Living Hope for My Relationships

And I want you guys to grab your message notes that look like this. They're right in the middle of the bulletins that you got when you came in. "Living Hope" is the name of our series in the book of 1 Peter. That's the book of the Bible. And if you have your Bibles with you or on your phone or if you just want to reach and grab one of the Bibles in the front pew there, you can open up to the book of 1 Peter. We're going through it section by section. And today I want to talk about how you can have living hope in relationships and specifically, we're going to talk today about the marriage relationship. What are the keys to a real lasting marriage? There are so many jokes about this that basically I could have filled up a half an hour just with jokes. But I love these old corny marriage jokes. Like, one pastor hears that a guy in his church has been married for almost 50 years. And he says, "50 years? Seriously, what is your secret? What do you attribute that to?" And the old man says, "Well, for our 25th anniversary, I took my wife to Europe." And the preacher says, "Wow, well, what are you going to do for your 50th?" He says, "Well, I'm going to go pick her up." You know, that's a possible solution. But I'm here to give you other living hope for your marriage.

Tucked into the middle of 1 Peter is a gem. It's just a jewel of about eight verses that say, "Here is how to make marriage a pleasure." But like any other gem, like a diamond or a ruby, it's got to be put in the proper setting. And in this case, it involves looking at the cultural context because read this, if you read this outside of the cultural context, like most people do, and this jewel, these verses can sound downright bizarre. In fact, the verses I'm about to show you are a hot potato, so hot, a lot of pastors won't even touch them. And that is really too bad because even if you are here today and you are not married, these verses have so much insight about how to get along with people, about how to improve all your relationships, how to share your faith with people that you're living with in your own house, your own children, your own relatives, how to share your faith with your own friends. These are powerful verses, but they are specifically about marriage.

And 1 Peter gives a challenge to wives. He says there are three priceless gifts that wives can give to their husbands. Number one, jot this down, the gift of respect. The gift of respect. 1 Peter 3 starting in verse 1. And here begin the fireworks. Check this verse out. Wives in the same way be, what's it say? Submissive to your husbands. Let me read the rest of the verse for a second so that if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives when they see the purity and the reverence of your lives. Now many of you did not hear the rest of this verse. You stopped listening right at the word submissive. It is the S word for so many people today in our culture. And this is why these verses are a hot potato. You got to ask what is Peter talking about here?

Okay, first a definition. The word means to follow the lead, to defer to, or to respect. All right, that's all well and good. But what is Peter talking about here? Does Peter mean that the wife is the man's slave and has to obey his beck and call that is not very appealing to modern ears? It kind of reminds me of the couple who go to the doctor together and after examining the husband, the doctor calls in the wife and dismisses the husband and he says, "Listen, I'm afraid I've got some bad news. Your husband is suffering from a very rare stress disease and in order for him to live, you have to relieve all stress. Submit to his every whim. I mean run his bath water, give him foot massages every morning, cuddling every night, his favorite meals each day for probably about a year but no stress." And as they're leaving the doctor's office, the husband asks his wife, "So what did the doctor tell you?" And she looks at him and says, "You're gonna die."

Now, that doctor's prescription may be what you imagine when you hear the word submit, right? This submit word is so loaded in our culture with so many negative nuances and frankly it has been so misused, ripped out of context, misappropriated by male chauvinists, especially in the last couple of centuries and here's why, whether you're married or not, you need to hear my explanation to these verses because these verses right here, these are a deal breaker for many people who are considering Christianity and they go, "Listen, this is why I cannot be a Christian because of this verse right here. Wives be submissive to their husbands." And that's too bad because the beauty of these verses, when you see them in their cultural context, is considerable. They're so beautiful.

