Today, as we are in this deep,
rich letter of Ephesians chapter 5, we come to the middle of a phrase,
the middle of a sentence, the middle of actually the end of
an entire phrase, and we see the word submitting. We see the word, in some translations,
subjecting. And so when we think of this,
let's first take a wide view of this. There is, as you'll
see next week, I'm going to borrow a lot of great theologians' examples next week in relation
to what submission is not. But for this week, I want us
to get a picture of it before we move into verse 22. We take
a wide view of submission, subjection, If we really sit and if we could
and we should not, but if we would just not be thinking of
anything and just be excited, let's just say we were enjoying
the warm sun on our face with a light spring breeze and there
was not a thing to our concern. And then as things are happening
and we're just enjoying the day, all of a sudden someone from
behind yells, submission! What would happen in our hearts? Where would our minds go? So
that's how I sort of look at things objectively from a subjective
point of view. Does that make sense? And so
when you look at that, at any term, at any idea, it comes with
it a meaning. And the meaning of how you perceive
something or how you perceive something actually will apply
itself to its meaning, and then how you see it depends on what
you're going to do with it. And I'm here to tell you that
in this really amazing string of glorious exhortation to walk
in love as imitators of God, as beloved children, and that we ought to have wisdom
because we are wise in Christ. We ought to be careful how we
walk, making use of the time to not be drunk with wine, but
be filled with the Holy Spirit and that the outcome of the Spirit
of God is addressing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart giving
thanks always and for everything to God the Father, in the name
of Christ Jesus our Lord, submitting to one another out of reverence
for Christ. See, it's a glorious chain of
blessing and power and beauty and joy. But for some reason,
we see it there, and then when we get to verse 22, we go, whoa,
wait a minute, especially us who are wives or ladies. Because what's happened is that
the way we think about submission is negative. And some of us may
say, well, I submit because I have to. Well, that's ill righteous. For we who are in Christ Jesus
submit because we delight in it. And that's what Paul is teaching
us here. There is no part of the law of
God that causes grief in the hearts of His children? None. Do not touch. Do not taste. Do not say. Do not walk. And
we see it and we go, thank you God that I don't have to. Because
I want this. And I want to taste you. And
I want to touch you. And I want to walk in you. And
I want to submit unto reverence for Christ. It is a joy. And
as we spoke last week, we talked about Thanksgiving. And then
the week before that, it was Easter. But then we had joy and
thanksgiving and submission. These are all in the same thing,
so our fullness of our worship and the fullness of our joy and
the fullness of our gratitude is wrapped up in the practice
of our submission. This is bizarre to me. In my
humanistic philosophy, I think and go, well, this is just backwards.
This would be where the Ayn Rand's of the world would say, that's
not right. That doesn't make me happy. The Christian doesn't say that.
The Christian says that which God has told me and offered unto
me as a path is the joy to my soul, is a light to my eyes and
a song to my heart, that I may praise him with thankfulness
unto the praise of his glorious grace, for I am the beloved. And I cannot wait to unwrap the
gift of grace in submission. Now see, I'll be honest with
you, none of us think of submission that way. I see it and I know
the argument, but I can't lie and say that that is the foremost
of my thoughts about submission. In this world, we think ill of
submission. Be honest. But Paul says we should
not. And so that even after today,
our eyes will open and we will have a greater understanding
of the teaching of submissiveness and subjection. And we will see
that it is a gift. And in our heads, we will begin
to understand a little bit deeper about who God is and how He saved
us through subjecting Himself to the futility of creation. and delivered Himself up over
to the hands of men to be crucified. Friends, I'm going straight with
you. It's going to wreck your world if you think you have any
right to any entitlement. You are going to hate the Word
of God from now on if you do not find delight in submission.
And yet, that little bit of teensy-tweensy war within us with our flesh,
we'll fight that. And so, the power to overcome
is knowing where we stand and seeing that which God has delivered
to us as a gift most precious in Christ Jesus. The wide view
of subjection, the wide view of submission is this. There
are those who have authority over me. to restrain my freedom,
to reject my desires, to hinder my plans and wall up my path. That's what the world thinks.
It's what every king has thought. It's what every prince has thought. It's what every queen has understood.
