everything that he would want to say or do or whatever. That's our natural response in the flesh. But in response to this challenge of ranking over, which we don't find naturally easy to do spiritually, we can begin to do that. But naturally we don't find it easy to do. So I think then what we do it's like, oh that's hard. I'll do something I can do. And we begin to find alternate areas then that make us feel better. And I feel like where this passage where Peter's trying to go with this is he's saying, no, no, no, not so quick. You're not getting slipping through. Because in verse 3 he says, oh, and do not let your adorning be external. So if the internal is hard for you, you might be tempted to say, I'll just work on the outside. And he goes, don't let your adorning be external. The braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry or 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. And then he gives us a for example. 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. You are her children if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening. Again, I like how the NIV says do not give way to fear. That resonates with me. I can feel that giving way to fear thing. And so we're going to continue our list here as we look at those passages about what does God care about. And the third item is God cares about what's on the inside. God cares about what's in the inside. Paying attention to the internal beauty, the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit is more important than adorning the external. But he gives us this example of Abraham and Sarah. And he said, in fact, women in the past who were holy, they were set apart for God. They used this method of beautifying themselves. And it was this method known as listening under their husbands. And that's what that second word that we pointed out in our study guide, which is translated obey in the ESV, it is the Greek word hupakou. I'm just not good at Greek words. Hupakou. Anyway, it means to listen under, to listen attentively, to heed, to conform. Sarah conformed to Abraham. And so this gives us a very intimate and personal glimpse into a husband and wife relationship full of special honor when you listen to someone. So let's reason this through. This first word, wives, submit to your own husbands. Rank under your own husbands. Merely because he's in the position. He owns that position. This gets us to first base. We should rank under, if you were a military person, you would rank under the president of the United States as the commander-in-chief. If for no other reason than he is currently in that position. It is his due. It is the proper order of command. So that's first base for a wife. But this other word, this is the home run word, okay? This other word to obey, which I can't wrap my mind around the word obey at all, but I can wrap my mind around this listen attentively, to heed, to conform to. When we choose, as Christian women, to walk in agreement with God that we were actually created with special powers, we were created differently and specially than men were created. We were created, it tells us in Genesis, to be a helpmate. God says to Adam, I will make a helper suitable for him. We have, do you not see this in women? This natural flexibility and ability to conform to different situations, different environments, God made us that way. And when we walk in agreement with that in terms of our own special husband, Sarah learned how to specially listen under her own particular husband and provide what was needed for him in their relationship. That gives me inspiration with my particular husband to say, Lord, help me walk in agreement with how you created me to be, to be able to do this, to listen under, to conform myself to the particular husband that I am married to. And in that way, that my conduct would be beautiful, that I would be beautiful. I'm still gonna put on makeup, I'm still gonna wear jewelry, I'm still gonna do the outside stuff too, and you can too, I'm giving you permission. This is not in any way saying, don't beautify yourselves. It is saying that the real way to become beautiful is through this conforming process. So now in a marriage where both partners are Christian and serving God, this isn't gonna be easy. In a marriage where one or more partners are prideful or unsaved, this also isn't gonna be easy. But do you not see the heart of what Peter is saying? That doing it, even if it's hard, is gonna make you so counter-culture. So like image of God in the face of what people would not expect. That our conduct among the Gentiles is going to be something that God can use. So I just thought before we leave this passage on marriage, I thought of just a few things I would say to young brides. I would say pray every day. Pray for your husband every day that God would form him into his image, that he would make him the man that you have need of, leader of your home. And I would say, learn as quickly as possible in your married life how to walk in agreement with your created order. And not only rank under your husband, but learn the skill of conforming to what it is that he needs. I always like to say that God has put my husband on a mission, and I have a sub-mission, okay? So you can think of it that way. And I would say to a young bride, resist the temptation to fear. There is so much to fear in marriage. If you rank under someone, boy, you really make yourself vulnerable. And I would say, resist the temptation to fear. If he spends too much, if he plays too much, if he works too little, if he, you know, whatever, just war against that temptation to fear. Then to a woman with a difficult husband, I would add this, life is complicated. Pray for an older woman, a godly woman who has nourished herself and grown up with that pure spiritual milk that you can privately dialogue with, pray with, bounce things off of. Perspective is a very, very difficult thing to maintain. And if you have a difficult husband, you need someone to help you with perspective. We were talking last night about the fact that everyone's definition of abuse is different. And it can be all the way from he doesn't buy me a car to the side. If you have a difficult husband or are dealing with some aspects that you perceive to be abuse, you need someone, a godly woman that you can dialogue that with, process that through with, and help you get perspective and help you establish boundaries if that is necessary. Perhaps a pastor, but I think pastors are overrated. I think a godly woman is going to be able to do just, and, you know, my husband says that too, right? He says, you don't need me to pray for you all the time, find a believer. So, anyway, and I would add this, I would say, take a passage, take a psalm like Psalm 34. I might have to go back and have that taken out. Because Peter used Psalm 34 heavily in his writings, I would say, take something like Psalm 34 and learn how to pray the word over your life. For example, you're a woman, you have a very difficult marriage going on. Listen to these words, I sought the Lord and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears.

