Honor at Home

Honor at Home

Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Come on in. Have a seat. Welcome. Welcome mothers. Thank you for coming. We’re excited. You’re joining us for your Mother’s Day celebration on mike. And when the pastors here at our church, that’s great. We can start your day, week, month of mother honoring festivities at your home with us. Thank you. Um, it’s uh, I regret to inform you with the rain and wind that are blue angel flyover. We had coordinated for the accumulation of this service is not happening. But I also feel like one of those kids whose moms had to clean up your room, all the scaffolding in the lobby and outside a half power washed building, who would have known our building was so dirty until we power washed it. So it’s just just fun to have time if you guys this morning, moms. And so I, I was, I was thinking about parenting. Um, it really feels like a group project and if you’re me on a group project, you’re the dead weight. Um and you really got to be on a strong team to get those season those bees in those days. And so I do feel like in my parenting home, my and, and I have jokingly said like if anyone ever asked us to do a parenting conference, I’m gonna sucker you into it. And I was like, sure, yeah, yeah, that’s a great idea Annie, what do you think? And hand the Mycroft to my wife because she remembers everything and she’s one of the, she’s doing a lot of heavy lifting their for Children. So I’m engaged with some degree. But those moms, they have a big part in people’s hearts. And so I was talking to young dad yesterday. He has a three month old kid and he was new dad nervous talking about, I think he’s dedicating his kid this morning at a church, been Omaha’s also and we’re talking about his new role as a father and I said, well it’s easy. You got a sweet wife who has a big soul for the Lord and loves jesus. A lot of things are gonna work out. You’re on a strong team bro. It’s okay. So mom, thank you for coming. Thank you for joining us. Um, I, uh, I attempt to handle every passage with care, but it feels like today’s passage. You’re joining us is like a land mine field. Um, it is a high stakes sermon. We’re rolling through this morning and that’s fine. Um, but I’m gonna, I’m gonna lovingly smile and not spend things. I’m going to try to smile and explain scripture. A lot of what it means. We’ve, we didn’t plan this out magically perfectly as a pastoral team when he picked first peter. But we’re landing the Mother’s Day plan on the more controversial passages of the bible on genders this morning. And we’re going to talk about all the various landmines you can get hurt on. And so we’ll talk and point out a landmine, explain what it means and keep moving forward. So let’s bow our heads. Let’s pray moving to honor all women in the room and on our moms. But I do believe God’s going to show up like he always does with his word. So God, I thank you for, I thank you for the mothers. Thank you for my mom. Thank you for all these moms in this room. Lord, I thank you for all the women that run the world. Lord, I thank you, jesus for and what you did. Lord. You honored your mother, you cared for your mother. I thank you for how women in the early church and women throughout all scripture. Lord, there’s amazing story of what you’ve created. Both men and women. Uh, they’re the genders are to be honored and cherished. Thank you for what you’ve done Lord all throughout the 66 books of the bible old testament, new testament. You’re a good, good father and you gave us great great mothers. Uh we pray that you just help us to honor the women. Help them to feel comforted Lord from this time, help them feel encouraged and feel loved and cared for from this time and help them in to feel deeply convicted. We pray this in jesus name. Amen. Alright. To catch you up. Previously on the book of Peter, we finished chapter two which covered through this, this Greco roman world, this roman territory that was about the size of Nebraska and Kansas. There was four main cities that this letter that Peter wrote was translated and it was transferred around those four main cities. And there were like a house church networks in those cities kind of built around familiar relationships. And so This is our COVID to service world. But the large church in America is about 70. Some people uh a large church in this day would have been a household, a couple dozen people packed into a house and talking, sitting on the floor and household units as they read this letter to everyone. And so to catch you up, he’s speaking to a church which was which was pulled out of the roman culture. People were becoming saved in the early church. And the majority of the early church was made up of the first responders of the early church. The first converts to Christianity was made up primarily of women and slaves. Like what? Well, the roman culture, over half of the people living in each of those cities were were slaves that were conquered. People hauled in that city from the roman empire, the roman government, the roman military. They conquered a city and transported people. They were indentured servants. They could have been bond servants, that we’re learning a skill and a craft for a season and being released at the age of 30 to start their own franchise. There could have