Mrs. Foster, a teacher at the grade-school in Auburn, Washington, had a frustrating day with one of her first-grade boys. “You’ve been doing irritating things all day today. These things are some of my pet peeves,” she said sternly. “Do you know what a pet peeve is?” The young boy shook his head no.
“A pet peeve is the thing that irritates a person the most. Do you know what my pet peeve is?” she asked.
The boy paused. “Ummm… Mr. Foster?” (Anita Donihue, Auburn, Washington, “Lite Fare,” Christian Reader; www. PreachingToday.com)
Evidently, this boy’s dad was his mom’s greatest irritation, and that’s true for many marriages. That’s also true for many of our relationships. We sometimes irritate one another, but God’s grace is available especially at those times. In fact, God’s grace can transform any marriage. God’s grace can transform any relationship even if we sometimes irritate one another in those relationships.
The secret, as we saw last week, is in a humble, submissive spirit. When we demand our own way, when we insist on our own rights in the relationship, then there is friction. But When we submit to one another, then God’s grace intervenes in a powerful way.
Last week, we saw how that grace works when a wife submits to her husband. Today, we’ll see how God’s grace works when a husband submits to his wife. If you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to 1 Peter 3, 1 Peter 3, where God speaks specifically to husbands.
1 Peter 3:7 Husbands, in the same way, be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers. (NIV)
Literally, the original text says, “Husbands, IN THE SAME WAY live with the wife according to knowledge…” In other words, we men are commanded by God to live with our wives in the same way God asks our wives to live with us in the previous six verses. There, He told the wives to “be submissive” to their husbands and so win him and woo him with an irresistible inner beauty. Well, if husbands are to “live with their wives in the same way,” then that means we too must…
SUBMIT.
We too must rank ourselves under our wives. We too must put ourselves under their authority.
As I said last week, when the Bible talks about the husband/wife relationship, it is always in the context of mutual submission. You see, when each puts the other first in the relationship, then you have harmony in the home. But when either one or both demand their own way, pursuing their own selfish ambition, then all you have is “disorder and every evil practice” (James 3:16).
Guys, if you want God’s grace to permeate your home and transform your relationship with your wife, then you must learn to put your wife before yourself in the relationship. Make her agenda, not yours, the top priority in your day. Put her interests above your own in your daily pursuits.
Some time ago, after Philip Yancey and his wife reached their 25th wedding anniversary, he reflected on their experience. In a magazine called Marriage Partnership, he wrote:
“Before marriage, each by instinct strives to be what the other wants. The young woman desires to look sexy, and takes up interest in sports. The young man notices plants and flowers, and works at asking questions instead of just answering monosyllabically. After marriage, the process slows and somewhat reverses. Each insists on his or her rights. Each resists bending to the other’s will.
“After years, though, the process may subtly begin to reverse again,” Yancey wrote. “I sense a new willingness to bend back toward what the other wants – maturely, this time, not out of a desire to catch a mate but out of a desire to please [someone] who has shared a quarter-century of life. I grieve for those couples who give up before reaching this stage. (Philip Yancey, “A 25-Year Hike,” Marriage Partnership, Winter 1999, p.68; www.PreachingToday.com)
I think Philip Yancey captured the essence of what God is telling both husbands and wives here in 1 Peter 3: Stop insisting on your own rights, and strive to be what the other wants. Bend towards the other’s will.
Dave Goetz, in a more recent edition of Marriage Partnership, described how this worked in his marriage. He said, “I’ve asked my wife through the years to support me in different ventures. When we were first married, I was a youth pastor and was taking classes at the University of Colorado at Denver. And I decided, “I’m going to be a writer.” So Jana and I moved to the Chicago suburbs so I could take a job as a writer and editor. About four years later, I became restless, so I began working on an MBA. I expected her again to sacrifice.
“By that time, we’d had one child. I also had a book contract. So I was working full-time, going to graduate school two nights a week, and writing a book. I’m not the one sacrificing; she is. Then I decided to start my business. By this time, we had two children. And the week I told her I was leaving my secure job to start a business, she told me she was pregnant. And again, who sacrificed?
“So, recently,” Dave Goetz said, “Jana told me she wants to go back to school. And how did I respond? I became unsupportive and critical. I thought, We don’t have the money. Or, You actually need to work more, because… It didn’t matter that we didn’t have the money for me to get my MBA or to start my business.”
