Honoring God in Your Marriage (When Your Husband is Not):
- Your CONDUCT must be more important than your words. (1 Peter 3:1-2)
- Your CHARACTER must be more beautiful than your clothes. (1 Peter 3:3-4)
- Your FAITH must be bigger than your FEARS. (1 Peter 3:5-6)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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Turn your Bibles with me, please.
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We're going to be in 1 Peter 3.
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1 Peter 3.
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And while you were turning to 1 Peter 3, I heard this story of a pastor who had this couple coming to him for marriage counseling.
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They'd been married for a few years and they were having problems.
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And this wasn't me, ok?
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This was just a story that I had heard.
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This couple was coming to the pastor, And as he sat in the office with them, he could see as he was sharing what God's Word says about marriage, the wife was sitting on the edge of her seat and she was really listening and she was jotting things down.
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But the whole time he was speaking, the husband was slouched back in his chair with his arms folded.
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And even though this wasn't me, I can totally relate to this.
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I've seen it dozens of times.
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The husband just sitting there not looking at the pastor.
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The pastor continued to share, but in the back of his mind, he just kept thinking, I've got to snap this husband out of this apathy.
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He just doesn't care.
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Obviously, she cares, and he doesn't care.
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And what can I do to shake him up?
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What can I do to get his attention?
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And suddenly the pastor just had this insane thought.
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He said, what the hay, I'm going to go for it.
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So the pastor, right in the middle of talking, And he just stood up and he walked around the desk.
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And he leaned down to the wife and he grabbed her hand and he had her stand up.
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And he put his arms around this young wife, putting his hand on the back of her head and one hand around her waist.
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He dipped her and he gave her a kiss.
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A serious kiss.
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And he picked her back up and put her in the seat She was just, where in the world did that come from?
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The pastor turned to the husband and he said, "That's what she needs at least twice a week!" And the husband said, "I can have her here Tuesdays and Thursdays if that works out for your schedule." And the title of our message today, "Tightening the Knot, Part 3, Living in a One-Sided Marriage." When we started this series, taking a break from Acts, which we've been walking through this year, when we started this series in January, our first message, we saw God's plan.
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What is God's plan for marriage?
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Genesis 2, 24, one verse is the plan.
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For this purpose, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.
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That is the most important verse in the entire Bible about marriage.
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That's God's plan.
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It was God's plan from the beginning.
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How do we know it's so important?
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Matthew chapter 19, Mark chapter 10, Jesus was asked about marriage.
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And do you know what Jesus said?
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Jesus said Genesis 2.24, that's the plan.
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The Apostle Paul, when he was writing to the church in Ephesus, when he was writing to the church in Corinth, and he was giving instructions about marriage, Paul's like, "Here's the plan.
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Genesis 2.24, that's the plan.
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It hasn't changed." We talked about how you're to leave and you're to cleave and you're to weave.
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That's the plan.
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You leave your parents, new authority.
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You hold fast to your wife and your lives together are like these threads being woven in this beautiful tapestry.
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That's God's plan.
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It hasn't changed and it won't change.
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Then last week we saw from Ephesians chapter 5, God's picture for marriage.
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God has this picture, and if you can get the picture, you can understand how marriage is supposed to work and how your marriage is supposed to glorify God.
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And the picture is this.
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The wife in the marriage should see herself as the church sees herself to Jesus Christ.
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How does the church see herself to Jesus?
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As the church, we are submissive helpers to Jesus.
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And the wife should see herself as the submissive helper to her husband.
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And in this dynamic, the husband is to see himself as Christ.
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Meaning, Jesus Christ is the servant leader.
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And the husband is to be not just leader of the home, but the servant leader of the home.
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Taking after the example that Jesus Christ set.
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Nothing done out of selfishness.
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Everything done for the benefit of his bride.
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You need to get that.
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Everything you do should be for the benefit of your bride, for the benefit of your family.
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That's why God put you in authority.
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Not so you're the boss, but so that you can protect them and benefit them.
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That's why you're in charge, husbands, is to take care of those God's entrusted to you.
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Okay?
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That's the picture.
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And when we talk about the picture, there's going to be a lady or two, or more than likely more. It's going to say, "Well, you know, Pastor Jeff, that's all well and good, but what if my husband isn't doing his part?" Can we really, you know, you're talking about tightening the knot. When you get married, you tie the knot. Now you're saying, you know, you've got to go back and tighten the knot. Well, here's a question. Can we really tighten the knot if I'm the only one working at it? Well, look at 1 Peter chapter 3, verse 1, It says, "Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word." Stop there.
