A Daily Walk

Guest (Male): Are you married to someone who doesn't know the Lord? Pastor John Randall on how best to reach them.

John Randall: The best option for witnessing in a home where a spouse is unresponsive to the gospel is to live your Christianity in front of them. Just live it out. Let them see it. Pastoring them is not always the best thing to do. "Come on, get up! Let's go to church!" Set their alarm at four and then just shake them. That doesn't work. It might cause them to become more obstinate. Just live it, live it out in front of them.

Guest (Male): All around us, marriages are struggling. Divorce is occurring at an alarming rate, and that includes Christian marriages. But God has given us everything we need to succeed in the marital relationship in His word and by His spirit. Today, on *A Daily Walk*, Pastor John Randall unveils God's heart for your marriage through a study of 1 Peter chapter 3. We'll take notice of the structure in the home that God has come up with, and as you'll soon see, many have strayed away from it. This passage has a great deal to communicate to husbands and wives, and over the course of the next two programs, we'll take a good look at it together. Here's John.

John Randall: Chapter 3 this morning. And if you are here for the first time, I want to welcome you. So glad that you are here. Let me just give you a little insight so you know by way of preface, and that is this: we just go through the Bible chapter by chapter, verse by verse. So, this wasn't like the husbands put me up to it and said, "Hey, could you, around Christmas time, teach from 1 Peter 3 just so we could get it all together?" Wives, submit to your husbands. I know some of you men have been waiting for this message a long time, and you've wanted to get here in scripture, but there's more to the Bible than just 1 Peter 3 and Ephesians chapter 5. But this is important. So we're going through the word, and that's where we are today. Praise God. All God's word is inspired. You don't want to miss any of it.

1 Peter chapter 3, beginning in verse 1, if you'd follow along with me. Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives, when they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear or reverence. Do not let your adornment be merely outward—arranging of the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel—rather, let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God.

For in this manner, in former times, the holy women who trusted in God also adorned themselves, being submissive to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, whose daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid with any terror. Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered. Shall we pray? Father, today thank you for your word, all of it. Pray that you would speak to us today, God. We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Last week, in our study through this epistle of 1 Peter, we entered into a very practical section of this letter where Peter is writing concerning a believer's conduct, their lifestyle in the midst of unfavorable circumstances. And we considered many things. How does a Christian live in the world that is opposed to Christ? The Christian lives a Christian life. He lives to honor the Lord, she lives to glorify God, and by doing that, prayerfully, those who are speaking all manner of evil against you falsely will turn to Christ because they'll see your example as a believer.

Then Peter talked about how a Christian should live under civil authority. If we have a different king and we're living for a different kingdom and the Roman Empire is basically bludgeoning the world into submission, are we supposed to just disrespect civil authority all together? Peter said no, you're to be an outstanding citizen, an example for others to follow. You should pray for those who are in authority. You should live your life in such a way that you honor all people, you honor the king, and never use your liberty in Christ as a license to pursue a life of the flesh.

Well, what about vocationally? We applied that text to how do you live if you've got a boss that isn't very kind and isn't very nice? What do you do? Peter said listen, work in such a way as to glorify God and allow the Lord to use you there in that place. We talked about our workplace being like a mission field and seeing it that way, being a light there on the job.

But now Peter moves from looking at what goes on on the outside of the home to how we live on the inside. How should we live as husbands and wives? Let me begin by saying that often in the home is where your Christianity, my Christianity, is often tested. You know it. It just happens. That's where it becomes real. You let your guard down, you are who you are. Who you are when you're there, well, that's who we are. And here Peter is writing in the first six verses addressing the wives, and then in verse 7 addressing the husbands.

It's important to remember that marriage is God's idea. He designed it, He blessed it, and He has provided instructions on how to have a fruitful and successful marriage in the Lord. There was a pastor who was ministering to some young kids in the fourth grade and he was asking them, "Hey, who knows here what the Bible says about marriage?" And a little boy said, "I know what the Bible says. It says, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.'" And for many of us, that's kind of how marriage began. You're not fully prepared for all that marriage entails. We're unaware of the challenges that we would face. You think that you just ride in on a unicorn and just float through clouds and rainbows your whole life as a married couple, just utter bliss.

But there's a challenge in two becoming one. And the truth is, you can't fully know what marriage is until you're actually married. You can read books, you can attend seminars, you can go on marriage cruises, you can go to counseling. There are so many things available for us today, but you're never fully prepared. You don't know what you don't know. Oh, but you will find out very quickly.

