How Much Do I Care? Series

INTRODUCTION

SLIDE #1

„X In life have you found there are some things that can be very difficult to carry out?

„X Life is not always easy and we are not always given things that are easy for us to do.

„X Sometimes we are faced with doing things in our jobs that are difficult to do, but we do them because we want to keep our jobs.

„X I have never enjoying running unless I was chasing someone to tackle, or running around bases or running up and down a basketball court. When I played football, I had to run in the summer. If you showed up for the 2-a-day practices and could not run the mile in a certain amount of time or do so many push-ups, pull-ups and sit-ups, you would be on what they called the ¡§Fat Man¡¨ squad. This was when you got the opportunity to stay after practice to do a lot of EXTRA conditioning work so that you would catch up with those who were already in shape.

„X I did not like running, the motivation was there for me to do it.

„X When you are faced with doing something that may be hard to do, something has to drive you to do it.

„X I am a team guy when it comes to sports. My take on practice and conditioning is, do you care enough about your team to give your best? Do you care enough about your self to do your best? SLIDE #2

„X In life many things boil down to how much we care.

„X Today as we continue our journey through the book of 1 Peter, we are coming to a place where there are going to be some things directed toward wives and husbands.

„X This week there are some words for the wives to take note of, next week the husbands are addressed.

„X I do not want the men or those who are not wives to tune me out before we get started because as we look at God¡¦s word today, we are not only going to deal with wives, there will be application made to everyone.

„X During bible times, life for a woman was terrible. Women was treated like slaves in Jewish culture, just above slaves in Greek culture and in Roman culture, they were under the absolute authority of the husband.

„X Peter is addressing women who became Christians whose husbands were not yet saved. He gives them instruction as to how to win them to Christ.

„X As we look at these instructions, I believe they are hard for women of today to swallow. Whenever the ¡§s¡¨ word, ¡§submission¡¨ is mentioned, it does not set well with some.

„X The bottom line is this; do you care enough for a lost spouse to do this? Do we all care enough for lost people to do what we need to do to reach them?

„X Let¡¦s read 1 Peter 3:1-6 today. READ

„X To reach someone I love:

SERMON

Do I care enough to: SLIDE #3

I. EXHIBIT CARING BEHAVIOR (1-2)

„X This passages starts by saying, ¡§In the same way.¡¨ This ties this section back to verse 12 where Peter starts talking about how we are to live among the lost. It also speaks of the fact we are to be submissive to the ruling authorities, and then it goes into slave, master relationships.

„X Now here we are with wives and husbands. The first thing we see is that part of a caring attitude is:

SLIDE #4

1. Have a submissive attitude.

„X This word ¡§submission¡¨ is a word that most people do not like. The reason it is not liked is because it is misunderstood. First off, this is not a master/slave relationship. Because the wife is asked to be submissive to her husband does not mean she is his slave, no more than when all of us are asked to be submissive to the ruling authorities that we are the slaves of the government.

„X The word denotes a voluntary conscience decision.

„X Submission was a military term that meant to ¡§place under rank¡¨, to yield to one¡¦s advice or admonition.¡¨

„X Wives are told in this passage they are to yield to the husband so that if the husband is disobedient to the Word, they may be won over!

„X The phrase ¡§disobedient to the word¡¨ denotes a person who is not only an unbeliever, but refused to be persuaded by the message presented.

„X Now when we go back to 1 Peter 2:12, we are called to be submissive to God in the sense that we are supposed to behave in a manner that would attract others.

„X READ 1 Corinthians 10:27-29.

„X This passage calls for us to submit ourselves to a weaker brother if what we are going to do is not wrong, but is perceived to be wrong by a brother.