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| Subj: | *DG Sermons: The Beautiful Faith of Fearless Submission* |
| Date: | 4~/17~/2007 4:51:26 AM Taipei Standard Time |
| /From:    lists@desiringgod.org
(Desiring God) \\ To:    rwlong2002@cs.com
\\ / |
\\ \\ If you are unable to see the message below, view it online.
!
The Beautiful Faith of Fearless Submission
April 15, 2007 \\ By John Piper
Read, listen, or watch this resource on our website.
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*1 Peter 3:1-7
*}}}
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Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, 2 when they see your respectful and pure conduct.
3 Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— 4 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.
5 For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, 6 as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord.
And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.
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We continue in our series on marriage, and today we focus on what it means for a wife to be submissive to her husband.
I am very eager that men and women, single and married, old and young (including children) hear this as a call to something strong and noble and beautiful and dignified and worthy of a woman’s highest spiritual and moral efforts.
To set the stage for that impact, notice two phrases in 1 Peter 3:1: “Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands.”
Notice the word own in “your own husbands.”
That means that there is a uniquely fitting submission to your own husband that is not fitting in relation to other men.
You are not called to submit to all men the way you do to your husband.
Then notice the phrase at the beginning: “Likewise, wives.”
This means that the call for a wife’s submission is part of a larger call for submission from all Christians in different ways.
!!!! First Peter 2:13-3:12
In 1 Peter 2:13-17, Peter admonishes us all to be subject, for the Lord’s sake, to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as set by him.
In other words, keep the speed limits, pay your taxes, and be respectful toward policemen and senators.
Then in 2:18-25, Peter addresses the household servants (oiketai) in the church and admonishes them to be submissive to their masters with all respect, both to the kind and to the overbearing.
Then, in 3:1–6, Peter instructs the wives to be submissive to their husbands, including the husbands who are unbelieving.
This is the part we are focusing on as part of our series on marriage.
Then, in verse 7, he instructs husbands to live considerately with their wives as fellow heirs of the grace of life.
Finally, in 3:8-12, Peter tells the whole church to have unity and sympathy and love and tenderheartedness and humility toward one another, and not to return evil for evil.
In other words, submit to each other and serve each other.
So, as we saw in Ephesians 5, submission is a wider Christian virtue for all of us to pursue, and it has its unique and fitting expressions in various relationships.
Today we are focusing on the relationship of a wife to her husband.
What does submission look like there?
!!!! Peter’s Powerful Portrait of Womanhood
Before I describe what submission isn’t and what it is, let’s gaze for a few minutes and the powerful portrait of womanhood that Peter paints for us in these words.
What we see is deep strong roots of womanhood underneath the fruit of submission.
It’s the roots that make submission the strong and beautiful thing that it is.
Start with verse 5: “This is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands.”
!!!!
The Deepest Root of Womanhood: Hope in God
The deepest root of Christian womanhood mentioned in this text is hope in God.
“Holy women who hoped in God.”
A Christian woman does not put her hope in her husband, or in getting a husband.
She does not put her hope in her looks.
She puts her hope in the promises of God.
She is described in Proverbs 31:25: “Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come.”
She laughs at everything the future will bring and might bring, because she hopes in God.
She looks away from the troubles and miseries and obstacles of life that seem to make the future bleak, and she focuses her attention on the sovereign power and love of God who rules in heaven and does on earth whatever he pleases.
She knows her Bible, and she knows her theology of the sovereignty of God, and she knows his promise that he will be with her and help her strengthen her no matter what.
This is the deep, unshakable root of Christian womanhood.
And Peter makes it explicit in verse 5.
He is not talking about just any women.
He is talking about women with unshakable biblical roots in the sovereign goodness of God—holy women who hope in God.
!!!! Fearlessness
The next thing to see about Christian womanhood after hope in God is the fearlessness that it produces in these women.
So verse 5 said that the holy women of old hoped in God.
And then verse 6 gives Sarah, Abraham’s wife, as an example and then refers to all other Christian women as her daughters.
Verse 6b: “And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.”
So this portrait of Christian womanhood is marked first by hope in God and then what grows out of that hope, namely, fearlessness.
She does not fear the future; she laughs at the future.
The presence of hope in the invincible sovereignty of God drives out fear.
Or to say it more carefully and realistically, the daughters of Sarah fight the anxiety that rises in their hearts.
They wage war on fear, and they defeat it with hope in the promises of God.
Mature Christian women know that following Christ will mean suffering.
But they believe the promises like 1 Peter 3:14, “But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed.
Have no fear of them, nor be troubled,” and 1 Peter 4:19, “Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.”
That is what Christian women do: They entrust their souls to a faithful Creator.
They hope in God.
And they triumph over fear.
!!!!
A Focus on Internal Adornment
And this leads to a third feature of Peter’s portrait of womanhood, a focus on internal adornment, rather than external.
First Peter 3:5 begins, “This is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves.”
This adornment refers back to what is described in verses 3-4:
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Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear—but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.
}}}
We know this does not mean that all jewelry and all hair styling is excluded because then all clothing would be excluded as well, because it says, “Don’t let your adorning be external . . . the clothing you wear.”
What he means is: Don’t focus your main attention and effort on how you look on the outside; focus it on the beauty that is inside.
Exert more effort and be more concerned with inner beauty than outer beauty.
And he is specific in verse 4. When a woman puts her hope in God and not her husband and not in her looks, and when she overcomes fear by the promises of God, this will have an effect on her heart: It will give her an inner tranquility.
That’s what Peter means in verse 4 by “the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.”
!!!!
A Unique Kind of Submissiveness
That leaves one more feature of this portrait of womanhood to see.
First, there was hope in God.
That leads then to fearlessness in the face of whatever the future may bring.
Then that leads to an inner tranquility and meekness.
And, finally, that spirit expresses itself in a unique kind of submissiveness to her husband.
Verse 1: “Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands.”
Verse 5: “This is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands.”
That is a brief look at the portrait of the kind of woman Peter has in mind when he calls a woman to be submissive to her husband.
Unshakeable hope in God.
Courage and fearlessness in the face any future.
Quiet tranquility of soul.
Humble submission to her husband’s leadership.
It is a great sadness that in our modern society—even in the church—the different and complementary roles of biblical headship for the husband and biblical submission for the wife are despised or simply passed over.
Some people just write them off as sub-Christian cultural leftovers from the first century.
Others distort and misuse them—I actually sat in my office once with a husband who believed that submission meant his wife should not go from one room to the other in the house without asking his permission.
That kind of pathological distortion makes it easier for people to dispense with texts like these in the Bible.
But the truth of headship and submission is really here and really beautiful.
When you see it lived out with the mark of Christ’s majesty on it—the mutuality of servanthood without cancelling the reality of headship and submission—it is a wonderful and deeply satisfying drama.
So let’s ponder from this text first what submission is not, and then what it is.
!!!! What Submission Is Not
Here are six things it is not based on 1 Peter 3:1-6.
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