It's what the governments think and what the people think about
the government. The government thinks about the people. It's
what people think about Christianity. It's what people think about
the statutes of the law of God. It's what we think about in our
homes when, as spouses, we don't like the teaching of the Word.
Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. Husbands, die
for your wives as Christ died for the church. Subject yourselves out of reverence
of Christ to one another. Submit to the governing authorities
for they are ordained by God. There is not a tyrant in this
world that has not been placed in power apart from God. Every maniacal, wicked man who
has ever murdered millions in the name of his own kingdom has
been so by the hand of God. The Adolf Hitlers of the world
have been ordained and established in power by God. For the Scripture
says there is no power, there is no king, and there is no government
that has not been established by God for His glory. God raised
Pharaoh up for hundreds of years to deny the freedom of worship
to the Jews and to kill them and to enslave them to build
His golden kingdoms in the desert of Egypt. And yet God says, I
raised Pharaoh up that I might show my glory. The Jews could not see it, and
friends, so many of us cannot see it. The American way of living
has invaded our theology, and it is a damnable theology. It
is a false god of idolatry. A false god of Isaiah, as he
says and as told by the Holy Spirit of God in the sixth chapter
of his writing, that go and preach and proclaim the adulterousness
and the idolatry of the people. And you will preach, and I will
not allow them to hear. And you will show, and I will
not allow them to see. And if there is a tent that remains,
I will mow it over. And Jesus spoke of this in John's
Gospel about the Pharisees when He says, Today Isaiah has been
fulfilled in your hearing, for you see and do not perceive,
and you hear and you cannot understand. So there's a wide view of submission
in the world. And I will tell you that in the
natural man, the one who sits here under the sound of my voice
and says, this is ridiculous, is on his way to hell. The one who sits here and wonders,
what purpose does this have in my life, is blind to the grace
of Jesus Christ. And the Word of God heeds you
warning, do not wait for the summer, for today is the day
of salvation. Do not wait until that time which
you decide might be the right moment for your will to be laid
aside, friends. If you are born again, your will
is the will of God. The hard teachings of Jesus are
just that, hard teachings. And every time He opened His
mouth, people hated Him. And every time His apostles opened
their mouths, people hated them. And when their pens went to paper
and they cut off their hands and they tore out their tongues,
then others who God raised up would continue to preach and
to write and to speak the Gospel. And no one can stop God's Word.
It is unbound. I want you to see five things
out of this one little half sentence. I want you to see and I'll give
them to you. I want you to see they all start with the word
clear. I want you to see a clear command. I want you to see a
clear example. I want you to see a clear expression. I want you to see a clear consequence. And finally, I want you to see
a clear conclusion. Let's look at it first. There
is a clear command. Paul here is teaching us very
clearly that we are to be what is the command here? The command
is not to subject or submit. Do you see that? The command
is be filled with the spirit of God. Submitting to one another. So the submission is out of the
feeling of the spirit of God, so you may ask yourself, I have
a hard time, how can I not be submissive because you're not
filled with the spirit of God? Maybe you are a child of God,
but maybe your feeling is a little less full. Maybe your time in
the Word of God and your time in worship is waning. Do you know what God can do with
five minutes of adoration? Do you know what God can do with
five minutes of powerful Word, holy gospel, supernatural Scripture? He can give you five years of
worship. He can give you fifty years. So there is no way that we have
no time. for God. Yes, we are busy, but
we will have some time, and that some time, that which we think
will not amount to much, God can do. If God can feed the multitude
with a young boy's lunch, He can feed you with one word. And that word is Jesus Christ.
And if you want the grace to be submissive and joyful, then
you have to eat the bread of life. The blood and the body
of Jesus must be your sustenance. So the command is clear. It is a command to be filled. And the outcome of the filling
is indeed submission. But submission is also commanded
in Matthew chapter 18 and chapter 20. We see Jesus teaching that those
who desire to be first in the kingdom of heaven must be least
among men. That the first should be last
because the last will be first. We see it commanded there. Be
last, O brother. Be last, O sister. Put yourself
at the end of the line. Not just a few people before
you in the top ten. Put yourself in the bottom one.
Put yourself in the bottom of the row. When there's another
cliff to jump, clearly skip over the side of it. Stop climbing
the ladder of self-glory. And jump off the cliff of grace. In John 3, It's clearly commanded
in that Jesus tells His disciples to do things, to follow Him,
to see what He does. What does Jesus do in John 13?