been a kidnapped, say, that could have been a conquered people. Um and they slaves, non romans and women were the first that became christians in the early church. And so Peter is talking to the people living in context, a different diversities, different ethnicities that we’re not roman predominantly and that we’re not male predominantly. And he wrote the words of First Peter to the early church and he’s speaking to people on how to honor an evil, corrupt government of narrow and an evil government that is not pro to Christianity are prone to the gospel of jesus prone to this biblical world view of the household nucleus. It is not affirming of those values and narrow. We’ve talked about, you can go listen to it was a very corrupt evil emperor who’s very diabolical. It is systematic hunting and executing of christians. And he talked about employers of people living as indentured servants, uh, for your master, your employer and what your relationship should look like as you honor your employer as slaves. And then he shifts here in chapter three to honor at home and that’s our title honor in the home honors to find his high respect great esteem, adherence to what is right to a conventional standard of conduct, honor at home. And the reason this is this is difficult to work through is many homes and Lincoln Nebraska do not have honor as the main theme of the helmet of Lincoln. Many homes are broken marriages, divorced families, straying families and there’s frayed relationships in the house all over all over Lincoln Nebraska, john Gottman. A leading marriage clinical study determined the variables, the four main variable factors that contributed divorce. Uh, and one of the four is a lack of honor, a contempt at home, a contempt between a husband and a wife and their relationship ships with each other. Honor encourages and sees the best in your spouse, contempt criticized and sees the worst things in your spouse. You see the bible speaks on the quality of gender and different roles and the bible is radically progressive when it comes to teaching us about gender. So Galatians 3 28 says this. There is no jew or Greek, slave or free male or female since you are all one in Christ and you and I read that were like, yeah, yeah, no doubt. Mike I got you of course. Yeah. Well he was. Yes. But this wasn’t written to people living in Lincoln Nebraska. In the year 2021. We’re living in a post christian culture Christianity already burned through our country like a wildfire and there was revivals and you know, lives were changed. Churches were established. We’re living in a post christian world. This is a pre christian roman world that Peter wrote to in the city of dilation, the galician city and there was a difference between jews and non jews, men and women free and slave. He says, no, you’re all one in christ. The bible is radically aggressive on genders and honoring and respecting the genders and the roles that each of those genders play and the bible is not silent about genders and differences and rolls and first peter is one of those many places And we all know there’s differences in men and women. You can go home on YouTube and watch this yourself. But you know, there’s variety of differences. Just the brain anatomy. Men have 10 bigger brains, but girls are 10 smarter than all of us. We all know that um, in general, the battle blood flow that’s happening in the brain. The, you know, different parts of the brain are developed in men and different parts of the brain are more developed than women. Men’s wiring is from one direction, women’s wiring from the other side, the amount of gray matter in a male brain versus white matter, It’s different in the gray and white matter for the different brains. Women use their whole brain, that’s why they’re smarter. Men usually just use the left side of their brain. Men focus on objects. Women focus on faces and people men are more task driven there. Multitasker. And but women aren’t there multitaskers. They could do many things. Well, men could do one thing kind of well. Um, and women have the ability to have babies. There’s very, the list doesn’t stop there. Ladies. I had to cut us off here because I went long on the first service, but we all know men and women are different and you’re saying thinking, yeah, mike, women are better. You’re right. Women are great, we love you women, you’re you’re amazing. Um, but Peter is writing to a pre christian context, this pre christian house church network. And you would and but you see these these women he’s writing to in first Peter three are in very difficult circumstances. They’re not in your life. They don’t have the bible like you have, they don’t have a church as large like you have and they don’t have they don’t have a potentially believing spouse like you have, they don’t have a christian father and a christian mother, like you might have, they come from a non christian worldview from non christian families and their husbands, their living with may not be believers. I’m gonna I’m gonna cover the three main practical 21st century takeaways for us as we go through these major misunderstandings of this passage, but this roman culture is not our culture today. And so we can’t take our 21st century Lincoln Nebraska values and read it into this passage. We have to understand what the audience, what