I remember over 32 years ago standing in my tuxedo. I remember my wife walking down—and by the way, this is before we were looking for venues. That's a new thing. Kids are like, "We're looking for a venue." What do you mean, like for a concert? No, for a venue for our wedding. And all these things, and it's great, it's so much more creative. And we were looking for churches at that time. So we got married in a church, our home church there in Costa Mesa. But I remember my wife walking down the aisle, I'm 19 years old, I got it all figured out. He hands her over to me and we ascend the staircase, we get up there on top of the platform, we go through the vows of love and faithfulness. It's amazing. We take communion, one of my best friends faints, falls down the stairs, and they dragged him off and we just kept going. I didn't even turn around. I said, "He'll be fine. Let's go."

And so we kept on going. And after you've said the vows and the rings and you're pronounced husband and wife, it's so surreal, it's wonderful. You walk out, you exit the church, you have your reception with your friends, you go to the honeymoon, it's so wonderful. You come back, you return, and your life begins. And at that time, I only knew on the surface really what marriage was about. And presently, I will again, a lot of preface here today, I am not an expert on the subject. Yet over the last three decades, I have learned a few things by experience. I will say that school is still in session. I'm still learning what it means to be a godly husband, a spiritual leader in my home.

And you say, "Well, John, what are some of the lessons that you're learning? Could you just impart some of your pearls of wisdom to us? Because we're just on the edge of our seats, we want to know how you do it. What have you learned in all of your time? Share with us." All right, write this down. I am learning how selfish I can be. I am learning how prideful I can be. I'm learning how stubborn in my flesh that I can become. I have discovered how long bitterness can live in an unrepentant heart. It has the shelf life of a Twinkie. You got to be careful.

I am learning that although I communicate for a living, I am not always the best communicator. I can easily lack sensitivity. I'm learning that I'm not always as much of a servant as Jesus would have me to be. I'm not as godly and as spiritual as I want to be. Ultimately, this is what I'm learning: bottom line, I need the power of the Holy Spirit if I am to love my wife, if I'm to be a husband, if I'm to be a father in the way that God requires me to be. To be a husband, to be a father, to be a grandfather, to be a Christian is impossible without the power of the Holy Spirit indwelling me. And I agree with what the Bible says: in my flesh dwells no good thing, and that apart from Jesus, I can do nothing. I'm learning that this relationship called marriage is the deepest, the most intimate relationship you can have next to your relationship with Jesus Christ.

And in this relationship, we have to follow what God's word says, obey what He has revealed, follow His example, or else it won't be what it should be or it won't be what God desires it to be. And tragically, in some cases, those that disregard God's design for marriage and His plan and guidelines end up becoming a statistic of the divorce rate being somewhere around 60%. That's not just out there, I will say, it's also made its way into the church. There is an all-out attack on the marriage. Some people, frankly, they're just looking for a way out. I want to talk to you just for a little bit about what God's word says on this subject.

And we begin with the wives. Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands. The word that Peter uses here for submission is a word that describes a maintaining of order. God is a God of order. You look at creation and you realize it's not a God of chaos. There are things that are in order that operate according to God's plan. The Bible says that in Him—that is, in Christ—all things consist, meaning they are literally held together. He's a God of order.

Thankfully, He's given us instructions not just for order in the cosmos, order in the church, but also order in the world and in our marriage. And so Peter uses this term, and it's actually a military term. And it describes soldiers that come under the leadership of the officers that are over them. In Ephesians chapter 5 verse 22, Paul used it this way. Paul said, "Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, and Christ is the head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything."

For many, the very word submission just frightens you. You think of submission today and it's like somebody's got somebody in a chokehold, and when they submit, that means they're tapping out. Let go of me. It's like a scary thing, submission. It carries a negative connotation. And we live in a society that values individual rights, especially those who are pushed down by the system, and we're constantly encouraged: stand up for our rights and fight back when you're wrong. In many ways, I would say that self-fulfillment is a supreme virtue in America, and we are encouraged to do whatever we have to do to seek our own personal happiness. And I believe that the reason why there's such a strong aversion to submission is that we're unclear of what God means by it in His word.

Submission does not mean inferiority. That because the wife is called to follow the leadership of her husband, that somehow she is inferior to her husband spiritually, intellectually, or otherwise. No, that's not the case. Submission has to do with structure, order that God has given for the family within the home. A husband's role is not the same as the role of the wife, and a wife's role is not the same as the husband. A husband is to love and be submitted and surrendered to Jesus in his own personal life. That should be the first priority of every husband here: to love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. And then, as you submit to the leadership of Jesus Christ, the wife, then, who is also submitted to Jesus, then comes under the leadership of her husband.