Dave said, “I had a great opportunity to give up power, to sacrifice some of the things I wanted, so I could help my wife with her dreams. But I told Jana the other day, ‘I know in my head that I need to do this, and it’s killing me because it’s so difficult.’ Why?” Dave asks. “Because I think about what I have to give up. I want my goals.” (Dave Goetz, quoted by Ginger Kolbaba in “Marital Drift,” Marriage Partnership, Winter 2006; www.PreachingToday.com)
And don’t we all? We’re all selfish at heart, so in order for this to work we need GOD’S heart within; we need to depend on Christ who made the ultimate sacrifice for us on the cross. If we’re going to submit to our mates, we need to submit to Christ first of all. Then He will give us not only the power, but also the desire, to do for our mates what He did for us. He will give us the power and the desire to “love [our] wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25).
Men, if we want to see God’s grace transform our marriages, then we must submit to our wives; we must put their interests above our own. But in order to do that, we have to know what our wife wants; we have to…
UNDERSTAND HER.
We have to comprehend her needs, fears, hopes, and moods. 1 Peter 3:7 says, “Husbands, in the same way, live with your wives ACCORDING TO KNOWLEDGE.” Vine’s Dictionary of New Testament Words says that word for “knowledge” is “primarily a seeking to know, an enquiry, an investigation.” In other words, men, we have to study our wives. We have to go to school on them, seeking a Ph.D. level of understanding. The problem is a lot of us guys don’t even have a grade-school understanding of our wives.
Warren Wiersbe said, “In my premarital counseling as a pastor, I often gave the couple pads of paper and asked them to write down three things each one thinks the other enjoys doing the most. Usually, the prospective bride made her list immediately; the man would sit and ponder. And usually the girl was right but the man was wrong! What a beginning for a marriage!”
Guys, do you know what your wife enjoys doing the most? Do you know her favorite color or her favorite thing to eat? What does she like to do to relax? What kind of flowers does she appreciate the most? What is her favorite movie and why? Her favorite restaurant? Do you know these things about your wife?
I can assure you: she knows these things about you, but if you don’t know these things about her, then go to school. Let her become your teacher. Sit down with her and ask her about these things. Listen and take some notes. Then put pleasing her at the top of your agenda this week. Bring her HER favorite flowers. Take her to HER favorite restaurant. Watch HER favorite movie with her. Do HER favorite thing together.
That’s part of what it means to “live with your wife according to knowledge.” But more than that, it means treat her gently. The New International Version says, “Treat [her]…as the weaker partner.”
Now, that’s an unfortunate translation, because it seems to imply that women are weaker than men, and that’s certainly not true. Women are NOT weaker mentally, morally, or spiritually. Most women may be physically weaker, but usually they are the stronger ones spiritually. No, the literal translation is, “Live with her…as a weaker vessel” – i.e., as a delicate, fragile vase.
This is a plastic coffee mug worth about 25 cents (show plastic mug). I can bang it around, be rough with it and even drop it without doing any damage.
On the other hand, this is a beautiful, china teacup from Sandy’s china collection (show china teacup). It is the weaker of the two vessels. I cannot bang it around. I cannot be rough with it, and I certainly cannot drop it without doing serious damage to the cup. It is a lot more fragile, but it is worth a whole lot more.
We guys can be rough with each other: “Hey, gained a few pounds there, didn’t you?” We just slough it off: “Yeah, man.”
But men, you say that to your wife and she’ll be devastated. She’s not made the same way as the guys, so you have to treat her with tenderness and understanding. (Robert L. Russell, “God’s Design for Marriage,” Preaching Today, Tape No.166; www.PreachingToday.com)
Warren Wiersbe says, “The husband should treat his wife like an expensive, beautiful, fragile vase, in which is a precious treasure.”
In a recent Leadership Journal article (Winter 2011), Gordon MacDonald shares the moving story about his friends Dr. Paul and Edith Rees. When the Rees’s were in their 90s, MacDonald asked if they still fought after 60-plus years of marriage.
“O, sure we do,” Dr. Rees responded. “Yesterday morning was a case in point. Edith and I were in our car, and she was driving. She failed to stop at a stop sign, and it scared me half to death.”
“So what did you do?” MacDonald asked.
“Well, I’ve loved Edith for all these years, and I have learned how to say hard things to her. But I must be careful because when Edith was a little girl, her father always spoke to her harshly. And today when she hears a manly voice speak in anger – even my voice – she is deeply, deeply hurt.”
“But, Paul,” MacDonald said, “Edith is 90-years-old. Are you telling me that she remembers a harsh voice that many years ago?”