Peter was saying to these churches and what was going on or else you’re gonna wildly misunderstand and misapply this passage. So let’s read it first. Peter 3 1. It begins in the same way wives just talked about the government, just talked about your employer. Next I want homes. In the same way wives submit yourselves to your own husband. So that if some disobey the word, the word, they may be won over without a word, by the way their lives their wives live when they conduct your pure, when they observe your pure and reverent lives. Betty friedan uh feminist writer and activist said the traditional family unit is a domestic concentration camp. That’s what she said. But in that day and age it might have been real because women are viewed as a piece of property that a man owned in the roman culture. They were and women were, you know, the whole they were they were not allowed to share their thoughts opinions in court about who stole what, or who killed who they were invalid witness in court culturally, at that day they’re viewed less than a than a hired indentured servant at that day. Women in the roman culture had no rights. Women in our post christian american culture have obviously rights, but in that day they had no rights. The wife a christian should know a wife is, so he’s writing to the wife who is a christian and whose husband is not a believer. So I’m going to cover three practical camps applications before we jump into these potential landmines of this passage. The first practical application for relationships in the year 2021 is don’t date and don’t marry a nonbeliever, that’s one of the top four indicators of why people get divorced. They’re different faiths, different worldviews, but as a as a christian man with a father who loved jesus and a mother who loved us, who modeled a healthy marriage for me, I get that I’m like a unicorn in our culture, but I came from a family where dad and mom love each other and they loved jesus and they love me, that’s my worldview. And I started dating my wife, I wanted only girlfriend ever had an E and I realized early on in this relationship, I’m like, you know, room mates, teammates, classmates, siblings, I’ve, you know, just from life being a person, I’ve hurt people’s feelings and they’ve hurt my feelings. That’s just life, I’m like, I’m gonna hurt this sweet little crane girl’s feelings, not on purpose, but just the fact that there’s so much proximity to me as a person and I’m a person who is a sinner saved by jesus and she’s a sinner saved by jesus. And we we we have a little life on life action here. If you get married to this girl, I’m gonna hurt this girl more than any person on this planet because she’s my spouse, not because I’m some evil diabolical guy, but just I’m a person, People hurt people. And I realized that I apologize to my wife early on in our dating because it was, it was, it was just like anne I don’t wanna hurt you more than other people because I’m your spouse. If I get married to you after you got engaged, I was like, I’m gonna I’m not gonna apologize before, I’ll apologize during and I’m gonna apologize after, but I just set the ground rules. I’m just from geography and time, you know, spouses, husbands and wives, it’s a tough road sometimes to be married and you just gotta realize you’re gonna hurt each other. And if you’re married to a non believer, you’re likely the stats of you making it is very low as a couple. The second thing believers that marry someone who they think is a believer but finds out that that person is not a believer and walks away from their faith in jesus. Um, statistically if the wife is converted in the husband is not A percentage of the family gets saved, but the husband is converted, like almost 80 of his family gets saved. Statistically speaking, not like Christian Barnard research. I mean, like secular stats on religion and faith. If the man converts to a faith, the whole family tends to follow. Um, and so you might be in a relationship where you married somebody thinking they’re believer and as time goes on, they have lost the faith or they were not a true believer. Middle class men in America is the hardest to reach demographic. In America is a middle class male. He has all the food, he wants all the toys, he wants, all the entertainment, he wants all the gadgets, he wants all the distractions, all the hobbies, all the sex he wants with porn. Middle class men are the toughest demographic to reach. In America, Most churches you walk into on Sunday morning are 60 70 women. Our church seems like most weeks were rolling about 50 men, 50 women which praise God. And we want more of both those percentages. But but women, this is a heavy thing and be slow and get council seek the Lord. Take your time. Wisdoms proved by her Children. See what life and times show with this man truly values. Don’t Russia relationship. Men and women And then 1st Peter three. From my understanding it seems to be talking about the third category two non believers that get married and then at one of them the wife becomes a believer. That’s what we’re reading about. That’s the context. I did a did a wedding for a couple a few years ago. They got, they dated in high school, They never got married but they just lived together. They cohabitate it for I don’t know she was 30 some when we did their wedding