So how do you understand them in the context? Well, the first thing to understand is that this passage is part of a larger discussion on submission that includes every single one of us and this is one of the benefits of going verse by verse through a book of the Bible. You remember last week we saw that Peter says, "Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every authority. Show proper respect to everyone, servants to your masters." And he goes on to say here, "Wives in the same way." But then in just a few verses he says, "And husbands in the same way." And then he says, "And finally, all of you, in this broader context of this discussion of submission," he's talking about the Christian virtue of submission. You could call it, "I am second." In other words, it's not just for wives. This is a practice for all Christians. Submission is a Christian virtue.

In fact, the same word submit is used of Jesus Christ. Now was Jesus a weak person? Was Jesus a powerless person? No, he was the most powerful person ever. This is a word used to describe his humility, his lack of arrogance, right? But still we have to ask, what does this mean for women, for wives? Well, first let me put some of you at ease. The Bible does not teach anywhere that women are inferior to men. The Bible does not teach anywhere that a woman should be a spineless slave to a man. So what does the Bible say? Well, I put a list of verses there in your notes to look up and I'll just mention a couple. Right at the beginning, Genesis 1, 27, it says, "So God created man in his own image. In the image of God he created him," watch this, "male and female he created them." So both male and female created equally in the image of God. Matthew 19, Jesus quotes this and says, "Haven't you read that at the beginning the creator made them male and female and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh.' So they are no longer two but one." A totally radical idea, especially in his culture. And then Paul says in Galatians 3, 28, there, in fact, let's read this verse out loud together. Men and women, Jew and Gentile all together. Let's read this. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Now there's lots more verses like this but this is just an example of what the Bible says about male and female.

Now you take all these verses, now put them in the historical context, listen, of what was happening in Greco-Roman society in the first century A.D. when Peter is writing his epistle. I want to show you something. This is a classic depiction of a Roman family from around the time of First Peter. The father here is huge and is reclining on his first century version of a lazy boy and the rest of the little people in the family are serving him. This is a great visual of the Roman culture at the time. The patriarch daddy ruled the household. The potter familius, they called it, he had the legal power to do whatever he wanted to anybody in his family, his children, his wife, and this power extended even unto death for as long as they lived. I mean, it was a seriously patriarchal family and in Peter's culture at the time it was not that, listen, men could divorce their wives for any reason at all. All they had to do was give a reason and they could look at their wives, say three times, "I divorced thee," and they'd be divorced. And we know from records at the time some of the reasons that husbands at the time gave, I'm not making this up, burning the bread, putting too much salt in the food, can't stay married when that happens, and having an offensive hairdo. I kid you not.

Now into this era comes Christianity, which says, "In Christ there is no male or female." How do you think that affected society? It turned it upside down. There's a book put out by Princeton University written by sociologist Rodney Stark called The Rise of Christianity, and if you want to investigate this more, I highly recommend this book. He says, "Women enjoyed substantially higher status in the Christian subculture than pagan women in the world at large at the time." And so all over the Roman Empire, women were converting to Christianity in droves. In fact, Rodney Stark says it's interesting when you look at the roles of churches during the first 200 years of Christianity especially, women far outnumber the men. Why? It was a very appealing faith to the women at the time.

I want to show you something. This is a famous painting from a catacomb in ancient Rome. This is part of a larger painting of a church service. This is one of the earliest visual depictions we have of Christians worshiping together like we're doing today, and here is a woman getting up and prophesying, or perhaps doing announcements. I don't know, but she's getting up and speaking, and men are listening to her respectfully. Fascinating. So you have a potential sociological problem here, because women are adopting a faith in droves that their husbands do not share. And that's why this passage is talking specifically about how to share your faith with your husband if your husband is not a believer. And Peter's probably thinking of some specific example as he's writing this. A woman he knows who has found forgiveness and freedom in Christ, and she's learning scriptures, and she has a whole new set of friends. And on the other hand, here's her poor husband. And he not only doesn't believe, he doesn't even understand what it's all about. And who are these strange Christian friends his wife is hanging around with, and why won't she stay home on Sunday mornings, and all he sees is this Jesus stuff has messed up his wife, and now she wants him to get into it too.

