Pastor Tim Brown, Calvary Chapel Fremont, Sunday October 25, 2009

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The Security of Submission

1 Peter 3:1-6 

Man and bowling buddies wake up wife @ 3AM…  Her heart was for his ultimate salvation, not her immediate comfort.  That captures perfectly the tone of this text.

principle: submission to husbands (christian or not)

Hupo|Tasso – arrange yourself under/Sub|Mission – under purpose

Question arose in early church: Should I submit myself to a husband who is disobedient to God?  Logic of 1P: Starting out - life w/ God, 1:1-22/Stepping up - life w/ church 1:23 – 2:11/[How does new relationship w/ Christ/church impact existing relationships?]/Staying under - life in culture, 2:12 – 3:17

Disobedient to the word – ‘not to allow oneself to be persuaded’.  Peter describes an obstinate, stubborn man who creates a climate of hostility as it comes to his wife’s faith.  

When a wife was converted to Christ, she rejected her husband’s gods and religious observances. No doubt some if not all of these pagan husbands would have been harsh and unkind to their Christian wives. Tertullian mentioned several difficulties Christian wives of unbelieving husbands may have encountered.

If a church service is to be made, her husband will arrange to meet her at the baths; if fasts are to be kept, her husband will be giving a feast the same day; if she has to go out, never will family business be more hindering; for who would allow his wife to go round the town to other people’s houses and especially to all the poorer cottages for the sake of visiting the brethren? Who would willingly let her be taken from his side for meetings at night? Who in short would put up with her absence all night at the Easter observances without misgivings? Who would let her creep into a prison to kiss a martyr’s chains?1 

Point: tension between one who follows Jesus and one who doesn’t.

Goal of submission is 3fold: 1) his salvation 2) order in the home 3) wife pleasing God. What kind of behavior will win disobedient husbands to Christ/honor order in the home/be pleasing to God?

Wrong approach/culture – 2 mistaken approaches

1)  Don’t get in his face.  If you’re in his face, he won’t sense the Spirit of God working upon him because he has to defend himself from you all the time.  

2)  Don’t make up your face - hair/gold jewelry/ dresses… Braiding – G word refers to an elaborate gathering of the hair into knots.  Roman women were addicted to ridiculous extravagance… Other women would pass judgment on her and reputations were at stake…w/ so many tiers does she load, with so many continuous stories does she build high her hair… WUEST

Woman on the runway every time she stepped out of her house.

$8B spent annually on cosmetics in USA - $600 annually per woman

More than 1.8 M surgical cosmetic procedures performed in 2007. Top 5 procedures were breast augmentation/liposuction/nose reshaping/eyelid surgery/tummy tuck. Minimally-invasive cosmetic procedures rose by 9%, to nearly 10M procedures. Top 5 were Botox/ hyaluronic acid fillers/chemical peel/laser hair removal/microdermabrasion.

Maybe some understood submission as a means of manipulation/ getting your way.  Beauty will win his heart and all will be well.  Beauty will wear away his resistance.  There are two problems here:

1) Faith and flesh are not compatible.  Maybe he’ll see that coming to Christ won’t be that disruptive to his life.  He can still pretty much have the same value system as before.  Is this what your husband is understanding from you?  A life of following Jesus introduces a tension into the home that you shouldn’t seek to relieve in unworthy ways.  God’s work must be done God’s way.

Peter: don’t you dare water down the nature/demands of the faith.  If you are consumed w/ external beauty, you communicate to your husband that Christ hasn’t made that big of an impact on your life.  You may think differently than before, but you act the same.  

2) This is a short sighted/short lived strategy.  We all know that there is a problem w/ beauty – it is skin deep.  It doesn’t last and so it has to be artificially prolonged w/ some of the procedures already mentioned.  Beauty is not too far from the beast.

God will not work through the flesh of the wife, but through her faith, as she fears the Lord.  God will not work through her beauty, but through her behavior.  

      Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be

      praised.  Pr. 31:30

Right approach/character

Being submissive is the road to being faithful to God and something God uses to impact your husband.  Peter is saying: Don’t try to win your husbands by being sexy.  Don’t focus on beauty, focus on inner beauty that expresses itself in behavior.

Adornment = kosmos, from root “to tend for, take care of”…  Be taking care of your heart more than your body – inner cosmetic.  

Beauty is perishable but a gentle/quiet spirit has imperishable quality that expressed itself in chaste/respectful behavior from hidden person of the heart and hope in God.  Cf. Mt. 11:29  I am gentle and humble in heart.  The noun QUIET means “gentleness, not insistent on one’s own rights, not pushy, not selfishly assertive, not demanding one’s own way.”2 

Right approach/faith – character in action

Your chaste/respectful behavior that comes from a gentle/quiet spirit carries spiritual influence - illustrated by Sarah who hoped in God.  She submitted even in his sin.  He abandoned her and she trusted in God.  W/o hope in God, submission is not possible.

All wives want fulfilling marriages.  A fulfilled marriage is one in which their needs are being met -  security/affection are experienced.  Peter says that the focus shouldn’t be on a fulfilled marriage, but upon being faithful to God.  This expressed itself by not being focused on your immediate needs, but on the ultimate need of your husband.  You want him to love you as he should – you are to love him as you should.  “But I can only give to him what he gives to me.”  That is a formula for failure.  UR2 give him what the Lord gives 2U.  

      She served her husband as her master, and did all she could to win him for You, speaking to him of You by her conduct, by which you made her beautiful…Finally, when her husband was at the end of his earthly span, she gained him for You.  Augustine

Submission is not a way 4U2 get your way in the long run.  It is the way that you remain faithful to the Lord.    Your security doesn’t come from your husband, but from the Lord.    

      Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be

      praised.  Pr. 31:30

This world is passing away, Jesus prepares us for eternity.