like almost half their life. They lived in the same house, had the same bank account, they had three kids together. They lived as husband and wife. They just never got married. And then she asked me to do their wedding and they’re already living as husband and wife. And some older pastors said yes they’re married in the eyes of God and they’ve been living as husband wife do the wedding. And so I did marriage counseling for one. The wife husband had nothing to do with me. We’ll do marriage counseling for the wife. I did the wedding for the wife. She already had three kids with him, a house, a bank account and almost half her life. She was living with her high school sweetheart. He was not a believer and she was a believer. Her life is being transformed and changed and renewed by God. His was not Drastically different world. That’s category # three, which I think I believe that most of this passage is talking about that woman because in these these these churches there, these family churches, you got a couple over here and expecting a couple over here, uh bigger family over there and you got a wife with a couple of kids there and no dad. So that context is different when we talk about this passage, remember whenever historically Christianity gets into the culture, it raises the value of marginalized people groups and it raises the value of women because usually people groups and women are d marginalized by the culture, culture. At this time, a wife had considered property has no legal rights. And this is a dangerous situation she’s in and Peter’s trying to equip the women in these small churches in very limiting situations in life to be honoring to their husbands. Peter is trying to make Christianity and the wife’s faith has winsome as possible to that man, to that roman man. So we have to hold that in our, in our hand. As we read this passage, practically speaking men, how do you honor your wife a pro tip? Go home and think about what she’s been saying over the years. You’ve been married to her and do that for a week and then ask her in a week you’ll look like the man. But if you ask her on the way home, that’s right. But she’s probably already told you how to honor her. Give her a back rub and cut it off after that. Make her coffee in the morning, back in the house. Do what you gotta do man. You know what you’re supposed to do to start doing that and then ask her in a week or two, you’ll look like the man. But uh pro tip, how do you and your wife? You should ask her. Uh So let’s pick up in verse three. And I like to work through some of these landmines. Verse three. Don’t let your beauty consists of outward things like elaborate hairstyles and wearing fine jewelry, or fine clothes, gold jewelry, or fine clothes, but rather what is inside the heart. The imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. Okay, so, uh my brother shared the stat that $17 billion $17 billion captain obvious would say this is not a band on all braided hair, sort of like grab someone’s hair. Anyway, I’m like, Peter says, you know, it’s not a ban on jewelry. Don’t rip someone’s ring off their hand. It’s not on fine clothes. This is my wedding jacket and funeral jacket. Don’t take my jacket from me. It’s not abandon all fashion. But Peter continues on. He jumps into a case study in versus five and six to kind of pull out his point. He says this four in the past, the holy women who put their hope in God also adorned themselves in this way submitting to their own husbands. Just as Sarah obeyed Abraham calling him Lord. You have become her Children when you do what is good and do not fear any intimidation. All right. So the bible is not like a carrot card where you can kind of read whatever you want to read out of it. The bible has a specific author into a specific audience for a specific purpose. And we got to understand what we should do after we hear and understand what they should do as people. And so so I’ve heard a cringe worthy thing when I was a young college guy was 18 in the dorms. Uh me and another young guy and other guys were reading the bible and we read first peter as a small group and then we got done and then we went off to our merry little life And then in, in the weeks that continued this young brother in the Lord who was a baby christian. He would, he read first peter three One and he’s like submit. Like that’s right. Every time you get a conversation with a girl, he would say, well first Peter three says submit and he dropped that on girls like it’s cringeworthy. I told you it’s cringeworthy. But but men and women, you know that is, that’s not a blanket statement of submission of men to women. Does that make sense? My wife and I are in a mutually submissive relationship to each other in the christ that is unique to the family unit I am in, I got some skin in the game with my wife. You have no skin in the game with these girls. You can’t go around telling women you’re a female submit. That’s a nice misogynistic thing to say. But that’s gonna get you anywhere if you want to get married and have a level of trust and commitment and loyalty and buying and of relational accountability. And that’s a different world where I’m submitting the anti and anti something to me and we’re both committed to christ. That’s the triangle submission. I live in like, was this a UFC fight