Marriage and the Gospel, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Spiritual leadership is not licensed to do what you want to do. It is empowerment to do what you ought to do, which is to love, to serve, to honor, and protect your family. Guys, listen, I should lead my wife in a way that her submission to me is a blessing, not a burden. Happy Monday and welcome back to Summit Life with J.D. Greer.

As always, I'm your host, Molly Vitovich. You know, if you take a quick look at the divorce statistics in the United States, one thing becomes abundantly clear. As a culture, we are really bad at marriage and even couples that manage to keep it together often end up living parallel lives and not the happily ever after that they dreamed of. So what exactly is it that we're missing?

How can we thrive in our marriages and not just survive? Thankfully, God's word has a lot to say about this topic, even in our study about aliens. Pastor J.D. takes a look at 1 Peter chapter 3 in a message that he aptly titled, Marriage and the Gospel.

Let's jump right in. People look at this passage and they think, this is crazy. It is outdated.

It is backwards. We have moved way beyond this as a culture. Well, I would encourage you first just to start by thinking about what it means for Jesus to be Lord to you.

For Jesus to be Lord means that we don't follow him because on each issue he makes the most sense to us or because we immediately agree with what he says. In fact, a lot of what he says rubs us the wrong way. And by the way, as far as our culture having moved beyond this, I would just encourage you just very soberly to think about the condition of marriages in our culture right now and then ask yourself, are we really in a place to say that we've moved beyond all this stuff? You say, well, yeah, but this passage is going backwards.

It's going back into old chauvinistic patriarchy. No. Most of you have never really seen this lived out in the way I'm going to explain it to you, which is how I think Peter meant it. So I would just say to you, at least hear me out.

Hear me out with an open heart and think about the fact that this sounds sacrilegious for me to say it, but think about the fact that maybe, if you're a big skeptic, maybe, just maybe, God's ways are better than your ways after all. Okay? First Peter chapter three, verse one. Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands.

All right? So let's start with that word likewise. What does the word likewise mean?

Well, likewise means in the same way. If you remember, Peter's been talking about various relationships and earthly institutions that God has set up on earth. Things like, remember, government.

Things like authority structures. And what Peter explained to us in chapter two was that God has a couple of purposes for those. One of his purposes is to reveal himself. He reveals himself in the created order, shows us dimensions of him. Our earthly relationships become tangible demonstrations of parts of his character. His other purpose was to keep order on the earth. Likewise, in the same way, marriage is an earthly institution that God has set up to reveal himself and to provide stability.

For both of those reasons, Peter says, God gave the man a leadership role to play in the home. This has, listen, nothing to do with women being inferior. There is no hint of that in this passage.

In fact, it's downright denied. Peter says to the husbands, verse seven, your wives are heirs with you of the grace of life. The promises and the privileges of salvation are equal, which means that men and women are essentially equal.

You say, well, what about that line about them being the weaker vessel? Doesn't that imply inferiority? No, that's not what that means. Okay, you say, well, yeah, but if the husband is given the leadership role, that implies that he is superior.

No. As I pointed out to you before, even in the Trinity, there is submission. So what you've got is you've got Jesus who is fully God, right? He's equal with God, but he has submitted himself to the Father in the role that he plays in the Trinity. Equal in essence, different in role. Same thing in marriage. That doesn't mean, by the way, that women are not to lead in the workplace or the government or society.

His only arena that he's talking about here is the home. You say, well, the guy that I'm married to doesn't deserve my submission. That's not the point. Jesus does. First Peter, chapter 3, verse 7, jump down there. First Peter 3, 7, give honor to the wife as to the weaker vessel. All right, first, there's that difficult phrase, weaker. This is not weaker in terms of intelligence or even capacities for leadership or wisdom.

Commentators say that it means three different things, okay? Number one, first of all, women are, wives are usually, literally, physically weaker. Men are physically more powerful than their wives, so that would be the first thing that he means there. Number two, they are weaker in position of authority. Thirdly, it could mean, could, weaker in terms of the way that women are wired emotionally. So he says to the husband, as the weaker vessel, you must honor her. Honor here, by the way, means prefer her, to use husbands.

Listen, to use your position of strength, any position of authority that you do have to serve her, not yourself, like Christ did for you. Let me give you a few examples, okay? Because I don't want you to think of this all up here. Let's get it down into the nitty-gritty. It's date night, and we can't decide where to go to eat. She wants to go Italian, and I want red meat.

I want steak, okay? Who wins? Easy. She wins. She wins. Honor her, prefer her means that she wins, okay? You got an extra $300 in your budget one month, and she wants a new dress, and you want golf clubs, and you can't get both.

What do you do, men? Easy. Easy.

That's an easy one. You honor her. You prefer her. You serve her.

