Be Subject To...Part 3 & 4 of 5...1 Peter 3:1-7...marriage (God defined) is a beautiful thing

 


Our passage today deals with the relationship created by God that shows to our world a picture of God's love for us.  This relationship can be a picture to others of the type of love Christians should be displaying to each other.  The marriage relationship following God's instruction is a powerful witness of God's love for us through His Son Jesus Christ.  Strong marriages based off of following God's instruction transforms home environments, affects church dynamics, and impacts community stability.  This might sound pretty grand but God puts a lot of weight on this relationship He has created to the impact it can have on others.

Peter keeps digging deeper into the command to "love one another earnestly from a pure heart." (1 Peter 1.22b) All of us are to be subject to for the Lord's sake (God focus).  Servants are to be subject to with all respect (God focus).  Wives are to be subject to with a respectful and pure conduct (God focus).  Husbands, likewise are to show honor to their wives for unhindered prayers (God focus).  Next week Peter comes back around with "Finally, all of you" (1 Peter 3.8a) keep, turn away, seek and pursue for the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous (God focus).

These actions of our conduct are based upon our relationship with God made possible through His provision to us of salvation through His Son Jesus Christ.  Some of these actions He calls upon His children to perform are tough in the society that we live in but the hostile environment doesn't negate our adherence to the mandates.  We add another this Sunday to give us 3 mandates of (1) proclaim the excellencies of Him who brought us out of darkness into His marvelous light (1 Peter 2.9b), (2) to follow in His steps (1 Peter 2:21b), and (3) to bless others (1 Peter 3.9).  Peter is instructing us on how our conduct is to be as ones who have been born again by God.

One more thing that has struck me reading and preaching through 1 Peter is his relentless going to the Scriptures to back up what he is saying.  Do we and do I do this?  I have all of the Bible to pull from where Peter had mostly just the Old Testament at this time.  His obedience is not arbitrary or just because this is the way he was raised.  It was based solely on what God's word says.  This practice helps us evaluate what we do and why we do it.  Is it because it is the God thing to do beyond being just the right thing to do?  Plenty of thoughts have been forming in my head walking chapter by chapter and verse by verse through 1 Peter.

Adam



A simple man serving a great God and the local pastor of Stillwater Community Chapel (stillwater-chapel.org). We are in our 38th year of full time ministry. God directed us to this local body of believers on the Western Range of the Rockies to grow with them in mission and mindedness of Christ.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Galatians #15 - Galatians 6:11-18 - "On The Road Again..."

Image
  Another week closer and it involves some more travel for the Wolfgangs.  I feel like the Willy Nelson song, " On the road again... "  I don't know if I agree with the next line though. " ...I can't wait to get on the road again. " One of the members of the church in Wisconsin calculated that I will travel well over 10,000 miles to make this transition.  Traveling mercies prayers please. Last Sunday we will look at Paul's final words to the churches in Galatia.  He brought them the gospel (good news) message of Jesus and what resulted were churches forming throughout the region.  The letter is to defend that message that our salvation comes from and is in Christ alone.  Christ's sacrifice on the cross was sufficient for the forgiveness of our sins.  The summary statement of the letter is found in  Galatians 6:15 (LSB) .  " For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. "  Translated another way earlier in  Ga
Read more

God gave us a good weather window to travel...yeah God!!!

Image
  Berthoud Pass Here we are at the top of Berthoud Pass.  It was a whirlwind week to conduct a " hand off " service in Wisconsin on 3/17 and then preach a Palm Sunday sermon in Colorado on 3/24.  We give God all the glory for this happening.  So there are two video links at the bottom of this blog.  One is for the Wisconsin service and the other is for the Colorado service.  I racked up over 12,000 in the last 7 weeks.   I love to take these pictures sitting from the front row of chairs and listening to the one God has provided for the church I had been serving for 20 months.  I now have 3 and I am so thankful for the opportunity God gave us to serve Him in this type of ministry over the last 5 years.  It has been great to add to our daily prayer list Zach in Maine, Chris in Ohio and now Stephen in Wisconsin. This was our set up for the 2000+ mile trip.  No " hiccups " except for the strong eastern winds in Kansas.  Of course everything was quite a bit dirtier when
Read more

Resurrection Sunday in a new space...Matthew 27.62-28.20

Image
  Resurrection Sunday has come and gone but it was a sweet day to be with the gathered saints of the Stillwater Community Chapel .  We are venturing through the Gospel of Matthew and this Sunday will take us back to Matthew 1.1 but last Sunday we were in Matthew 27.62-28.20.  It was a lot to cover so the white board was truly a help to keep me on track.  This year in my Resurrection Sunday message, I focused on the contrast of the cover-up story of the disciples stealing the body of Jesus fueled by a bride and the commission of speaking of a risen Lord fueled by boldness . After the service upstairs, we ventured downstairs to the lower level and had a great meal together.  The conversations around the tables allowed us to continue to talk about the passage of Scripture we covered upstairs.  Maybe this is a very informal picture of what happens at the  Waushara Community Church called the " Going Deeper " classes of the Come For More hour following the Sunday morning worshi
Read more