submission? No, but many women do you understand? So don’t be stupid single guys and take this verse out of context and get slapped by someone. Okay, it’s not a blanket statement on submission. Women in this room are not required to submit to guys in this room unless it’s their husband, then they’re both supposed to be mutually submissive to each other. This is between a woman who’s who’s loves and married to men. But this, this audience of submitting isn’t just just every woman in the room, it’s to the women who are married to men who are not christians, they’re not honorable men. So like Annie lives in this too many relationship to me. And what if I’m not a christian mike? How is anne supposed to interact with me? So if you’re not married, we’re gonna try to double click here, um, and go down a little bit deeper learning about this when, when both the husband wife are following and spending to jesus and they’re speaking to each other. That is a powerful force to be reckoned with good things in my life happened to when I’m listening to God, I’m listening to God’s daughter, anne, I tend to get things right when I’m not listening to God, his daughter usually hears from God and I ignore God, but his daughter tells me things aren’t doing well. Then I rebel against both of them. Then my whole life starts to become a dumpster fire as a christian man. But when I’m, but if I am a non believer, a non christ follower, how does the wife of me? My wife and I have a relationship together? I mean guys, I’ve read my bible from the age of 13 till this morning, every day, some days longer than shorter, but I’ve never read my bible be like, yes, women have to listen to me never. I’ve never read about um like, yes, my wife has to listen to me never. There’s this principle about responsibility proceeds authority. You see this in jesus upside down king I’m talking about if you wanna be great in the kingdom of God, you have to be a servant. If you want to be like, even greater than those people have to be a slave to all. Nothing is beneath you, responsibility proceeds authority. If you want authority in a church, in a relationship, you want clout and wait to what you say and what you do, you have to be a servant to all. You have to be more responsible for everything. I am finally finding myself something to God and my wife more and more faster than I did when I was a young married man, because and he listens to jesus a little bit better than I do at times and she seems to have a tighter walk of God and I do that time. You’re like, we know, mike, I’m like, I know, but our culture men has a very Shelvin mystic world view, in the world of sports, in the world of business. In school, I don’t know if a man made authority structure that’s not messed up upside down. I mean, the Me Too movement has obviously exposed this, but a society, we don’t know how to do this without jesus. And jesus says the way this works is you both submit to me and you must have meant to each other. I have authority in my home because I don’t serve everyone else in my home, responsibility proceeds authority. I have authority my home, because I am laying my life down for other people in my home. I think Jesus would drop kick our culture or shelving is the culture very quickly on his twitter account if he was around right now in this passage, peter emphasizes internal character, the woman more than external appearances. So he’s talking about hairstyles, jewelry, clothes attached to that is a certain level of affluence, how women find their worth and value at adorning themselves. That’s what is true then, that’s true today. Um that’s how women of the world feel. Value is by looking valuable in the eyes of the world. But Peter says it’s not just a banner, looking decent, it’s on top of, you know, loving your husband finds a way of loving him beyond just, you know, looks on the outside. Because what will bug a man more is a woman who loves jesus, loves his kids and loves him when he doesn’t deserve it. I have been humbled by my lovely wife who has given me the honor I don’t deserve at times and the respect I don’t deserve at times and she’s obeyed this verse as a christian pastor as she has submitted and honored me as a man, Your physical health, your well being matters to God. But on top of that, your character also managed to God. I think verse four really unlocks that passage more about tells women have a gentle and quiet spirit and you’re like mike, that’s fighting words. My gentle and quiet spirit. Well, I do think Peter isn’t a fool. I think Peter is quoting, quoting what, what Jesus described himself in the book of Matthew chapter 11 verse 30 something, Jesus and all four gospel accounts defines himself as gentle and lowly in the heart. So, so peter, just tell these women to be like jesus whose gentle and lonely and heart And Jesus Twitter handle. You know, he’s got 30 characters to fill. He would be like son of God, walked on water. Food, multiplier, healer, preacher, extraordinary. OGOGS for original God, Come on, y’all come on, gentle and lowly would have put that in there. He would have made room for that. That I mean jesus to find himself one time in the bible is gentle and lowly at heart and then he jumps into that case study. Let’s look at that case study. Sarah. Why Sarah? Well Sarah has a highlight reel of things