That's right. I want to go out with the guys. She needs me to stay home and do something with the kids, and she's not being unreasonable. Easy, guys. Easy. She wins.

By the way, who's got the harder role here? When I ask her to submit to me, it's when I'm thinking of the best interest of our family, not my own best interest, which, again, I could count on one hand the number of times that has actually happened. I'll give you a few examples. I had a friend when this happened. I had a friend, a pastor friend who had five children. His wife had all kinds of demands on her. It's just the pastor's wife, as they often do, and she really, as her kids were getting old enough to go to school, she started to feel like, I need to homeschool my kids because, you know, we can't really afford private school, and I've just got to do this and all that, and he could just see that it was headed for a train wreck because she was not in a position to homeschool and it was going to destroy her. So he goes and says, I just don't think this is healthy for you or for our family.

So this guy goes out. He interviews all the schools, both private and public. He comes to her and says, I know you want to homeschool.

I know you're driven by guilt in this, but this is what I think we need to do, and we're going to figure out how in our budget or through scholarships that we can get these kids into a school that we're going to feel good about. That is a time where he exercised spiritual leadership, but it wasn't to serve himself. It was to serve her, okay?

I'll give you another one here. My wife, we have four kids. She is also a pastor's wife. We have people at our house over all the time, and I notice my wife is just unbelievably stressed out trying to keep the house up in a certain condition in order to have people over. So I'm like, hey, have we ever thought about getting, like, you know, somebody to come in once a month and just kind of do a deep cleaning just to help you, just sort of, you know, just occasionally? Well, we can't afford that, and she's right.

We can't really afford that, but that's come back after a while, and I was like, no, we're going to figure out how to afford it, because you need to have this help in order to be able to do what you do. That's a time to exercise spiritual leadership in a situation like that, but it's not to serve myself. It's to serve her. Guys, listen, listen, I will honor her in a thousand decisions so that I can speak with authority into the right ones. Some of you guys assert yourself in all the wrong ones. You assert yourself in all these wrong ones where you serve yourself, and then you're totally absent from the right ones where you should be protecting your family and serving them. Spiritual leadership is not licensed to do what you want to do. It is empowerment to do what you ought to do. Spiritual leadership is essentially not a license to do what you want to do. It's empowerment to do what you ought to do, which is to love, to serve, to honor, and protect your family.

Guys, listen, I should lead my wife in a way that her submission to me is a blessing, not a burden. Here's one. A guy believes that they're called to the mission field, and the girl doesn't.

What do you do? Well, first, you talk about it extensively. Maybe she's got valid reasons why. Maybe a lot of times guys get, you know, they'll be flighty and spiritual, and they're not really thinking through all the things, and maybe she's got some valid points, and you give it time to come to consensus. But to the wife, listen, after you make your reasons known, at the end of the day, that's one of those arenas that you've got to make your reasons known, but then you have to be subject to him. You say, well, but I disagree. Submission implies disagreement, right? It's not submission if it's not agreement. If you only submit when you agree, that's not submission, it's agreement, right?

Submission implies disagreement. How about this one? You need a new car, and the guy wants to buy a big truck, and the girl wants to buy a little gas saver golf cart looking thing, and the guy's like, well, we can afford it.

It's, you know, it's useful. Plus, I just don't like the little golf cart looking cars, and the girl's like, well, it's not practical. It just, you know, it's, it will lose money on gas. So what do you do in that situation? Well, you talk it out thoroughly.

Guy, you need to listen. Maybe you're being an idiot. Maybe you're really not thinking about money. Girl, maybe your security is in money. Maybe you have too much of an idolatry of money, and maybe you need to recognize that your husband feels like a pansy whipping around town in this little Eurotrash looking car, and it's selfish of you to insist he drive one. But let's just say that you can't reach agreement.

What do you do? Girls, again, you make your reasons known. Guys, you listen to her as a gift from God. You honor her.

You prefer her. Then at the end of the day, wife, you have to trust him with the judgment on that. Now, I know some of you, you're sitting there going, oh, my gosh, my husband is so irresponsible.

He would wreck us. You have to let him answer to God. I love what Tony Evans, one of my favorite preachers, says. He says, spiritual leadership is God telling the woman to duck so he could punch the man. Listen, a lot of men don't lead because they've never been put in a position to lead. Their overprotective mothers always made decisions for them. They lived in the basement and they were 34 years of old and their mom always protected them from all the consequences of their decision. They're never forced to act like men. Then they get married to a girl who basically takes over. And listen, girl, I'm not telling you it was your fault.

I'm just saying that you've got to create a vacuum of leadership and force them to grow up. When my wife does this to me, it puts so much pressure on me. She'll say something like, well, this is what I think, but you know what?