And maybe this describes your situation in your family. Maybe your deepest desire is to see your husband believe, or to see one of your children, or some other close relative, or a close friend believe. And maybe, because you're so enthusiastic about this, your tendency is to really pour it on, and give books, and tracts, and CDs you burn with mp3s of Christian songs, and you're taping scripture verses on the mirror, and you're leaving Bibles everywhere open, and you're giving him René Schluffer books for his birthday, and he doesn't want them, and it gets old after a while. And Peter's advice is simple and surprising. Stop. It won't work. What he's saying is when you're abrasive, you're never persuasive. Don't try to nag anyone into becoming a Christian. I mean, think back, if you're a Christian here today, think back on how you became a Christian. It probably wasn't because somebody harangued you into believing, right? It was probably because you saw somebody's inner beauty, and you longed for that so much that you almost, like, invited yourself to church, because you wanted to be like that too, right?

Like the message paraphrase puts it, "There are husbands who, indifferent to any words about God, will be captivated by your life of inner beauty." Really, he's saying, listen, these words are meant to set you free. He is saying, "You are not responsible for your husband's spiritual life." You're not responsible. You're only responsible for your own spiritual life. You cannot make your husband or your child or your friend into something that they are not. Now, it's tempting to try, but only God can do that. So let God do that. What you need to do is give them the gift of respect. Now, listen carefully. Is he saying that this will definitely guaranteed work? No. This is a principle, not a promise. But let me ask you, what kind of environment will make a decision for Christ more likely to happen? An atmosphere of high pressure Christianity where your friends or your family members who aren't Christians constantly feel like they're being critiqued because they don't share your faith, or an atmosphere of love and respect. An atmosphere of love and respect. And so he says, "Give the gift of," and you know what, this applies even if your spouse is a believer, of course, still give them the gift of respect. If you're the kind of person who's constantly controlling and manipulating and trying to direct everybody's life, you're going to ruin your marriage. Give them the gift of respect.

Next, give the gift of inner beauty. Inner beauty. In verse 3, and here are some more controversial verses. Peter says, "Your beauty should not come from outward adornments such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful." Now, do these verses mean that God forbids braided hair and nice clothes and jewelry? Some Christians have taken it to mean that. Well, I always like to see what did the original readers think that it meant. And you know what's intriguing? We actually have some early paintings of Christian women, and they give us some clues.

This is the earliest known depiction of a Christian family. This is a glass medallion depicting an early Christian family in Rome. This was probably worn by the husband around his neck. Kind of a little picture of his family, right? They didn't have photography, so they had an artist paint this onto glass. I love this picture. There's the son on the left. Looks like a teenager, right? Maybe junior higher. And there's the daughter on the right, and she has braids sort of like cornrows or something on top, pearl necklace and earrings. And there's the mom in the back wearing a knotted garment. That was like a wedding ring in those days. When a woman wore a knotted garment, it showed that she was married, and it looks like she's got eyeliner on. In fact, they almost look modern, don't they, except for their clothes. But they're modest, right? Now, by contrast, what did Roman women of the day wear who were not Christians? Well, around the time that Peter wrote this letter, there was a crazy fashion trend. Wealthy Roman women were wearing what historians of fashion call exaggerated hairstyles like this. This is a statue that shows the ultra elaborate hairstyles worn by upper class Roman women of the time. This is not Marie Antoinette. This statue is from 80 A.D. So does this help you maybe understand a little bit the context of Peter's words here? He's saying, "You don't have to look like Medusa no matter what the peer pressure tells you," right? He's saying, "Don't base your beauty on outward stuff." Clearly Christian women, as we saw in the picture, they still wore, you know, jewelry and had hairstyles and wore eyeliner and stuff, did it modestly. He's saying, "Don't let that be what you base your beauty on. Let your beauty come from your inner self."