that happened in her life. She was in bad situations and she made her own bad situations at times. You can pull out a lot of different parts of Sarah’s life. But Sarah denied God promises that God will give them a son. She laughed. I got when God told her and her husband that they would have a son. Sarah struggled to believe the promises of God. She laughed at God. She she was imperfect and her her solution to the problem was well I got a maid servant. I gotta make a servant. Hey guy. Let’s have, hey I sleep with my husband and get an heir to our family that way. I mean, Sarah is not a highlight reel of doing everything right. Sarah is a low light reel of God’s Mercy. God’s grace in God’s character came through as she walked in weakness and repentance. God worked it out when Sarah couldn’t work it out. She wasn’t an ideal person to lift up, but God came through in the end and gave them an air Verse six, it talks about fear and intimidation. In verse six, it is a step of faith to let God let God go get your husband and leave a gentle and quiet life. You you advocate responsibility to advocate authority, advocate the little power of those women had at that time, they gave that up to let God be their God. I think wives and daughters, they have an ear of God, their father. That is unique. This passage affirms that here at the end of this passage, uh to get out of the way, ladies, pray for your husband. Don’t sit in your private life for your public life and let God kick his butt. That’s what this passage basically says. A godly praying honorable wife is a dangerous threat to a non saved husband. Some guys. Mhm guys, I think I’m gonna verse six Fear, it takes a step of faith to give that authority that control over to God. But your testimony, because if the husband would see a lost husband would see a saved woman and she goes off to church, she goes off to community groups, she goes and hangs after the people of God has communion, sings hymns, does the jesus stuff and she comes home and she’s she’s a pain to live with. She’s difficult to live with. The husband will write off everything that she has a hip hypocrisy and a con, if he sees authenticity and home and authenticity, authenticity in public, that will haunt him more than a duplicitous wife that acts one way at home, in one way in public wives and daughters. I mean, God is the God has a father’s heart for all of his Children. So I’m like his son and God’s got a fatherly heart for me as his son. But that means you’re his daughters, sisters. And God has a fatherly heart for you. The guy who’s doing our marriage conference has a little spunk. He’s coming in october, but he was talking about, he had a daughter and a college group that I was in and this young guy came and uh, asked him about dating his daughter and the dad knew this daughter. And he said, uh, he said uh the boy who’s asking out his daughter, he said, I have almost half a million dollars investing this young lady over the course of her life. Come back to me when you’re more serious and you have some things together which is like the guy was kind of, it makes sense what he did. But as a father, you want to model the kind of man you want, your daughter will marry as a father, you want to model what masculine looks like, what a protective father looks like. You want to model that as men. But have you seen a daughter kind of put the screws on her dad? I have a daughter and she’s working me, but I’m trying and I’m kind of heartless mike over here, right? But you know, it’s gonna be tough man. As time goes on, I’ve seen my own sister’s call up my father and get them to drive across country and go to their baby dedication in Omaha. That’s happening right now up in Omaha because they kind of turn the daddy thing on. I mean my own wife is the only daughter in a family. Daughters have a special place in the father’s heart sisters and so don’t leave that, leave that money in the bank, you cash all those checks and pray all those prayers and unleash the prayers of God, unleash God onto your man, you don’t want to be in between God and your man. You want to get out the way and let God just challenge to kick his butt ladies all right. And so a praying woman, a praying daughter of the king is a legit weapon in the hand of God. I see dad’s hand, father’s hand moving because the women in our church pray. I think it is amazing powerful thing that a lot of women don’t leverage that, that gift you have as daughters of jesus, so calling him Lord verse six. Well, it’s a term of respect at that day and age. Men were like the ceo of a family ceo, CFO, cio of the family. And if it was crazy, if they want to kick a kid out and banished them from the family, the kid would be homeless on the street. I mean men in that day in the roman culture like kicked their wives and kids to death, narrow kicked his wife and kid to death and he was, he wasn’t punished for it. Do you get what I’m saying? It was just a weird, wild non american world that they were in and they said to treat the husband of respect. I think Peter was also rifting off of what Paul wrote in the book of Ephesians five talks about love and respect how women need to feel love in a relationship. Then you feel loved in a marriage and they’ll just, they’ll do well in all their life if they feel loved, but men need to be