Women and Marriage

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Today we’re going to close our mini-series on marriage by talking about responsibilities and roles of wives. Last week, I had some hard words for husbands. If you missed it, and you’re a husband, go back and listen to it. This week, most of our time is going to be spent in 1 Peter 3:1-6 and Proverbs, which has some equally hard words for women as they seek to be good, God-honoring wives, so let’s look at five principles that we see in 1 Peter 3 for wives:

1. Submit to your Husband

1 Peter 3:1 NLT
1 In the same way, you wives must accept the authority of your husbands. Then, even if some refuse to obey the Good News, your godly lives will speak to them without any words. They will be won over
This isn’t a suggestion. Men lead their families, right?
Ephesians 5:22–24 NLT
22 For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. 24 As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything.
You always want to work for oneness, but sometimes in marriage, you just don’t agree. In that event, the husband has three choices.
Prayerfully wait for wife to come to agreement with him.
Appeal to a higher authority.
Pastor, biblical counselor, older married couple that both respect.
Make the decision.
Usually to get her to take better care of herself, but occasionally to remind my wife of the God-ordained authority structure of marriage.
Rebecca mom’s night out
Taking naps (preparing for my parents to arrive after Sophia was born)

2. Preach Wordless Sermons

1 Peter 3:1–2 NLT
1 In the same way, you wives must accept the authority of your husbands. Then, even if some refuse to obey the Good News, your godly lives will speak to them without any words. They will be won over 2 by observing your pure and reverent lives.
Does the way you live your life, take care of your kids, take care of the house, honor God? Does it preach the gospel to your husband?
Ask your husband if you do this. Ask him what you could repent of and grow in to winsomely show the love of Jesus to your husband.

3. Cultivate True Beauty

2 Peter 3:3–4 NLT
3 Most importantly, I want to remind you that in the last days scoffers will come, mocking the truth and following their own desires. 4 They will say, “What happened to the promise that Jesus is coming again? From before the times of our ancestors, everything has remained the same since the world was first created.”
Beauty is more than how you look. It’s your character.
Proverbs 11:22 NLT
22 A beautiful woman who lacks discretion is like a gold ring in a pig’s snout.
Peter calls this a quiet and gentle spirit. This doesn’t mean that she never says a word, that she’s just a quiet woman under the thumb of a chauvinist. But it does mean that she is someone who is meek, and gentle, and humble. She has wisdom. When she speaks, she knows who to speak to, what to say, how to speak, she has wisdom.
Proverbs 31:26 NLT
26 When she speaks, her words are wise, and she gives instructions with kindness.
She’s wise, not just the foolish woman, the loud woman, the contentious woman, the combative woman, the contentious woman, she’s not the woman who Proverbs says is like a dripping faucet.
She has wisdom and prudence and humility, and godliness and appropriate, prudent speech.
Proverbs 19:14 ESV
House and wealth are inherited from fathers, but a prudent wife is from the Lord.
Men need to listen to their wives, and it’s easier for men to listen to and hear their wives, when they are like that. So, ladies, if you want your husband to listen to you, work on your tone and your character. It will be easier for your husband to hear you. That means they aren’t gossiping. They aren’t talking about issues they have with other people behind their backs. They aren’t bashing their husbands, especially in public. They aren’t quarrelsome.
Maybe you know some of these kind of women. But they’re not quarrelsome. They just have strong opinions, right?
Proverbs 25:24 NLT
24 It’s better to live alone in the corner of an attic than with a quarrelsome wife in a lovely home.
We call those men the pitch-a-tent club. You see them in the camping section of Walmart buying a tent. Not because they’re going camping, but because they’ve given up. They’re going to put the ladder on the side of the house, climb up, pitch the tent on the roof of their house, then pull the ladder up.
Proverbs 19:13 NLT
13 A foolish child is a calamity to a father; a quarrelsome wife is as annoying as constant dripping.
Make sounds of dripping. Four or five.
Going nuts yet? 50 years of that, you will be. In some instances, that’s what is used for torture to break people and get information out of them. That’s what the Bible says a quarrelsome wife is: torture. Some women, “well, he just needs to know how I feel.” He knows. Just by looking at you, he knows. The handgun gave it away.
There’s also the moody woman. But that’s okay, she’s not moody, right? She just has a bad day.... a lot. She just has strong opinions and strong emotions.
Proverbs 21:19 NLT
19 It’s better to live alone in the desert than with a quarrelsome, complaining wife.
Guy gets home, “which one do I get tonight? Do I get the nice woman or the wicked witch?”
God says, it’s better to just start walking into the desert than to live in a house with her. God’s like, “just go.” “Well, do I need any water or a tent or food?” “No. Just start walking. It’s all going to be better soon.”
Cultivate true beauty, not just physical beauty. If you want to do that, study the Proverbs 31 woman.
Proverbs 31:10 NLT
10  Who can find a virtuous and capable wife? She is more precious than rubies.
This is a woman who has character, strength, competence, and ability, and they are hard to find. It is an act of God’s grace to be able to find and marry a woman who is strong, feminine, competent, trustworthy.
God’s saying that if you have the choice to have a lot of money and this kind of woman, the choice should be obvious.She is priceless.
Proverbs 31:11–12 NLT
11 Her husband can trust her, and she will greatly enrich his life. 12 She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life.
This is a woman you can trust with anything. This is the key, ladies. You want to be a good wife, memorize these verses.
She brings him good, not harm all the days of her life.
My wife brings me good, not harm. There is no on I trust more than my wife, she’s very respectful, she follows my leadership, she gives me wise counsel, she serves diligently, she loves her children, she loves Jesus, she prays for me, she feeds our family with delicious and nutritious meals, she takes care of our health and well-being. She brings me good, not harm.
And because of that, it is my privilege to love and care for her. She is priceless. My wife is irreplaceable. By God’s grace, my wife brings me good, not harm.
Cultivate true beauty.
There’s much more to say on this, but for the sake of time, we’ll move on.

