Tag: submit

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1 Peter

Living as servants of God (Part 3)

Wedding rings

From the very beginning of this letter, we’ve seen that we were chosen by the Father and sanctified by the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ.

In short, we were chosen not to live for ourselves, but for Jesus Christ.

And in this passage we see how this extends to the family and how we relate to each other in marriage.

Peter tells the wives,

In the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. (1 Peter 3:1-2)

That’s not a popular message among many women today.

Some try to completely tie this message to the culture of the day and say its not relevant for marriages today. And certainly, husbands in Peter’s day had far more authority in the home than we see today.

But throughout Paul’s letters as well in Ephesians and Colossians, you see this same message given to wives. There’s no getting around it.

But the main question again is why? Why submit to your husband? Because you are first and foremost a servant of Christ. And he has told you to do so.

More, by doing so, you become a light to your husband.

He sees not a woman that lives merely for herself, but one that lives for her Lord. One whose beauty is not simply in her jewelry, clothing, or hairstyle, but whose beauty is rooted in a transformed heart. A heart that reflects the Lord who saved her.

And when he sees that, not only will he become more attracted to you, he will often times become more attracted to your Lord as well. Isn’t that our job as servants and ambassadors of Christ?

Sometimes women fear they will be taken advantage of if they submit to their husbands. Unfortunately, some will be. But Peter encourages you to be like Sarah, and do what is right, submitting to your husband and not give way to fear. (6)

And God will honor you for that.

As I mentioned yesterday, this does not mean submitting to physical abuse. If that’s happening, get out of there. Protect yourself.

But through it all, maintain the attitude of Christ who, “when they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.” (2:23)

Husbands, on the other hand, you too are servants of Christ. Your wife, however, is not your servant. She is Christ’s. And in Christ, she is a sister and fellow heir. So Peter says,

Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers. (7)

Your wife may be physically weaker than you; she may, by your estimation, be more emotionally fragile.

But that does not give you any right to impose your will on her as a common bully would. You are to treat her with respect because Christ treats her with respect.

And as much as you have received the gracious gift of life, so has she. If you ever forget that, God will hold you accountable for it.

Peter says God will not even hear your prayers if you treat your wife wrongly.

In short, remember that in marriage, you and your spouse are both servants of Christ. And that should show in how you treat each other.

How do you treat your spouse?

Categories
Ephesians

Unity in marriage

happy couple

I have never really thought of this before, but as I’ve been going through Ephesians, it seems to me that this passage is merely an extension of what Paul has been saying throughout.

That is, in Christ, the church has become one, with the dividing wall of hostility that was between us being torn down.

So often, in marriage, however, the wall of hostility seems to remain. (Albeit Paul is specifically referencing the wall of hostility due to the law in Ephesians 2:14, not the wall of hostility in marriage).

We see the beginnings of this wall in Genesis chapter 3, following the fall of Adam and Eve.

God said to Eve,

Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you. (Genesis 3:16)

The words are strikingly similar both in English and Hebrew to Genesis 4:7 where God tells Cain,

Sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it. (Genesis 4:7)

God told Cain, “Sin desires to take control, but you must be the one that rules over it.”

And in the same way, ever since the time of Adam and Eve, many women have desired to take control of their marriage relationship contrary to the plan of God.

But in the end, many found themselves being the one submitting, not out of voluntary love, but merely because of their husband’s physical strength and ability to force them to submit.

And unfortunately, too many husbands do use violence and abuse to wrest control from their wives. Their wives, in turn, fight to get out from under that kind of abusive control.

The result: a completely fractured marriage, with a wall of hostility between husband and wife, even though they are both supposedly one in Christ.

What’s the solution?

Paul says,

Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.

Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. (Ephesians 5:22-24)

We saw in Ephesians 1:22 that God placed Christ as the head of all things for the benefit of the church. And as we yield to him, we find blessing.

In the same way, God has placed the husband as the head of the wife for her benefit. And so just as the church yields to Christ, a wife is to yield to her husband.

More specifically, as a wife yields to the Lord, she is to yield to her husband. For it is in doing so that she will find blessing in her marriage.

There are many women, however, who fight their husband’s headship because they’re not finding blessing in submission. Why aren’t they finding that blessing?

In most cases it’s because we husbands forget something very important: God has not given us the leadership role in our marriages for our own selfish benefit. Rather it is for our wives’ benefit that God has given us this trust in order that we might bless them.

Paul makes this crystal clear in the next few verses,

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word… (Ephesians 5:25-26)

The ironic thing in all this? In Christ blessing the church, they become a blessing to him; they in fact become one with him.

And in the same way, when we husbands bless our wives, they become a blessing to us, and we truly become one with them as God intended from the beginning. More on this next time.

Categories
Matthew Matthew 5

Sermon on the Mount: Submitted to the Father

Matthew

I have to admit that whenever I read this, I’m always having to look up the word meek. What exactly does it mean to be meek?

I suppose it would be good to say what it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean weak. When you look at Moses and Jesus himself, both were described as meek, but you could hardly call either of them weak. They were both very strong men.

The word meek comes from the idea of an animal that has been tamed. A tamed animal has not lost any of its strength, but is submitted to its master, and is willing to be used for his purposes.

Defined this way, Moses and Jesus can definitely be called meek.

Moses, after originally trying to fight for the Israelites on his own strength, and then giving up completely when he was essentially exiled, put himself under God’s authority and went on to accomplish great things.

Jesus, of course, while never ceasing to be God, nevertheless submitted himself to his Father’s will, going to the cross, and accomplishing the purpose for which the Father sent him, our salvation.

Both went through trying times. Both went through times of weakness. But both persevered through those trials, and kept on going until they fulfilled the purpose the Father had for them.

That’s what it means to be meek.

How about you? Are you meek? Have you submitted yourself to the Father?

When times get hard, do you complain, and ask, “Why is this happening to me? I thought I was doing what You told me?”

Or do you humble yourself before him, and continue to do his will?

It is to those people that Jesus says, “They shall inherit the earth.”

We will not go unrewarded if we submit to the Father and follow his will every day.

The question is: Will we?