respected. It’s like an air hose is what he said. And if a woman is disrespecting a man, she stepped on his air hose is what I forget his name right now. But what the author of that book said, men and women, if if uh if a husband and wife are not loving each other and not respecting each other, the home will quickly dissolve into a toxic, dysfunctional home. And if a man feels disrespected, there’s no way he’s gonna listen to jesus. Someday as a non, as a wife married to a non believing man, you need to honor him and respect him and that culture you had to call him Lord. None of you men are going to go home and get called Lord. That’s not going to work. But as a child of the king living with a lost person, she needs to lead by example and honor an honorable man. She’s not to be a doormat, not to be a green light that allows physical and mental abuse on her. There should be no screaming, yelling, threatening, nagging or bickering of a lost husband. You can’t change a man. You want God to change your man having a man who does not know jesus as your husband. His biggest problem is that he doesn’t know, jesus. All other problems are secondary problems. The fact that him and God are not in the right place, so unleash your prayers and other people’s prayers that your husband become a believer. Your primary concern is that you’re lost husband becomes saved. That is his biggest problem has in his life, Charles Spurgeon shared a story of a young woman in his church when he preached on this passage. It talked about how an older woman in the church and her older husband, he was a chronic alcoholic, had all these drinking friends and they came back to his house one night, he told his drinking buddies after they were drinking all night, he said, let’s go back to my house. My wife’s amazing, She’s gonna, I’m gonna wake her up, she’s gonna make us dinner. Come on! Like you can’t wake up, it’s too late. He’s like, come on guys, she’s amazing, Let me show you. And they went to their house and he was a jerk like he usually was, she became a christian, he was still a nonbeliever and he woke her up out of a dead sleep. She made a meal for all of him and his drinking friends and she was serving them, honoring them respectfully. And one of the people there, one of his friends felt convicted and he said this is wrong. Are you treating her is wrong? But you know what you’re doing it, this is all just, this is not respect, this is not good. He’s like why do you, why do you treat him so well? Why do you treat this man so well? And she said it’s easy. I am a christian and he’s not, I have no jesus and he doesn’t, I will spend Attorney in heaven with jesus and he won’t, this is the best he’s ever going to get it before. He spends attorney in hell and it’s my job to lead him to jesus. They were honoring him and respect to him or whatever she said after that. But obviously that just killed the party. People went home couple of weeks later, later that day, a couple of weeks later, this husband to his wife and was like, are you you really mean that? Do you really mean that? And they talked through the gospel again and this man became christians later because his wife was honoring the non honorable man. Obviously there’s lines. I can pick caveats, physical, emotional, mental, of course. Contact the police, contact an authority. I’m not saying this is a mandate for crazy sin. Does that make sense? I think you understand that there’s a caveat. I’m gonna drop that caveat on this. But Peter then after lifting up a challenge to the women of how to live in a very difficult situation, shifts his attention to verse 7 to the men, How to honor your family at home. And there’s a joke, an old joke, the best way to get men to do something is say they’re too old or too weak to do it. And so I’m not going to say you’re all too weak or too old to do this. But let’s look at verse seven men verse seven says husbands in the same way live with your wives and understanding way as with a weaker partner showing them honor as co heirs of the grace of life so that your prayers will not be hindered. I mean we have a role if we’re doing it God’s way, we have a role, a biblical mandate to be pastors of a congregation of one if you have kids, two or three or four or whatever, but a pastor of your family, you’re supposed to be a provider of your family in a protector of your family. The three piece pastor protector provider. That’s what the bible calls you to as a man. Biblical scholars and authors highlight. There’s so much packed in this little line, we just read verse seven. It’s a nice little run on sentence, but they pack in all sorts of things in there. We’re supposed to honor our life spiritually with the word and prayer and attending church. We’re supposed to honor wife emotionally and being emotionally present. We’re supposed to honor y physically. We’re supposed to honor wife sexually, which was the honor of life verbally, financially, practically and parentally, which was the honor of life and being a consistent man, consistent, not hot one day and cold the next, which was to honor our wives. And so if you’re a man, you’re normally really bad at empathy and women are better empathy in general. I had a kid that fell last night, we had some kids at her house and he fell walking across the room and he hurt his arm. It was, that