Now let me ask you a question. Do women need to hear this today? Are women under pressure to constantly change their external beauty? Would you say that's the case in our culture? I was at the store with my 20-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, this week, and I start noticing all the women's magazines because I've got this sermon on my mind, right? And I actually started snapping pictures of some of these covers with my iPhone. People thought it was weird. Why is Pastor René taking pictures of Women's Health magazine, right? But I wanted to show you, and my question, I was asking my daughter, how can any woman of good self-esteem with this kind of stuff is constantly in her face. You need to trim your waist in 14 days. I mean, come on, don't waste the next two weeks and trim your waist. How about lose 50 pounds of stress fat in 12 weeks? No unreasonable expectations here. And of course, this whole fat thing is a theme. Burn belly fat fast, flat belly, great butt. One magazine had a special flat belly issue, a whole issue, whole issue on why your belly should be more flat. Why isn't your belly more flat? But let's take a quick look at all the other body parts of yours that don't pass muster, because if you think they stop at belly fat, you're crazy. You, you, ladies, you also need to improve in these ways. Get more gorgeous summer skin and your best butt ever. Ever? This is my second best butt. Not good enough. Six moves for killer arms. Your arms aren't good enough. You need to resize your thighs. And why don't you have wow hair? You just have hair? It's not wowing me. Work on it. And 31 cute nail ideas too. Your thighs are cute. That is your best butt ever, but your nails are disappointing. I mean, there is not a body part left out, but arms, thighs, belly, skin, hair, nails. It is no wonder women get depressed about this. Like one female comedian famously said, sometimes I just want to kill myself, but first I want to lose five pounds, you know? And yes, this is starting to creep into men's magazines. Men's health this month has a look great edition featuring steps to whiter teeth and new baldness breakthroughs. Breakthroughs. I'm so glad top researchers are working on this, right? It's like the scourge of baldness has struck even our staff here at Twin Lakes. Please join us in the search for a cure. I mean, that's way too serious.

I think Peter is sending women and men incidentally free here. I don't know if you've seen the video on YouTube. It's a time lapse video of the hours it takes to make up and then Photoshop a model for a photo shoot. Watch this. Thank you. Isn't that amazing? Man, it is no wonder that our perception of beauty keeps getting distorted. That kind of beauty doesn't exist in the real world, right? Now, I want you to do me a favor and circle the word "unfading" in this verse. There is a kind of beauty that is unfading, but not most beauty. Holly Berry, the famous actress, told People magazine, "Beauty?" Let me tell you something. Being thought of as a beautiful woman has spared me nothing in life. No heartache, no trouble. Love has been difficult. Beauty, she says, is essentially meaningless and it is always transitory. Holly Berry here is just agreeing with Peter. He's not saying beauty is evil or beauty is wrong or anything like that. He's just saying it's always transitory. External beauty, that is. It fades. Internal beauty is unfading.

You say, "What are you talking about?" One of the best examples of this I've ever known, my wife's 102-year-old grandmother, Grace. We visited her a couple of weeks ago. She is magnetic. Her eyes sparkle. She loves Jesus and she loves people, and she loves to talk about Jesus and people. And she is one of the most attractive people I know, in the sense of literally attractive. People are attracted to her. Now, is she at 102 years old, is she beautiful? I think so. I think she has the unfading beauty of this kind of Jesus spirit inside of her, and it is unfading. And husbands, listen, you know, this is a gift that you can cultivate. Guys, if you are drooling over your wife's shoulder at the external beauty of somebody else, you are not encouraging the gift of internal beauty. And this all leads to the third gift Peter talks about, the gift of confidence. The gift of a confident woman. 1 Peter 3, 6 says, "Sarah, for instance, taking care of Abraham, would address him as my dear husband. And you are her true daughters if you do what is right and do not give in to fear." Now, stay on that first page for just a second, because I want you to see how the message translation translates to that last line, "Unanxious and Unintimidated." Peter saying, "Be like Sarah." Who was she? She was Abraham's wife about 4,000 years ago, and we know about her from the book of Genesis in the Bible. She left the comforts of the city of Ur, and here's the city. Archaeologists in Iraq have discovered the ruins of the city of Ur from Sarah's era, including an amazing ziggurat structure that they partially reconstructed. Ur was literally the most advanced city, the richest city of its time, and Sarah's husband Abraham was a rich man in that rich city. But Sarah leaves all of that for the adventure that God is calling them to. And for the rest of her life, they live a nomadic life.