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Look at that phrase.
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"Wives, even if some of your husbands..." If some of you have husbands that do not obey the word, what does that mean?
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Well, that means they're unsaved.
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They don't know the Lord, or it means maybe they're extremely immature in the faith and haven't grown into understanding what it means to follow Christ.
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Well, Peter doesn't tell us the why behind it.
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He just simply tells us the what.
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We don't need to figure out why it's happening.
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It's an objective thing.
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Is your husband obeying the word?
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And he says, "Wives, if your husband is not obeying the word, he gives very clear instructions." So if you're in this position and you're saying, "You know, Pastor Jeff, what am I supposed to do when my husband isn't doing what he's supposed to do?
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You know, Pastor Jeff, my husband and I, we're both in the same canoe, but only one of us is paddling, and it ain't him.
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Pastor Jeff, I'm trying in this marriage and my husband could not care less.
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If that's your situation, I want you to jot some things down here on your outline, honoring God in your marriage when your husband is not.
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First thing that Peter instructs under inspiration of the Holy Spirit is this, "Your conduct must be more important than your words." So look at verses 1 and 2.
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Again, likewise, why is be subject to your own husband so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be one without a word by the conduct of their wives when they see your respectful and pure conduct.
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Stop there.
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Your conduct must be more important than your words.
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He says, why is be subject?
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We talked about that last week in the Greek.
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That's who Patasso.
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It's a compound word.
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It literally means coming under the authority of those God has put in your life.
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Submission is tied into humility, and neither one of those concepts should seem strange to a Christian.
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Submission is humbly coming under and trusting the authority that God put in your life.
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And if you read 1 Peter, it's a theme throughout his whole book, really.
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In chapter 2 verse 13, he says that we are under the authority of the government.
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We submit to the government.
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In chapter 2 verse 18, he said we should submit to our boss.
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Chapter 3 verse 1, he says, "Wives, you should submit to your husbands." Verse 7, he says, "Likewise, husbands." Likewise what?
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There is a sense in which husbands submit to their wives.
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We're going to talk about that next week.
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Spoiler alert.
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So submission should be something that we're very used to.
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Submission's more than just a two-way street in marriage.
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For the Christian, submission defines who we are.
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We're not entitled people that lord it over others.
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As Christians, we are humble people who live lives of service and submission.
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So wives, your husband doesn't obey the word.
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Peter doesn't say anything about leaving him.
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In fact, Paul talked about this in 1 Corinthians 7, verse 15.
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He said, "Let him leave if he wants." But it doesn't say, "If your husband doesn't obey the Word, you must leave him." It doesn't say that.
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Nor does it say, "If your husband doesn't obey the Word, wives, preach at him, nag him, threaten him, bribe him, lecture him." What does your Bible say to do?
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What does it say? Likewise, wives. What does your Bible say?
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I know we don't want to say this out loud, do we?
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I'm just the megaphone. I don't make up the message. I just broadcast it.
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What does verse 1 say? Likewise, wives, what?
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Come on, don't you have your Bibles open? Likewise, wives.
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Does your Bible say that?
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That's what mine says.
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Be subject.
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Be subject to your husbands.
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I have to say this church, I have been so guilty of this early in my ministry and I've grown in the Lord and grown in my understanding of the ways of the Lord and I'm still growing every day.
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But I need to tell you this, church, we make the mistake, we fall into the danger of putting Biblical standards on unsaved people.
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Sometimes, church, we expect non-Christians to act like Christians.
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And this happens in marriages when one is a believer and the other is not.
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can expect an unsaved husband to act like a Christian. But your husband cannot be like Christ if he isn't born again. If the life of Jesus Christ isn't in your husband, your husband is not going to be Christ-like. And it doesn't matter how you try to train him or shine him up or discipline him, he's not going to be Christ-like if the life of Christ is not in him if he's not saved.
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And I've been so guilty of this, you know, trying to make unsaved people act like Christians, like, why is it this working?
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It's like trying to tell somebody to pound in nails and they don't have a hammer.
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They don't have the resource to get the job done.
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You can't do it.
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So what does Peter say concerning the way to try to win your husband to Jesus Christ?
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Look at verses one and two again.
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In the verse 1, he says, "They may be won without a word by the - what's your Bible say? - conduct of their wives when they see you respectful and pure." What's the next word?