At the end of the day, you've got to make this decision and you've got to answer to God for it. That forces me to start thinking like a man. I can't hide in that group think. You know, we're all like, nobody's really in charge. We're all kind of in this together. It's like, no, it's on my head.

It's on my head. That forces me to grow up and be the leader that God has told me to be. One of our pastors says it this way.

Submission is not about what women can or can't do. It's about what men are called to do and don't. This is Summit Life with Pastor J.D.

Greer. To find out more about this ministry, visit us anytime at jdgreer.com. I'm excited to once again share with you about our latest featured resource. It's a book called Scent, Living a Life That Invites Others to Jesus, written by Heather and Ashley Holliman. This husband and wife duo wrote this book as a resource for just plain old normal Christians like you and me to get us thinking about how to share the gospel in our everyday lives. So if you've ever wondered how to initiate gospel conversations with the people around you, this book is for you.

Learn practical ways to share the most meaningful message of all with people that you've known your whole life or maybe even people that you just met. Time to experience the joy of evangelism instead of the uncertainty. We'd love to send you a copy of this really helpful book with your gift of $35 or more to this ministry today.

Simply give us a call at 866-335-5220 or visit us online now at jdgreer.com. Now let's get back to today's teaching. Once again, here's Pastor J.D.

on Summit Life. Again, let me real quick, I want you to look at two more verses in here. Then I'm gonna bring my the varsity squad up here and let her give you some perspective on these. All right, but real quick, go to verse 3. Go to verse 3.

Slight change of topic, but you'll see how it all ties together. Verse 3, don't let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair, the putting on of gold jewelry, the clothing that 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. All right, so what Peter now is doing is talking to wives about two different kinds of beauty. There's a kind of beauty that the world that we live in always prioritizes and tells you to go after.

It's external. It deals with clothing and how in shape your body is and the money value of your jewelry, but then Peter talks about another kind of beauty, the beauty that comes from Christ's likeness. That word gentle, by the way, that word gentle is a word that's used throughout the Gospels repeatedly to describe Jesus. So he's saying there is a greater beauty that is at work inside you. It is Jesus's beauty and that is a beauty that never perishes. He said you ought to prioritize that kind of beauty because in God's sight it's very precious and you see the implication in your husband's eyes it will become more precious as well. My wife is still I believe very physically beautiful, but she's had four children and sometimes I look at her and here is a girl who has given her life sacrificially and her body to serve our family and me. There is a Christ-like beauty that exudes out of her even as she ages. She is more beautiful now than the day that I married her and that's not sentimental like garbage that you throw out when you know you don't really mean it. She is more beautiful to me now than the day I married her because there is a Christ-likeness, an imperishable beauty that is growing in her and exuding out of her. Some of the most beautiful women I know are older because they have this inner beauty that exudes from them. On the other hand there are some of you that have been so dependent on external beauty. When you were young you wore tight clothes and lots of makeup then you started to get older but because that was all you had you got desperate.

You start to dress inappropriately for somebody your age and as I mentioned starting to do weird things to your face trying to hold on to a beauty that ultimately is perishable. Peter says there's a greater beauty, a sweeter beauty that you need to focus on because it's a beauty that is imperishable and begins to exude from you. It's precious in God's sight and as you're seeing he's saying it'll change your husband too because it'll become precious in his.

You know this is great. You see what Peter's done? He's applied the doctrine of the resurrection even to physical beauty. I've told you this before I don't want to get off on a soapbox but real quick I told you that evangelical Christians like us have trouble understanding where the resurrection fits into how we see the world. So we know we honor the resurrection one time at Easter that's when you get your resurrection sermon and basically it just exists to prove that Christianity is right. But otherwise when we're talking about the gospel we always talk about the cross. Well Jesus died for you. When you're explaining the gospel you're like Jesus died for your sins in your place and he resurrected.

Don't really know what that means but you know I'm glad he did it. What Peter has done is when Luke summarized the message of the apostles in one word in the book of Acts he used the word resurrection. Here you're seeing an example of what that looks like literally the entire book of first Peter every single truth he teaches goes back to the resurrection. He is saying even your physical beauty you ought to see it to the lens of the resurrection because you are seeing that while the outward body can fade there is an inner beauty that you ought to hold on to because that exudes out of you and it goes on forever and it is sweeter and more beautiful and it is imperishable. So he says focus on that resurrection beauty that's at work within you.

Okay all right that's the end of verse four. Now again I told you that I thought the varsity squad would help in giving you some perspective so I'm going to ask my wife if she will come up here and join me and I'm going to ask her a few questions. Would you mind welcoming at all of our campuses welcome my wife to the stage. How you doing? Great. All right. All right so I got three questions for you maybe four. There's only three that I like talked with you about.