Now, Sarah could have been filled with anxiety. We're losing her house. We're moving someplace else. What's going to happen next? But she goes for it, "Unanxious and Unintimidated." And I think Peter's saying, "Give your husband the gift of a mate who trusts God so much that she knows God is going to take care of everything." That's a good gift to give a marriage. But Peter doesn't stop with the wives. Of course, he gives a challenge to husbands too on page two of your notes. There are three priceless gifts that husbands can give their wives. And again, if you're not married, this is still all applicable to your relationships today. This applies to your dating relationships and friendships too. Now, before I get into this, check this out. I found this poll, "Top Complaints Wives Have About Husbands." Some of the husbands are going, "Oh, no, I don't need to hear this." But, yeah, you do because check this out. Number one is, "He never tells me he loves me." That's number one. Number two, "Spends too much time at work. He's not with me enough." Number three, "Doesn't really know me. He doesn't know what moves me anymore. We've grown apart." Number four, "Doesn't honor me as an equal." And number five, "He's got a roving eye. He looks at other women." This is a modern poll about what husbands are looking for, what wives are looking for from their husbands. And you know what? Peter addresses every single one of these complaints in this next verse when he's talking to husbands. 2,000-year-old wisdom that addresses these five top complaints.

He says, "First, give your wives the gift of intimacy." Intimacy. He says in the first part of verse 7, "Husbands likewise," that's a key word there, remember? He's been talking to wives and now he says, "Now husbands in the same way, husbands similarly likewise, live with your wives." Now stop there for just a minute and circle the word "live." Some of you husbands might be saying, "Well, of course I live with my wife. I'm married to her." But of course that's not what Peter's talking about. Why would he have to say husbands live with your wives? You know, the Greek word here is a compound word. It combines two Greek words, the Greek "sun," meaning "with," and "oikeo," meaning "to dwell." And when you put this kind of a word in front of this verb, it intensifies the verb. It means to really, really dwell deeply, intimately together. In his book, A Different Drum, M. Scott Peck says, "Too many marriages become what he calls a pseudo community in which a husband and wife live lives that are parallel, like parallel train tracks, that rarely intersect." He says, "Just because a husband and a wife live under the same roof, eat the same groceries, and sleep in the same bed, doesn't mean that they're ever intimately connected in any way." Are you parallel train tracks, or do you intersect? Peter says, "Really dwell intimately together." Take time to go on retreats together, dates together.

Next, give her the gift of understanding. Peter says, "Live with your wife in an understanding way." Understand your wife. Husbands, do you really understand and know your wife? Here's a little test for you. Sometimes when Lori and I, my wife and I, are teaching at marriage retreats, we ask couples to do a little exercise. So I'm going to make this your homework exercise, okay? If you're a couple, when you go home tonight, each of you take a piece of paper and sit down and then write down on that piece of paper your favorite three things to do, your top three favorite things to do in life in approximate order. And don't show your spouse. And then write down what you think your spouse's top three favorite things to do are. Don't show each other. And then once you're done, reveal to each other what you wrote down. You know something interesting? We've done this at so many marriage retreats in almost every case when we say, "All right, how many women got all three?" Almost every female hand goes up. And then when we say, "How many women got all three in the same order as your husbands?" Even then, most of the women's hands go up. I mean, it's amazing. And then when we say, "How many husbands got more than one?" Almost no hands go up. Most husbands get one or none of the things on their wife's list. Isn't that amazing? I challenge you, husbands, try it. See what you come up with. Study your wife carefully. Really get to know her like, you know, baseball stats or golf courses, right? It's funny, in the evening service, I was saying this illustration. I said, "Write down what are your husband's top three things most wives get them?" And a woman sitting over here said out loud, "That's easy. Number one, golf. Number two, golf. Number three, golf." Right? Well, she knows her husband. But do you know your wife? What makes her smile? What makes her laugh out loud? What can she do for hours without getting bored? What makes her cry? Observation is key.