He takes, get this, He is the visible image of the invisible
God, the firstborn of all creation, the beginning and the end, the
Alpha and the Omega, the Lamb of God that takes away the sins
of the world. He is the one who upholds the Word, by the Word
of His power, the cosmos. He is the one through whom all
things were made by Him and through Him and for Him. He owns it all. He is the creator and the sustainer
and the owner of everything that ever has been and ever will be. And He subjected Himself to become
a human being and created a young woman named Mary and entered
her womb through the Spirit of God and was born as a man. And he takes these twelve. One
is a devil who he chose. And he strips off his clothes. And he puts a towel around his
waist. And he gets a basin of water. And he kneels down to
the gnarly, crusty, warded, gross feet of those twelve men who
were too blind to even see that the God of the universe was cleaning
the garbage from between their toes. And he washed their feet. And he washed the feet of his
own betrayer. Don't tell me the Bible doesn't
command us to be subject to one another. Because friends, that
is the gospel for Pete's sake. There is no gospel without submission.
It's debauchery and idolatry and death. There is no good news
without submission. And if God in Christ submits
to the very creature that hates Him, how dare we not submit to
the very bride that He created through His own submission. And be joyful about it. Flip over to Romans chapter 12
for a minute. Look at this. I want to give
some examples. I want to jump in a few Scriptures
today and give you some examples of how this looks in real time
as far as the New Testament church. I don't want to just start saying
what I know about submission or what's alluded to. I want
to show you that these apostles that Paul especially teaches
this in Romans 12, starting in verse 9. Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil. Hope fast
to what is good. Verse 10. Love one another with
brotherly affection. And then he begins to give some
examples of that affection. He says, outdo one another in
showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal. Be
fervent in spirit. Serve the Lord. Then he says
in verse 12, Rejoice in hope. Be patient in tribulation. Be
constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the
saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you.
Bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice.
Weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another.
Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise
in your own sight. Repay no evil for evil, but give
thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible,
so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. And
he keeps on going. And this is the text that Pastor
Luke preached just a month or so ago here to our very ears.
As long as it is up to us, we outdo one another in doing good.
Friends, unpack that just quickly in the very nature of its own
grammar. Just unpack it there. Do not
be slothful and zeal. Not serve. He says, serve the
Lord. Look at verse 9 there. It says, Be genuinely in love
with each other. Hate what is evil. Hold fast
to what is good. We ought to love good. We ought
to love each other. A genuine, brotherly love. Not just a warm, fuzzy, well,
I'll just smile and hug. That's not love. Jesus says there's
no greater love than this that a man would lay down his life
for a brother. What in the world? Well, I got what I need and I'll
give him a little bit of that. And I love that brother, but
he drives me nuts. I don't want to hang out with
him. That's just not it. That's not it. That's that's
a false hope. It's the false fruit of a false
gospel. Repent of that and believe that
Christ has given himself for you. Love each other as brothers.
Outdo each other with showing honor. Now, I thought about this
this morning and actually inquired from some people about how would
they define honor, as Paul says in Romans 12. Well, the definition
of honor is to regard with great respect. And the synonym for
honor, one of the synonyms is revere. So here in Ephesians
5, it says, submitting to one another out of reverence for
Christ. So we are to outdo one another
in honoring one another and honoring Christ together. That's why Jesus,
when He's questioned by the Pharisees, He is asked this question because
they're hoping that He will say something wrong and they can
accuse Him of blasphemy and have Him arrested. And they test him
and they say, what is the greatest of all the laws? And Jesus, speaking
out of Deuteronomy 6, says to love the Lord your God with all
your heart and mind and strength. And he doesn't stop there because
he knew the heart of the Pharisees who had the what? The appearance
of Godliness, but do not its power. We are here. We're moral. We're righteous. We study the
word. We preach the gospel. We preach the word. And now we
hate you. See, Jesus knew they hated people.
They hate the people who were close to their righteous standard.
They hate the people who aren't meeting their righteous standard.