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Conduct.
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Twice, Peter says, "Wives, you're not going to badger your husband into the kingdom." Twice he says, "It's your conduct." In other words, ladies, it's more important who you are than what you say.
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Like, well, what kind of conduct?
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Well, he tells us what kind of conduct.
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First of all, verse 2, he says, "When they see you're respectful." Respectful, what does that mean?
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It means you don't badmouth your husband either away from him or in his presence.
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You don't badmouth your husband.
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You're not belittling towards your husband.
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You don't treat your husband like a child even if he's acting like one.
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It's not your job to treat him like one.
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We saw that last week, Ephesians 5, 33, Paul says, "Let the wives see to it that they respect their husbands." Your husbands need to know that you respect them.
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That's what Peter's talking about here.
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Your conduct towards them must be respectful.
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Years ago, my wife watched this horrific television program called John and Kate Plus 8.
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How many people have seen that show or at least know what I'm talking about?
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John and Kate Plus 8?
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Do you remember that show?
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John and Kate Plus 8.
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And my wife was intrigued by it.
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And I remember the one day, I was just kind of passing through the living room, and she had the show on TV.
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And it's a reality show gag.
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And what do you really think about that?
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But in these reality shows, they sort of show their everyday lives.
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And then they cut to this interview that the camera's just kind of zoomed in on them.
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And they're kind of looking off to the side and talking.
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And it was one of those sort of cut scenes where, if you haven't seen the show, John and Kate Plus 8 about this married couple and their names are John and Kate. Okay, just make sure you're still with me. And they had all these kids. You know how many kids they had?
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They had eight kids. Okay, sorry I wasn't sure when you when you didn't speak up about the subject I wasn't sure my microphone was working. So okay, John and Kate had eight kids and well in this cutscene, like I said, this passenger my wife had it on she's watching it and as I'm passing through this Kate was just destroying her husband verbally yeah I can't remember the exact quote but it was just stuff like he's so incompetent and he's so foolish and the stupid things that he does and he just doesn't get it he's a knucklehead and he's a moron and she was just she was just destroying him verbally And I remember stopping and I said to Erin, I'm like, I can't believe, first of all, that she's talking about her husband that way.
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Second of all, that she's talking about her husband that way while he's sitting right beside her.
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Third of all, she's talking about her husband that way on a television program.
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Like call me prophetic, but I at the time said, that marriage isn't going anywhere.
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what happened. If you follow that stuff, and I hope that you spend your time doing other things, but if you follow that stuff, they had a horrible breakup. Horrible. It was all over the news a few years ago. Horrible breakup, and there's a new show, it's like, I don't even know what it's called now, it's like Kate Plus 8 or whatever, Erin was watching a bit of it a couple weeks ago, and she has a show herself now with the kid, but he is long gone. And I don't know all the details. They didn't come to me for marriage counseling or anything of that nature. I don't know what happened. But I can tell you this, I knew that that wasn't going anywhere good the way that she spoke about her husband. It wasn't respectful. And maybe he was the world's biggest moron. Maybe he was. It is not her place to treat him like that. Biblically, according to what your Bible says, her job was to be subject to him and to be what in her conduct?
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Respectful.
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What else does your Bible say?
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Not only respectful, but what's the next one?
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Pure, right?
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Pure.
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Wives, if your husband doesn't obey the word, your conduct is to be pure, meaning not flirtatious with others.
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My husband isn't so attentive right now, and I deserve some harmless little fun, so it's okay to entertain that kind of thing with my co-worker.
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If you think the struggle is real now, let your husband see you acting in a flirtatious manner with another man, and it's going to go real south real quick.
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The husband needs to know, your husband needs to know that you're all his, and he is all all yours.
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Respectful and pure ladies, every little jab, every little insult, every little shameful thing you say or do, every flirtatious action that he witnesses.
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What you're doing in your marriage is you're building a wall brick by brick.
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Every little jab, every little impure conduct, by brick and then you're plastering the wall and every little insult and every shameful thing. Now you're reinforcing the wall. It's not going anywhere good.
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That Peter says your conduct must be more important than your words and there might be something in us that says that sounds very opposite. I would like to remind you that so much in the Bible is opposite to our natural way of thinking. So much in the Bible is opposite your way of thinking. The Bible says, for example, if you want to be exalted, what should you do? The Bible says humble yourself. That's opposite. The Bible says, do you want to live? Then you need to die to yourself. If you want to find life, you have to lose your life. And you want to be restored? The Bible says first you have to be broken. So wives, opposite theme in mind. Do you want to win your The greatest weapon, ladies, the greatest weapon that you have to win your husband to Christ, the greatest weapon in your arsenal by far is submitting to Him.