And then what follows is you have children growing up in an environment with parents, although in no way perfect, they do love the Lord, they love one another, and the child is then submitted to the Lord as to being submitted to the parents. That's God's plan. That's God's plan for the family, God's plan for marriage. Ladies, submitting to your husband is really about protection for you. Submitting to your husband doesn't mean that you are not a part of the decision-making process. Don't make me turn to Ephesians right now because I know where it is, somewhere in the New Testament. You want to tell her to submit rather than have an input. Submitting doesn't mean she doesn't have the opportunity to say something or speak into the situation or that her opinion doesn't matter. It does matter. It's just simply God's order for the family. And according to scripture, it's important, ladies, for you to allow your husband room to grow in the area of leadership.

And we need room. We do. It's very true. And the responsibility and privilege of leadership in a home is not a dictatorship. Husbands and wives are partners. They're not competitors. Michelle and I were in a premarital counseling class one time with a bunch of other couples. And this couple was there—I've shared about them before, I hope they're together. They got there and they looked like the typical gym couple. He was yoked, she was really thin and she, and the guy was—he raised his hand, he raised his hand up, his bicep, he's wearing a tank top, obviously. Why wouldn't you? Suns out, guns out. He raised his hand up and he says, "I have a question." He said, "What's your question, sir?" He said, "What about my money and her money?" That's exactly what we did in class. We were like, "Ooh, they're going to have problems."

Michelle and I, we didn't have any money, so it really didn't matter. That wasn't our issue. But the pastor said, "Listen, it's not yours and hers, it's ours." We have to understand that. Now, typically every time I comment or teach on or come to a passage of scripture that talks about marriage, I get countless questions and examples after the fact. Everybody has a scenario, everybody has different things that have happened, and "Well, if this is the case, well, what about this? Well, you didn't talk about this, John, what about that?" I can't cover every single scenario that I've seen over the last several decades. It would be impossible. Everybody's got their thing.

So I'm just going to focus on what it says here. It's difficult to teach on the subject of a wife being submitted to a husband who's a believer. Peter is writing to women who were married to non-believers. And he's encouraging them: how do I live in my home? Because many women were coming to faith in Christ. There were many women that followed Jesus and served Jesus. The first person to get the news of the resurrection of Jesus—the greatest news ever—Mary Magdalene. First person. So as you're looking at this, Peter's writing to women who were married not to men who loved the Lord; these men weren't even saved. So how then does a woman live if married to a non-believer? That is what the text is talking about.

First of all, I'll say this: don't marry a non-believer. Don't think that you're like a missionary marriage dater. "I'm going to lead him to Christ. I'm going to lead her to Christ." Are they a Christian? Are they born again? Do they read their Bible? Do they go to church? Do they love the Lord? Do you see the evidence of their faith? If you don't, pump the brakes, don't go into it. "Well, I don't think I'm ever going to find anybody else that's like this." Well, trust God. If he's not a Christian, don't get into it. Don't be unequally yoked together with non-believers. So many people would save themselves heartache down the road if they would just take that to heart right there at the very beginning. Don't marry a non-believer. Don't date a non-believer. Don't do it. And don't date these guys that say they're a Christian and aren't. You'll know by the way they treat you. Don't date some—I've said it, you get me. You're tracking with me.

Now, in the case where you have husband and wife, maybe neither one of you was saved when you got married. And that happens. And you got saved afterwards and still maybe your spouse—this could be applied to men or women in this case—but maybe your spouse hasn't come to Christ yet. How do you live in a home that is divided? Well, Peter tells us. In the ancient civilization, men and women—listen, women had no rights at all. If you look at under the Jewish law, a woman was kind of like a thing to her own husband. It's not right. The same way like he owned a sheep or he owned a goat, there was no account that she could leave with him. He could dismiss her at a whim if he didn't like the way she cooked, if he didn't like what he said she said about his mother. He could say, "That's it, I'm writing you a bill of divorcement," and he could send her on her way with her dowry and that's how she would survive.

If you go to the Greek civilization, women were to remain indoors. They were to be obedient to their husbands, and it was a sign of a good woman, they said, that she must see as little, hear as little, and ask as little as possible. Kind of an independent existence and no mind of her own and her husband, again, could divorce her for any reason. Under Roman law, they had—it was worse. Because a woman remained a child forever. When she was under her father, she was under this thing called *patria potestas*. And all of us are familiar with this, but the father's power gave the father right even to life and death of the daughter. And when he handed her over to her husband, that right belonged to him. And she was at the mercy of her husband.