It'll be the lightning round. So here's question number one. In first Peter three it talks about a quiet spirit and there are some women who hear that and what they think is doormat and they'll say why don't we have a naturally like you know really kind of quiet personality and you know some of them know this but you're not exactly the the quietest person. You know you have more of a robust personality let's let's say it that way. So the question is can a woman with a strong personality still have a quiet spirit like Peter's talking about? I this is this is a question that is close to my heart because as JD said I knew really early on in my life that I fell into the loud personality category and so I would you know read this passage and it was sort of distressing to me because I sort of thought you know what is what am I supposed to do with that. On Sesame Street you learn that you know opposites are loud and quiet you know so what am I left with what am I left with to do and JD will tell you even if I were to try and be more quiet I would be still almost entirely unsuccessful because most of the time I'm loud and don't even realize it so it's not really going to be a successful attempt on my part. When she talked on the phone I mean I don't know why you're picking up the phone your friends can hear you wherever you're talking to.

Just with my mom and my sister. So I've come to understand this passage the way it was meant I think over the years and I have made my peace with it and so it doesn't matter about what your outward personality is I have realized that God has made each of us a certain way. He's made me a certain way and that's not to say that every inclination that I've ever had is right but he has made me a certain way because it brings him joy and I don't need to make remake myself into some other model that I think is somehow better because that's just not the case. The passage is talking about your spirit and it's actually possible more than possible to be outwardly quiet or reserved and yet have anything but a quiet and gentle spirit that this passage is talking about. The question is are you surrendered to God and then if you're married this passage is connecting it directly to how you treat and relate to your husband. So are you surrendered to God submitted to God and are you submitting to your husband. So it has nothing to do with the outward expression. Give them an example of that. You know I think sometimes JD has told me before like he has told me before like we've left a social situation and I would be thinking you know what was he what bothered him trying to figure out what had bothered him that night or something if we were out or something and then when he would tell me what had bothered him I would vehemently deny that it bothered him at all or that he felt disrespected and tell him how dumb it was that he felt that way and how clearly it shouldn't have you know affected him that way and you know if he were to tell me when I tell him I feel sad or lonely that it's really dumb that I feel that way and explain it how logically I shouldn't feel that way I would be really offended and so I had to learn after like this happened repeatedly if I wanted to live in peace and harmony with him I needed to hear what he was saying to me and act accordingly whether I sort of felt that way or not I mean you know this is it's it is what it is so yeah I guess that's a good example good job question number two it's about submission passage obviously talks about it a lot what is it what does it mean to you tell them what it means to you to submit and then do you feel inferior when you do that's that's a good one so I think an example of when I've had to submit it like JD said earlier it doesn't it doesn't happen that often an example was about a year ago when we moved and JD felt very strongly where we lived before that we needed to move to be closer to the church he doesn't really have a nine-to-five job so he wanted to be able to be home as much as was like physically possible and so he felt like we needed to move to make that more possible I on the other hand did not feel like we need to move I felt like we lived close enough I loved our cul-de-sac lot we had a great fence and we had neighbors with kids our kids ages I mean I just you know I just didn't feel that way plus we had a super target two miles away who needs dad home when you got a super target two miles away is all I'm saying so anyway after several years of me just trying to wait him out and I guess thinking he would forget about it or something pretty sure he was doing the same thing for that time I finally realized it wasn't gonna happen and we were feeling the exact same ways and so I was gonna have to submit he didn't say that he didn't demand that I just the Lord made it clear to me and I just knew it was what I had to do so we moved now I'm not gonna lie to you I still have to go visit my super target I miss it so much so I still miss my super target desperately but he is home far more than he ever was before it makes him so much happier my kids see him so much more and they are so much happier it's a pretty good trade so the second part of that question do you feel inferior when you do definitely not I mean like JD mentioned earlier when I can manage it and the few times I've had to do it I feel like I'm in good company because you see the best example of it in the Trinity and so when I can manage to do it there in the right way I see it as a Christ like attribute and I see it as a victory so no I think that would be the best advice that I can give to single women in here young single women and that is JD makes it easy also on top of that JD makes it easy for me to to follow him so I would tell you as a single woman marry someone that you will find it easy to follow and you won't end up in a situation where you're like really fighting this really difficult battle to submit because you've married someone that you respect and trust and you can do it do good to one another by showing honor and respect grace and generosity that's solid biblical teaching from a special message about marriage and the gospel with JD and Veronica Greer to listen again or to catch up on this teaching series visit us at JD Greer calm these daily messages come to you completely free of charge on the radio and web but they aren't free to produce and distribute and 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contribution I'm Molly bit of itch be sure to tune in tomorrow when we'll hear more from pastor JD and his wife Veronica about how our marriages can put the gospel on display we'll see you Tuesday on summit life with JD Greer today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer ministries