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That sounds so opposite, which leads me to believe, yeah, that's exactly how God works, isn't it?
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contrary to our natural sinful thinking.
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Your greatest weapon is submission and that submission shows up according to this passage in your conduct. Respectful and pure.
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Respectful and pure conduct. So your conduct must be more important than your words.
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Secondly, your character must be more beautiful than your clothes.
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Look at verses 3 and 4. It says, "Do not let your adorning Be external.
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Some translations say merely external, but do not let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry or the clothing you wear.
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Let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious.
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I was talking to a Harvest Fellowship pastor this past week and one of those, "Hey, what are you preaching on?
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What are you preaching on?" I told him, "This is what I'm preaching on.
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We are talking about the passage." I said to him, "You know, some churches teach, some churches teach, not this one, but some churches teach that because of this passage, it is sinful for a woman to wear makeup." This pastor friend of mine said, "Well, you know what, Jeff?
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I think it's sinful for some women not to wear makeup.
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I did not say that.
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Nor am I giving you the name of the pastor who did.
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Let's just say he's far, far away, far enough that I can share that story without the torches and pitchforks showing up at his house.
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But he's not saying neglect your appearance.
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He's not saying that.
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"Ladies, don't lose yourself into going after all this external stuff that you lose focus on the internal stuff." What an appropriate word for our culture, because we live in a day where there is such an incredibly strong preoccupation with the outside.
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True or false?
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Aren't we obsessed with the outside?
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Aren't we obsessed with the inside?
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All of our skin creams and weight loss programs and reduced wrinkles and hair extension and cosmetics and luscious lashes and shake weights and ab rollers and blemish cream.
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And you can't turn on a TV without a commercial or several infomercials about making yourself more pretty.
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Our culture is obsessed with that stuff.
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Ladies, I'm trying to be very sensitive how I say this, but this isn't God's word.
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You know, it's easy when your husband isn't saved and you're not happy in the relationship, it's easy to default to indulging in all of the pretty stuff.
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Why?
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I don't know.
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For some women, for some women, for some women, everybody say some women, I really believe it's because they just won't notice.
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And the attention that they should be getting from their husbands, they're willing to get that attention from anybody else.
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So we'll gussy ourselves up and make ourselves look good.
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And any attention or comments I get from co-workers or neighbors, my husband's not noticing.
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It's real easy to fall into that trap.
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See, this stuff, it means nothing without the inside.
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Erin and I were talking about this just this past week.
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Beautiful women are beautiful on the inside.
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Verse 4, this inward beauty, look at the word that your Bible uses.
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"Let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the" Look at this word, "imperishable beauty." It's imperishable.
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The inward beauty is imperishable.
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That means when you're beautiful on the inside, that never gets ugly.
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As opposed to the outside, that as we get old, we get ugly.
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I have pictures of myself from when I was in first grade.
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I was a beautiful child.
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Angelic.
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I think cherub might be the word that you would use if you saw my first grade picture.
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I was a beautiful child.
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And there are days, I kid you not, there are days now I look in the mirror and I'm like, what happened to you?
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You used to be so good looking, what happened?
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What happened is we're getting older.
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And even though we're wearing out and getting ugly on the outside, the Bible says a gentle and quiet spirit.
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That's beauty that never fades.
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You're like, well, who thinks that's attractive?
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God.
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Did you see that?
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God does.
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in God's sight, which in God's sight is very precious. God thinks it's beautiful and your husband will too. So again it's that opposite thing happening. Your husband's not saved, you want to get brash, you want to get loud. But the Bible says no, don't do that ladies. Get gentle.
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So your character must be more beautiful than your clothes.
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And finally for today, don't tune out, because this is all coming to a crescendo right here.
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Your faith must be bigger than your fears.
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Your faith must be bigger than your fears.
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Peter says in verse 5, "For this," all that we've been talking about, "For this is how the holy women," he's talking about our Old Testament examples, you'll see that very clearly in a second, "for this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves by submitting to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord.
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And you, ladies, you women who have unsaved husbands, you are her children if you do good And look at this.
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Do not fear anything that is frightening.