happened so quickly. I was like, okay. Like, I don’t know this kid, he’s not my kid. I’m like, hey buddy, how’s it going? He’s like holding back the tears. I’m like, does it hurt? Is it okay? Okay. And he was just like stuff I’m like, okay, I’m gonna get, and he’s like, yeah, I’m like, okay when I got, I got Annie and she came and she was like in there for a while and I’ll teary eyed and stuff and then the kid was okay. Anyone to bed. But Annie and women in general have a lot more empathy than the average dude. Empathy is sitting in some else’s seat and seeing things from their, from their perspective, trying to determine what is going on from their perspective or their pain that they’re experiencing. This is different being a servant. Empathetic is different than being a selfish jerk guys, we get tunnel vision, but women have empathy vision like jesus, He felt like throwing up when he saw the nation of Israel because he had so much empathy in his heart for the people of God. Our purpose is to protect our wives, not to bring harm on them as men are purposes a Godly man is to protect them, serve them, honor them, guard them and die for them. Your wife and any kids God gives you, the purpose is to lay your life down as a suffering servant for your wife. A coward is a bully to women. If one of you were a bully to your wife at church this morning, you might have trouble getting to your car. Do you understand what I’m saying? But we go home in a private home, or we’re most of our context were bigger than our life and you’re a bully at private. That’s a coward bully. Do you get what I’m saying anyways, I’m gonna in trouble. So Don’t be a bully to your wife. Confess that Sin two brothers in this church. All right, Let’s read verse eight. Finally, all of you be like minded and sympathetic, love one another and be compassionate and humble. Not paying back evil for evil, but or insult for insult. On the contrary, give a blessing since you were called for this so that you may inherit a blessing for the one who wants to love life and see good days. Let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking to seats and let him turn away from evil and do what is good. Let him seek peace and pursue it because the eyes of the Lord on the righteous and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against all those who do what is evil. I think verse 12 is a very grave verse. Man, Verse 12 is like Daddy’s daughter is married to you and Daddy’s girl is praying to dad about you. And if you’re a jerk and you’re an evil jerk and abusive jerk, God is going to oppose your life. You don’t want God opposing your life, man. The face of God is against those who do evil and God and just God’s placement of this text and this passage is wild and it should haunt human. I don’t want to go up against scott. It sure seems like his daughter’s got more words going into zeros than I do. We’re supposed to care for our wife. Care for our kids in a godly way. Like they’re God’s daughters and God’s sons and daughters, their gods, grandkids, analogies breaking down, but they’re not yours. That’s that’s God’s daughter and other gods kids. So what are we supposed to do? Mike? You just went through a lot for 39 minutes. What are we supposed to do? Well, the text says, it says different things to different genders in the road. So I’m gonna let you and the spirit of God work that out. What do you feel convicted to change in your life? What do you do now? Well, I think some of you might need to skip communion this week. You need to take a break, apologize to get things right if people and hurt fence parties, you know, repentance is shown by your actions. You need to confess your sin to others. Repentance is like the air it keeps you alive as a christian confession is food for your soul. You need to take your sin seriously. So what do we do now? I think some of you need to make things right. Not just smile and move on with community like things aren’t right. It’s mother’s day mike be encouraging. Okay. Um, call your mom. I don’t know. Call your mom. Don’t be lane. Call your mom. Do something more than that. Call your mom some flowers, send something. But minimum in we need to be a church that honors marriage and honors the roles that God has given us. And when men are men interacting the way Godly men need to act and should act the way God calls us to act. Everything seems to work out way better. Well, that vacuum of a godly man mayhem follows man. You. I pray to God, you’re convicted. So much flows through you. Your obedience or disobedience. Generations are hurt or generations are changed because of your decision to follow God. Let’s pray God, thank you for jesus who died for every man and woman in this room. Lord, I just we just need you, jesus to make to make, make it all work. There’s so much pain and marriages, Lord, there’s so much heartache Lord. And many marriages God, we don’t want to take things for granted. But Lord, you do. You do. You do lead us through this whole. Lord help us to learn what it means to love you and honor you. Lord help us to focus on Zain as he leads us to our communion devotional time. Here God, I thank you for Mother’s Day. I think that you came in. You had a mother and you visit this planet. Lord help us to honor our mothers like you, honor yours in jesus name. We pray Amen.