Psalm 34 verse 4, can you not see using that as fuel for your prayer life, right? So we need to go on or we'll never get through this. Verse 7 says, likewise, husbands, again, see that word 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. I wish I could spend equal time on that passage, but we have chosen to study the whole chapter. But I just hold that word prayers up in your memory and we're going to come back to that because, again, that's a theme that's going through here. Is it possible for prayers to be hindered? We'll talk about it in just a moment. But first, as we go to verse 8, we're going to change to the next example, and that is submitting in the church, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ in the church body. And Peter writes, finally, all of you have unity of mind, have sympathy, have brotherly love, have a tender heart and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. For whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit. Let him turn away from evil and do good. Let him seek peace and pursue it. And we want to hit the pause button right there on this quote from Psalm 34 before we finish it. And I love how this is almost a poetic expression of what teamwork looks like in the body of Christ, what it looks like to be united and to be moving toward a goal together. And I think that this really sums it up, these things, unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. And if I were to ask you, of all of those elements, if you were to score yourself on those, which one would get the lowest score? And you might say, well, I think I'd score the lowest on sympathy. I'm just not a very compassionate person, I'm a teacher type, I see things black and white, I tend to not be very sympathetic. But you know what, that's just who I am. That's how God made me and so, well, what I see, what I saw as I studied this passage is the need to take these elements and for us to bolster ourselves in the ones that we might not be feel that we get a very good score on. The reason I wanted to use that word score is it made me think of at the last Summer Olympics, the US women's gymnastics team was really great. And they won the super high score, they won the all around event in gymnastics. And you may remember that the gymnastics all around means everyone on the team has to do every event, and then the scores are compiled. And they're compared against the other teams. And the US women's team won that all around. And I likened that to this. I thought here we're given these five events, if you will, unity of mind, sympathy, and in the body of Christ, in this team that we have, we do all of these events. And if we're kind of bad, I can imagine one of those girls, it's like my balance beam routine is really low. She needs to work on that for the sake of the entire team. And in the same way in the body of Christ, we submit to one another in the body of Christ. If we see one of these things and we feel like, I'm just a little lacking on that, then we should take it to the Lord and build it up, why? For the sake of the team. And I don't know if this is okay to do. Is it okay to brag? But it made me think too. I thought, well, what is the score of Calvary Chapel on these things? And I think really in terms of the women. So how does our team do? And I thought, we have such a high score. Like, we have an amazing all-around score. Like, bring on the competition. I'd like to see anybody. Now, that part's probably not good. But, you know, I guess I just wanted to say, I love it. The love when I see young women, it's like, I haven't seen so and so for like a month. Is she pregnant? Does she need meals? I need to go check on her. You know, and there's a lot of that. Whenever we gather and we're here at the tables, there is a lot of this teamwork, this unity of mind, this working together, this showing sympathy. So I guess I just wanted to brag on you and if anyone wants a competition, we will be there. Okay, unpause Psalm 34 verse 12 now.