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Your faith must be bigger than your fears, fears, fears, what fears, what fears are you talking about?
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I'm not John MacArthur.
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But it says in verse six, do not fear anything.
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So what fears?
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Any fears, any fears?
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What's he talking about?
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Here's what he's talking about.
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Doing the right thing is always hard.
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It's easy.
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Take shortcuts, do it your way.
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Doing the right thing is always hard, it's.
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It's hard to live with a non-Christian husband.
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It's hard, women, it's hard to come to Christ when you don't get any support at home.
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You're wanting involved in church and in ministry and advancing Christ's kingdom.
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Your husband wants none of that.
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That's hard.
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But there's another aspect in which this is very hard.
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It's hard to submit to your husband in a world that will criticize you for doing that.
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It is hard to submit to your husband in a world that will criticize you for doing that.
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Proverbs 29, 25 says, "The fear of man brings a snare." You know, when the Bible talks about fear of man, it doesn't mean that we're scared of people.
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That's not what fear of man means.
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Fear of man means you're more concerned with what people think than you're concerned with what God thinks.
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That's fear of man.
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That's, I'm willing to compromise what the Bible says because I want people to think more highly of me, or I don't want people to think negatively of me, and you're willing to make those compromises.
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Fear of men, you care more about what people think than what God thinks.
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That's why Peter, under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, says, "Do not fear anything." Do not fear anything.
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It is true that everyone, everyone you know, everyone you've ever met is a counselor.
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And it is amazing how you can have someone in your life who doesn't know the Lord and their own relationships are completely out of order and they're going to interject themselves into your life and tell you what to do in your marriage.
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They're on like marriage number eight or living with a guy that they're not married to or just sleeping around or all of the above and they're miserable and they're a wreck and they're going to come to you and say, "Submit to your husband." That's stupid. People are going to harshly criticize you if you decide that you're going to trust God's Word by being submissive. People are going to criticize that. I promise you. Try it, ladies. Try it.
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Go to work this week. Go to work tomorrow.
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And say, "You know what I'm going to do in my marriage?
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I really want to spice these up in my marriage. You know what I'm going to do?
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I'm going to work harder on submitting to my husband's authority." They're going to laugh you out of wherever you work.
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They're going to criticize you.
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They're going to be talking behind your back.
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What an idiot.
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"I'm going to submit to my husband. I'm going to submit to my husband." That's stupid.
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That's what they're gonna say.
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Are they right?
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Here's an idea.
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I'm just gonna throw this out here.
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Instead of advice from train wrecks, let's look at godly examples.
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Can you think of one?
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How about Peter gives us one here.
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Sarah.
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I'm not going to go into the whole story.
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You can read this.
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Start like Genesis 11, 12, and just keep going.
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Sarah.
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Sarah's husband Abraham wasn't always Mr. Perfect.
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Actually his life is crazy.
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Abraham left his home to go to, God says, "I'll show you when you get there." Crazy.
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Okay, so he's 100 and Sarah's 90 and God's like, "You're going to have a baby." Crazy.
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Then there's the whole thing with Hagar and Ishmael.
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We're like, "Well, we're not going to have a kid, so Abraham, why don't you get Hagar are pregnant and she'll have a baby because Sarah was barren and you're too old and can't have kids and so they had Ishmael and God's like, "No, that's not the plan." You can make a whole reality show just out of that incident.
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Abraham and Sarah finally have the baby that God promised them.
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Remember Isaac?
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They finally had the baby and they're old, but they have this baby and the baby gets a few years old, God shows up to Abraham. He goes, "You remember that son that I gave you? Remember that son that I promised you? Do you remember that son that I told you I was going to fulfill my promises to you through him?" And Abraham's like, "Yeah." God's like, "I want you to offer him as a sacrifice to me. I want you to kill him." How do you think that conversation went down at home? Abraham says, "Hey, Sarah, the Lord spoke to me today." "Oh, what did he say?" "Yeah, he said to kill our son." "What?
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He said to do what?" Well, the Bible doesn't say that.
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Sarah argued with him.
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Or the Bible doesn't say that.
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Sarah was holding onto Abraham's ankle as he's walking up the mountain to offer Isaac as a sacrifice.
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The Bible doesn't say that.