Ladies, can I say this to you? It was the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ that elevated women to the proper place of equality with husbands, with male-female. There's neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female; all are one in Christ. The gospel did that. And so here you have these women who have now found this freedom in the Lord. They're born again, they're saved. They want to go to church. But for a woman in that culture to change religion, as it were, or go from paganism to following after Christ, that was a huge sacrifice and not everybody was excited about it. And yet Peter, in speaking to these women in difficult situations, says to them: submit to your husband, follow his leadership.

And why? Why should she do that? First of all, notice this: make a note of it. It's a command from the Lord. I mean, that's the first thing. It's a command from the Lord. And God's commandments are not to be burdensome. This is God's word to us. And so He's saying to the sisters, to the ladies, to the wives: submit to your husband. And not only is it a command from the Lord, but did you know it was also an example that was modeled by the Lord in the area of submission? Jesus submitted to the will of the Father. That is why Peter says here "likewise" or "in the same manner." That is a reference to Jesus. In the same way, in like manner how Jesus submitted, saying, "Not my will, but yours be done," you follow that example and follow God's will by obeying His commands.

And not only is a wife encouraged to submit to her husband, commanded to submit to her husband, and follow the example of the Lord, but also the reason for it is that there's a great opportunity for the wife to lead her husband to Christ. Peter tells us right here in the text that you might end up leading him without a word by the way that you live in front of him. Bring him to the Lord. As a wife goes home perhaps to a non-believing husband, respects his position as the head of the home, gives him that place of leadership, serves him like she serves Jesus, and loves him in the way that Jesus has loved her. He said if they're not obeying the word in their life, as they observe your conduct, without a word, they can be won over to Christ. Without preaching at him, a non-believing husband can see the example of his wife and even if he's not walking with the Lord, maybe some backslidden husbands in here that have just kind of—or you got some guys that don't know the Lord at all, that you can win them over by your conduct.

The best option for witnessing in a home where a spouse is unresponsive to the gospel is to live your Christianity in front of them. Just live it out. Let them see it. Pastoring them is not always the best thing to do. "Come on, get up! Let's go to church!" Set their alarm at four and then just shake them. That doesn't work. It might cause them to become more obstinate. But you can—listen, it says "without a word," but not without the word of God. You can pray over them. "Honey, I'm going to pray for you." "I am praying for you." And maybe if they don't—"Don't pray for me." Well, pray for them anyway, in quiet. Pray for them. Take opportunities to witness to them, maybe even invite them to church. Tell them you're praying for them. Change all of the radio stations in their car to only Christian. Put sticky notes on their coffee cup that say "repent." That kind of stuff, that always works well. Sock drawer, "turn or burn." Who put this in here? No, don't say that. That's not good. I'm kidding. I'm joking. Don't do that. Just live it, live it out in front of them.

Guest (Male): This is *A Daily Walk* with Pastor John Randall. We're going through the Bible right now. You can listen to our recent programs on our website at adailywalk.org or at oneplace.com. Look for us wherever you get your podcasts too. And I should also mention our free mobile app. Do a search for Calvary South OC.

Jesus chose 12 ordinary men to be His disciples: fishermen, tax collectors, political zealots. And the Master shaped these disciples for greatness. He wants to do the same with you and me. In his book *12 Ordinary Men*, John MacArthur draws helpful principles from Christ's careful, hands-on training of the original disciples, applying it to today's modern disciple. That's you and me. You can get this special book today at adailywalk.org for the cost of $12. We can also take your requests if you call us at 877-242-0828.

And thank you for your prayerful and financial support of *A Daily Walk*. It really is having an impact. With your help, we're able to reach people all across the country with the truths of Christ at a time when they really need to hear it. If you'd like to donate to the ministry, please go to adailywalk.org or call 877-242-0828. And we're very grateful to the Lord when we hear back from our listeners. Write to Pastor John today by email at adailywalk@gmail.com. He loves to read listener letters and emails. Let him know what's going on in your life and how we can pray for you at adailywalk@gmail.com. Maybe you're one of our new listeners. Let us know what you think of *A Daily Walk* when you write to us at adailywalk@gmail.com.

Well, that'll do it for this edition of *A Daily Walk* with Pastor John Randall. May God richly bless you and strengthen you in your daily walk. Join us next time as we continue our journey through the Bible. This program is made possible through your generosity and brought to you by Calvary South OC.