“She remembers that voice more than ever,” Rees said.
MacDonald asked, “So how did you handle that driving situation from the other day?”
“Ah,” he said, “I simply said, ‘Edith, darling, after we’ve had our nap this afternoon, I want to discuss a thought I have for you. And when the nap was over I did. I was calm; she was ready to listen, and we solved our little problem.”
MacDonald concluded: “These are the words of a man who has learned that conflict is necessary, can be productive, but must be managed with wisdom and grace. By the time I reach 90, I hope to be just like him.” (Gordon MacDonald, “When Bad Things Happen to Good Relationships,” Leadership Journal, Winter, 2011; www.PreachingToday.com)
Dr. Rees had gone to school on his wife. He understood her, and that’s what God calls all of us men to do. If we want God’s grace to transform our marriages, then with God’s help, we must submit to our wives; we must understand them; & we must…
VALUE THEM.
We must honor them. We must respect them as equal heirs. 1 Peter 3:7 says, “Treat them with respect” – literally, grant them honor; assign them value – “as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life.”
In Ephesians 3:6, the Bible says, “Gentiles are heirs together with Israel,” using the same terminology that’s used here. That means Jews and Gentiles are EQUAL heirs before God. One is not more privileged or valued than the other. Well, that’s the way it is between men and women. We are EQUAL heirs of God’s grace. God values women as much as He does men, and He asks us men to value our women the same as He does.
Over 20 years ago (February 1988), Reader’s Digest carried a story I never forgot. It was about a man on an island in the Pacific who paid eight cows for his wife. He was called Johnny Lingo, and he was the strongest, richest, and brightest young man around. He was the sharpest trader there ever was. That’s why no one could figure it out why he paid so much for his wife.
According to island custom, two or three cows might buy a fair to middling wife, and four or five cows could fetch a highly satisfactory wife. But to pay eight cows for a wife, she would have to be Miss Universe herself!
Well, Johnny’s wife, Sarita, was anything but beautiful in the eyes of the islanders. Before she married Johnny, she was a scrawny, homely looking girl who walked with her shoulders hunched and her head ducked. She was afraid of her own shadow, and her father would have felt lucky to get even one cow for this girl. Even so, Johnny came to him one day and said, “Father of Sarita, I offer eight cows for your daughter.”
That was unbelievable, and that’s what the islanders told Patricia McGerr, the reporter who wrote the story. After hearing their comments, she had to find Johnny and his wife. And when she did, Patricia McGerr writes, “I found the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.”
She told Johnnie what the islanders had said about his wife and he just smiled. Then he told his side of the story. “Do you ever think,” he asked, “what it must mean to a woman to know that her husband has settled on the lowest price for which she can be bought? And then later, when the women talk, they boast of what their husbands paid for them. One says four cows, another maybe six. How does she feel, the woman who was sold for one or two! This could not happen to my Sarita.”
“Many things can change a woman,” he said. “Things happen inside, things happen outside. But the thing that matters most is what she thinks about herself. In Kinawata, Sarita believed she was worth nothing. Now, she knows she is worth more than any other woman in the islands.”
Johnny said, “I wanted to marry Sarita. I loved her and no other woman. But I wanted an eight-cow wife.” And that’s what he got, because he valued her so highly.
Hey guys, does your wife know that you value her more than any other woman? How did you communicate that to her this last week?
Here is another assignment for us men. Ask your wife what makes her feel the most valued by you? Then when she tells you, put it on your agenda and do it for her as often as you can.
Guys, if we want a truly beautiful wife, then we must grant her value; we must assign her honor every day. Do you want God’s grace to transform your marriage, then submit to your wife; understand her; and value her.
THAT KEEPS YOUR PRAYERS FROM BEING CUT OFF.
That keeps you in communication with God. That keeps the channel of blessing open between God and your family. That’s what verse 7 says.
1 Peter 3:7 Husbands, in the same way, be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers. (NIV) Literally, so that your prayers will not be cut off.”
Men, if we don’t treat our wives with understanding and respect, then God will not listen to our prayers. They will be cut off before they ever reach heaven. That’s because there is a direct correlation between our relationship with God and our relationship with our spouse. The one directly affects the other, so we better treat our wives graciously if we want God to treat us with grace.
If we want God’s grace to transform our marriages, then we must submit to our wives; we must understand them; and we must value them so that our prayers are not cut off.
Happy the home when God is there
And love fills every one,
When with united work and prayer
The Master’s will is done. (Henry Ware)