And finally, give her the gift of honor. The gift of honor. Peter says, "And treat her with respect as a," uh-oh, "will the controversy never stop in these verses?" As a weaker vessel. Weaker vessel. Listen, my wife had three children. She is not weak. As Carol Burnett says, "Men, if you want to know what childbirth is like, it's easy. Just take your lower lip and then stretch it backwards over your entire head." Right? Women are tough. What is Peter talking about? Weaker vessel. This has nothing to do with some view of women as inferior because he says in the next phrase, "They're equal heirs in Christ with you." Peter is correcting a chauvinist attitude in his society, not reinforcing one. Do you remember that I said about the Potter Familius, the Roman husbands could do whatever they wanted with their wives and children, right? Even unto death. So here's what Peter says to correct this. A weaker vessel is a phrase that in the Greek means something like a precious vase, like a Ming vase or fine china. And you're going to treat that differently, right? With more honor and respect. Let me show you what I mean.

I bought from home, I brought a couple of vessels that we use in our house to drink from. Now, this first one, it might look like glass to you, but it's just plastic. And, you know, we use this at picnics or camping or whatever and we can treat it any way we want. In fact, I can even drop it and the thing's not going to break because it's cheap. We got it for a dollar at the dollar store, you know, before we went camping one year. And this thing is just never, ever, ever going to break. On the other hand, I have here in this bag a very old antique cup, a Royal Copenhagen limited edition signed by the artist on the bottom that was owned by my grandmother before World War II and she inherited it from her grandmother. It's literally irreplaceable. Now, am I going to treat this cup like I treated that glass? Am I going to treat it with the same kind of... Luckily, that was the prop glass. You didn't think I was really going to do that, did you? I have here in a box, safely ensconced in bubble wrap and tissue, the actual cup. And I'm not going to, I'm going to just hold it like this because I don't want that to be its fate. This is the real Royal Copenhagen limited edition, literally irreplaceable China teacup. Some of you have not recovered from watching that, haven't you? But listen, this is not an inferior vessel, right? Now, you could say that it was weaker in the sense that it's more delicate, it's more precious, but it's not inferior. It is so treasured in our family that we treat it with greater honor and I'm just going to put it right back in the bubble pack and the tissue right now because my wife is telling me to do that by ESP.

But I'm not going to treat that vessel with the same kind of cavalier attitude that I treat this. And what Peter is really saying here in this verse is the first recorded attack, listen, on spousal abuse in history. He's saying, "Husbands, I know that in our society you have the legal right to shove your wife and kids around, but they're precious vessels. They're a priceless Ming vase. Your goal is not to prove how macho you are by pushing your wife around. Your goal with your wife because she's precious is not to be macho but tender." Watch how he says, "Grant her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life." Again, circle, fellow heir, fellow heir, she's not subordinate, she's a co-heir and so honor her. Listen, I tell couples I marry, this is the vow you are going to make in your marriage that is most often broken, the vow to honor.