4. Seek Godly Women

1 Peter 3:5–6 NLT
5 This is how the holy women of old made themselves beautiful. They put their trust in God and accepted the authority of their husbands. 6 For instance, Sarah obeyed her husband, Abraham, and called him her master. You are her daughters when you do what is right without fear of what your husbands might do.
Seek out godly, older women.
Read books by godly women.
Read biographies of women who did love the Lord.
Be that woman.
Titus 2 says older women should train younger women. All of you are older than some women (not age, maturity), so don’t just look for the mentor, be the mentor.
She is an example because she was not perfect. She made some tragic mistakes. By the grace of God she made progress.
She laughed at God. Some women hear that they are to submit to their husbands and they laugh at God.
“Wives, submit to your husbands” and some women reply, “Well, obviously, that will never happen. Would you just look at him?” You laugh at God.

5. Fight Fear

1 Peter 3:6 NLT
6 For instance, Sarah obeyed her husband, Abraham, and called him her master. You are her daughters when you do what is right without fear of what your husbands might do.
“My life will be miserable if I do that which is biblical. If I follow the path that God has laid out before me in Scripture to submit to, to respect, to follow the leadership of my husband, my life will be miserable.”
There often is a reason for fear. One of the reasons is that often, husbands are inconsiderate, abusive, mean, harsh, foolish, stupid, violent, and dangerous, and I hope I addressed those with the men last week. If you men missed it, go back and listen to it. It was a good one. No punches were pulled, not even for me.
But what Peter is saying for the ladies is that they should live out of faith, not out of fear. That they should think from the best case scenario, not the worst-case scenario. And it is this fear that causes women to desire sinfully to rule over their husbands. And that sin nature gets them to say:
“I can’t trust anyone but myself. I’m the smartest person I know. I’m the holiest person I know. I’m the wisest person I know, and that fool who sleeps in the bed next to me, if he would just be quiet and do what he’s told, we would be fine.”
That’s Genesis 3. Men abdicate their responsibility, and women are deceived.
Don’t give into fear. Live in faith.
Let’s look at 5 things submission does not mean, and then look at 5 things that submission does mean:

Submission Does Not Mean:

A husband is the ultimate authority.
Above the husband is the church. If he’s sinning, call the elders, and we should follow Matthew 18 and do church discipline.
Above the husband is the government. If he’s breaking the law, call the police.
The husband is not God. His authority comes from God.
2. A wife does not have independent thoughts.
a. My wife is one of the smartest people I know. You just think I’m smart because I stand on the stage and I preach the message. She’s smart. And we don’t agree on everything. She has her own thoughts, and that’s good, healthy, and right.
b. But that does not mean that women can or should subvert their husbands. Outside of our closest friends and confidants, people never know what we disagree about, because we are one. It just means that when decisions are made, she respects the leadership of her husband.
3. A wife does not seek to influence her husband.
a. A wife is a helper (Gen. 2:18). A prudent wife is from the Lord (Prov. 19:14).
b. Should a wife influence her husband? Yes! Besides the Holy Spirit, the wife should be the biggest influence on her husband. My wife doesn’t have any ruling or governing authority, but my wife is the closest thing that I have to a pastor. She is my helper.
4. A wife must obey her husband’s command to sin.
a. God is the ultimate authority, and if the husband steps outside of that authority and tells her to do something unbiblical and sinful, and/or illegal, the wife has a responsibility to rebel against ungodly authority and still follow Jesus.
5. A wife is less intelligent or competent than her husband.
a. What we’re not talking about is IQ. Obviously there are many couples where the wife will be smarter and more competent than her husband. It’s kind of like the president.
b. When President Trump appoints his cabinet, he appoints experts and people who have experience and wisdom in certain areas, but ultimately, when they come together and talk, he will a lot of times make the decision. It isn’t that his cabinet is incompetent, unintelligent or not influential, it’s that he’s the leader, and the decisions are his to make, and he takes responsibility for them, good or bad.

Submission Does Mean:

A husband and wife are equal with complementary roles.
Both are image bearers of God, made male and female in the image of God with complementary, not competitive roles.
Wives are to submit like Jesus did in Gethsemane.
In the Trinity, Jesus submits to God the Father. He does what the Father tells him to do, he says what the Father tells him to say.
Did Jesus speak? Did he tell the Father his desires? Did he ask for another way? Yes. He was passionate, emotional, and relational. He registered his desire, and then he said, “not what I will, but your will be done.” You make the decision, I’ll follow it.
Husbands are to lovingly lead like Jesus does the Church.
Does Jesus berate the Church? Does Jesus belittle the Church? Does he rule legalistically over the Church? Is he harsh, cruel, mean, inconsiderate of, unloving of the Church? No. He dies for the church. He gives himself up for the church. And a husband who understands marriage biblically, he gives himself away for the well-being of his wife and children.
Gentlemen, make it easier for your wives to submit to your leadership- be more like Jesus.
A single woman should only marry a man she can follow.
Be very very careful who you will date and marry. Don’t just date a man you can put up with. Marry a man you can trust, can follow his leadership, you respect, is safe, is godly.
The last thing you want is a guy you don’t trust, he’s not wise, he doesn’t do his homework, he’s harsh, he’s inconsiderate, he’s immature, he’s a boy, you’re more his mother than you are his mate. That’s a real danger.
Christian marriage shows the Trinity and the Gospel.
There is one God, three persons- Father, Son, and Spirit. And within those relationships, there is what functional submission between them. The Son submits to the Father, the Spirit is sent by the Father and the Son, and even though they are equal and one, there is deference and leadership.
And men are to be like Christ, and take responsibility, even when it isn’t their fault. The man takes initiative and takes responsibility and tries to love, redeem, rescue, save, and heal, like Jesus does.
Now, I want to give you a chance to respond.
First way you can respond: repentance. Maybe there’s something in the Scripture that caused you to say: that’s for me. If that’s the case, men or women, confess your sin to God in Christ and He will forgive you.
Second, you can come forward for prayer. And if you ladies don’t want to pray with me, Rebecca would be glad to talk and pray with you as we sing.
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