Interesting. That could be really unsettling to read that phrase. The face of the Lord is against those who do evil. There's a companion verse in 2 Chronicles. The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him. Now, when we talk about these matters of prayer, some of you, we probably need some filters. Because some of you might feel all the time, like God's back is always to me. He just doesn't answer my prayers. And you need a filter when you read this that helps you to see the part where God wants to offer strong support for those who are righteous. And some of you may feel like God should just grant all my wishes, right? Like I prayed this morning, where is this? And you need a filter to see the aspects in here about the righteousness. Back to when Peter was addressing the husbands, he said, love your wives so that your prayers are not hindered. Isn't that fascinating? So he was saying to the men, there's a created order for you. You are to love and sacrifice. You are to represent Christ in that marriage. And if you're not doing that, how am I gonna be able to bless you? How am I gonna be able to answer your prayers? See, God treats all of us like his children. Have you ever taken your little children and just wanted to take their little shoulders and shake them and say, I want to bless you. Would you obey so that I can bless you, right? And I feel like sometimes God would say that to us. Would you obey? Because see, I want to bless. My eyes are on the righteous to bless. But God cares about our lives and he cares about obedience and repentance and a holy life. So I'll just leave that there and let the Lord minister to you, although we will pick up that again this next week. But we wanna turn a big corner in our whole study to the third and final element of the whole book of 1 Peter, and that is how to flourish through suffering. In verse 9, we were told that one way to receive a blessing is to bless others. And now we find out that there's an alternate route to receiving a blessing, and it is going to be suffering, is what it's gonna talk about in these next. So it's like this. If the destination of receiving a blessing is way out there, there's our destination. We have this super happy sunny sunroof down route to travel over here that's called blessing others. Just bless others and you'll receive a blessing. But there's also a detour. There's this alternate route over here with rocks in the path and it's steep and you fall over the cliff. And it ends up at the same place, but it's called suffering. And if I asked you to raise your hand, who wants this sunny route? Yeah, everybody. Anybody wanna go on this one? It's like we wouldn't choose, right? We wouldn't naturally choose. But I think in life, God routes us from time to time along both paths. He gives us an opportunity to bless to receive a blessing, and he gives us an opportunity to suffer to receive that blessing. Let's read how Peter phrased that. Now, who is there to harm you if you're zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, even if you should have to go on that detour, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled. But in your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. Yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. I just wanna tell you a story, we're almost on the homestretch here, that I think is gonna put a really good picture to what it is that we're talking about. And it's a story that I read, a man named Howard Hendricks, who has been with the Lord for three years. But he was a giant in the Christian world. He taught at Dallas Theological Seminary for many, many years, was involved in the Promise Keepers Movement in the 90s. And he tells a story about being on an airplane one time. And they were stuck, delayed on the tarmac. That happens, maybe you've had that experience, and what usually happens to the passengers in the plane when there are delays. And the delays go on and on. They get a little bit frustrated, and tensions get high, and that's what was happening. And there was one very obnoxious man who was venting his frustrations continually on this flight attendant. And Mr. Hendricks was noticing this interchange. And he noticed that the flight attendant, every time this man was spewing something at her, she would respond with graciousness and with courtesy to him. She just loved on him in spite of his behavior. Well, finally, they got airborne, and the whole thing calmed down, and everyone was fine then. And she walked by his seat, and he stopped her. And he said, Miss, I would like to know your name, because I saw how you handled that situation. I'd like to write a letter of commendation to American Airlines. She didn't know who he was, but she looked at him and she says, I don't work for American Airlines. And he glanced down at her uniform and said, American Airlines. And he said, you don't work for American Airlines. She says, no, I work for my Lord Jesus Christ. And every day, my husband prays with me before I come to work that I would be a good representative to anyone that I meet in any circumstance of my savior. Should we just say amen? Isn't that awesome? Does that not put a great face on what we're looking at here? Whether we are going to take that story and relate it to our marriage situation, or some kind of social situation, or whatever. But we better finish these last words. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil. For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he may bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit. And those final verses are explained in the study guide. Our cup is full, and it's overflowing. So I just want to leave you with three words of wisdom from Elizabeth Elliott that pertains to what we're talking about. As she said, the question of life is, whose are you? Who do you belong to? Do you belong to yourself? If I'm going to belong to myself, I probably don't need to bother with any of this. But if I have made that exchange, Jesus' life for mine, and I ask the question, whose are you, whose am I, then these things are all super relevant. Lord Jesus, just as we go into our discussions now and process scripture together, we ask that you would be in our hearts and in our minds, you would move among us. Lord, help us to grow, that's what we're here for, is to grow into your likeness. Lord, help us to pay attention to our conduct. Lord, since we're on this passage, especially as it pertains to our marriage relationships, help us, Lord God, to know that you are in us, and that you are in our marriage relationship, and you care that we portray your character through that. So Lord, we ask for the work of your Holy Spirit, and we thank you that we can study this together with our friends, with our sisters. And we just invite your presence in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.