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"Kill our only son?" wife worries when I walk the kids to our playground and hear Abraham is called to kill Isaac. The story has a glorious ending and I'm not going to spoil it for you if you haven't read it but you really should. That's not the point. The point is Sarah as a wife how in the world did she endure being married to a guy like Abraham? How that, Peter tells us, verse 5, this is how the holy women who hoped in God. She hoped in God. She trusted God by submitting to her husband. That was the way in which her trust in the Lord was manifested.
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So I verse six, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord.
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Wives, I'm not saying that you should go home and call your husband's Lord.
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But you have to see that the way.
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Sarah's trust manifested her, the way her hope in God manifested.
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Was by submitting the authority of her husband, submitting to his leadership.
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There's a good example.
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I promise you, I promise you, in 10, 20, 50, 100 years, nobody's going to be writing stories about your train wreck co-worker that gave you the stupid advice that you shouldn't submit to your husband.
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Nobody's going to be writing about that.
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But do you realize thousands of years later, people are still talking about Sarah?
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We're still talking about her today.
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Why?
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Because the Lord commended her for her faith, even when it was hard.
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Here's an example for you ladies, if you're looking for Godly example.
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Once again church, you are going to be caught between advice from the world and the word of God.
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You're going to be caught between what your co-workers say, what your grandmama tells you, what you've always heard, what the talk show host says.
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You're going to be caught between that and what the Bible says.
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So which one are you going to choose?
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You see, the world says, wives of unsaved husbands, the world says, "You deserve better." God says, "Be faithful to the one that you already chose." The world says, "You don't want to waste the rest of your life with him." God says, "Obedience to me is never a waste." The world says, "He's never going to change." God says, "I can change him, and I'm going to use you to make that happen." So is your husband unsaved?
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You want to win your husband?
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you're not alone in that because God wants to win your husband infinitely more than you do and the number one agent that he has in place that he wants to use to win that man to Christ, ladies, that's you. Are you willing to work with God in the way that he works To win your husband, if you are, Peter says your conduct must be more important than your words.
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Peter says your character must be more beautiful than your clothes.
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Peter says your faith must be bigger than your fears.
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I know this is a hard passage.
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It's a very difficult teaching.
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our prayer team is going to come forward, our elders are going to be up front.
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Please understand when we invite you up to pray, it doesn't just have to be for you.
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We talked about this in our small group as we've been praying for our own marriages.
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Everybody in our small group knows people that have some type of struggle in marriage, extended relationships.
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I have people in my own life that I talked with our small group. I like, Hey, we need to pray for these people.
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Their marriage is being destroyed.
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So maybe you need to come up and pray for somebody else, or maybe you do need to pray for yourself.
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Nobody's gonna judge you here.
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Nobody knows why you're coming up to pray, but you have to understand that this is a safe place to pray, whether it's for you or someone else.
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You need to cry out to the Lord.
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This is hard stuff.
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God kind of specializes in that.
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Father in heaven, with you all things are possible.
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And Father, I confess to you that in my flesh, I can read a passage like this and say, "Wow, that is controversial." And that certainly goes against everything that everybody else is telling us.
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Everybody else is saying, "Get rid of the bomb.
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He's not worth it." you are saying you have a plan that seems contrary to what we think but it works because it's the plan that you're involved in. So Father I pray specifically for wives today because I'm sure Father there are some in this room that have a husband and it's far from Christ which means they are certainly far from Christ like. I pray father that you would renew in them a desire to tighten the knot in their own marriage. And as you renew that desire father I pray that their hearts would be inclined to this portion of your word that addresses this very thing. That yes the knot can be tightened in their marriage.
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If, like Sarah, they put their hope in you.
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We thank you God, that with you all things are possible.
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We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read 1 Peter 3:1-6
How is a husband won over by his wife “without a word”? Explain what this means. If the wife isn’t to “preach”, how will the husband hear the Word of God?
What are ways some women tend to focus on the external appearance? What kinds of “internal beauty marks” does Peter say to work on (1 Peter 3:4)? What are practical ways to work on those?
Pretend a (saved) coworker with an unsaved husband comes to you asking for advice on how to handle her pagan hubby. He is not interested in church or anything spiritual, which is important to her. He shows her no Christlike love like he is supposed to, so she is thinking about a divorce. “Why would God want me stuck in a marriage like this?” she says. What would you tell her to do, in light of this passage?
Breakout Questions:
Same theme, all month. This time: Pray for your spouse, specifically. Their walk with Christ. Their health. Their emotional well-being.
Not married? Pray for your future spouse. Don’t plan on getting married? Pray for a marriage you know of that needs the knot tightened.