So guys, can I ask you just a couple of personal questions? How do you treat your wife on an average day? Do you honor her? Do you honor her both in actions and in words? I was personally very challenged by this when I was writing this sermon. When somebody is honored, it's a public thing, right? I was thinking about the meaning of the word honor. When somebody is honored at like the Lincoln Center or something, people don't just sit there and silently in their heads go, "That person's awesome." Right? It's public. There's accolades publicly made. That's what it means to be honored. And I think it was Tuesday night, one of the nights in the last few days when our whole family was together at dinner, I sat down, I said, "Kids, I've been studying this thing." It says, "Honor your wives." I said, "I just want to honor your mom in front of you right now publicly because that's what honor means. And I want to tell you how awesome she is and how many good things she has brought into our lives and why we are lucky and blessed to have her as your mom and as my wife and publicly honored her. Have you done that among your friends or among your family?" You know one great example of this, Trent Smith, excuse me, our worship leader, he was telling me before the first service last night, he said, "You know, it's interesting, René, we're talking about honoring your wives." He said, "Recently I realized that I'd written a lot of worship songs and that's great, but he said I had not yet put out a song about my wife to honor my wife." And he said, "That's another thing that God wants me to do." And so he started writing one and then another came and then another and another and another and another. And he finally put out his first CD of love songs. These are all the songs that he wrote about his wife to honor her. And he decided to do this as a totally different direction for him. I thought that was such a great idea and such a great example of what we're talking about here. And in fact, I want to give one of these CDs to a couple of couples here in church right now. And so I'm just going to pick out a couple of people at random. You're pointing to here. All right, I'm getting your friends are and here you guys get one too. Thanks. Let's congratulate our winners right here today.

But now listen, what happens when you dishonor your wife? According to Peter, what happens? Your prayers are hindered. He doesn't explain it, but men somehow our spiritual health is tied closely to how much we respect our wives. Wow. The message translation puts it this way, "In the new life of God's grace, you're equals. So treat your wives then as equals so your prayers don't run aground." So look back over these notes. I just want to say if your marriage is on the rocks or has ended, and this has been making you uncomfortable listening to this, feeling like a failure, you are not a failure. These things are complicated. And as a church, we want to equip you and help you wherever you're at. For example, for marriages going through tough times right now, we have retrovi. That's a weekend workshop that dozens and dozens of TLC couples have done with great success. Retrovi. You can get brochures for that at the info desk this morning. And if you're divorced, we have divorce care classes. They take the rest of July and August off, but they'll start up again in the fall.

Here's the bottom line. Let's, I want us to read this verse out loud together because Peter summarizes everything he's talking about with this one verse. So you can be clear that this is his intention. This is the point he's trying to get across. This is the transferable principle. Whether you're married or single, whether you're young or old, no matter what your life situation, he's saying this is how to relate to each other. And especially when you're living in a world that hates you, this is how to relate to them. Let's read this together. Finally, all of you live in harmony with one another. Be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble. He's saying, "In a me first world, have a you first attitude." In a me first world, have a you first attitude. And for Peter, this isn't just good manners. We behave this way as Christians because Jesus Christ behaved this way.

So how do you apply this? Well, let me close with a story. I know of a couple who got married and in their case, the guy was the one who recently had had sort of a spiritual reconversion to his childhood faith. And his new wife mocked him for it, made fun of him when he knelt to pray by the bed at night. Wouldn't go to church with him. He never insisted. He would just quietly get ready on Sundays and then he'd leave and eventually she decided she could get in the car with him and ride with him to church and she would stay and read the Sunday paper in the car while he came in to church and then they would leave and go have lunch together. And slowly but surely without him really saying much at all, she was the one in this case who was won over by his gentle respect of her. And I know this story well because they were my parents. And my mom today is one of the most godliest women I know. I want to honor her with that publicly. But it was my father's gentle respect of her when she did not share his faith that was persuasive. So let's ask God to give us that kind of love and respect for those all around us. Wouldn't you love to be at a church where people said, "I love Twin Lakes because the people there aren't overbearing. The people there don't try to shove it down your throat." You know what they stand for but they're so gentle and loving and respectful that I'm drawn to it even though I don't quite agree with it. That's what Peter's getting at. And let's pray that we're that kind of a church. Bow your heads with me.

Heavenly Father, help us to always show love and respect to every single person that we meet on the streets, in our neighborhoods, and in the hallways of our homes. And I just want to pray especially for marriages here today. It can be so hard to be respectful to the ones we're the very closest to. We can treat company better than our own family. And so I ask that you bless every marriage here, every family here. Let them thrive in your love knowing that you will give them the grace to live with grace. In Jesus name, Amen.