They hate everybody. They hate themselves. They hate
one another. And Jesus then says, but the second most important
of equal standing. Really? There's an equal standing
with love the Lord your God with all you have and are and have
and want to be. Love the Lord your God with all
that you are. Yes, he says to love your neighbor
as yourself. And He doesn't just leave it
for them to interpret. Jesus then says, for all the
laws of the prophets hinge on these two. So the one who loves the Lord
God with all his heart, mind and strength, of course, the
New Testament soul, and the one who also loves his neighbor as
himself, to him there is no judgment. All the walls are rounded up
and baked into this nice little cake. And friends, we can't bake
that cake on our own. We don't have the recipe for
such cooking. Only Christ can create such grace. by doing the very thing that
He just told the Pharisees they must do. Jesus came and denied
His own glory that He might glorify the Father. And Jesus came and
laid His life down for sinners as a ransom for many. The very
ones who stabbed Him and whipped Him and beat Him. So when it says to do it out
of reverence for Christ, you know what it really is saying
there? that we submit with joy out of our deep affection for
Jesus. We love Christ so much that we
can't help but love each other. Why do you think John writes
his first epistle so hard on that issue? There's some false
teaching. So is the one who does not love
his brother. I mean, he's dealing with testing the spirits, the
Gnostics, and other things that are happening in that day, and
teaching false doctrine, and he calls them out, and he says,
and by the way, don't think you're good just because you've got
theology. The one who hates his brother is also Antichrist. And
he makes God to be a liar, by the way. If you say you're righteous,
and you walk in Christ, and you walk in the light, but you hate
your brother, you're a liar, and the truth is not in you. If you say you have
no sin, well, I don't hate my brother, but you do, you're a
liar, and the truth is not in you. So you see that. How can I love
people who are unlovable? Consider the unlovability of
your own soul. And think of how grievous your
sin and your existence is to the holy nostrils of God who
created you. And then recognize the amazing
mercy and the love in which He loved us that He gave Himself
to be a sacrifice. He submitted to the Father and
He submitted His life to the men who hated Him. This week I've been listening
to some writing by J.C. Ryle about the Reformers of England. And it has blown my mind. It
has blown my mind to be reminded of just how these once Catholics
went, and after hearing the gospel, were born again to such a zeal
that they preached in their own cathedrals the gospel. And when the crown
went from Protestant to Catholic, they did not back down. And they
willfully dressed themselves and walked out into the streets
under arrest to be burned. I can't imagine that. That's
submission. They did not impose a trial that
was unfair. They did not subject themselves
to the right of their own domain. They did not even resort to appealing
to the crown for a just trial. They just said, I'm about to
go home. Burn me. One of them made the
comment that he prayed as he was being lit on fire that the
light of his blaze would light a gospel fire in England that could never be put out.
Wow! And we admire that, but God did
so much more than that. Out of worship for Christ, to
the praise of His glory. Paul says in Romans 12 and 11,
do not be slothful and zeal. Be fervent. The word fervent,
we don't use that. You know what that word is? White-hot passion. If you have
fervor, you have a white-hot fire that boils within your soul
that cannot be extinguished by any means of natural hostility
or oppression or external quenching. You have a white-hot fire, a
passionate fire that burns. It says, so be fervent in spirit
and constant in prayer. Serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope. Be patient in trial. Be constant
in prayer and give to the needs of the saints. and seek to show
hospitality. What in the world? See, here's
all the spiritual stuff and do this and do that and the passion.
We like to build it up. And when you get that, serve
the needs and be hospitable. Paul, you're raining on my parade,
dude. I'm high on this gospel cloud. I'm soaring. And I'm flying
around and my cape's breezing the wind and my hair's slicked
back and I'm feeling like Superman on top of the world. And I want
to soar above the solar system and go, yes, I'm with Jesus.
And I'm soaring around and He just goes, and give them a cup
of cold water. Really? I want to be set on fire. I want
to do something greater than that. I want to have a megachurch
with 50 billion vegan people in it. And all of them become
missionaries. And Paul says, look, when you're
full of the Holy Spirit and you're passionate about Christ, you
serve his people. Wow, really? Give to the needs of the saints.
To affection for them. Submit yourself to them. So that's the clear command.
In production, the clear example is seen in Christ Jesus Philippians
chapter two, you can go there really quickly. The clear example is this, that
Jesus and you look in Philippians and chapter two, starting in
verse three, it preaches itself. Ah, let's just start chapter
1. So, if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love,
any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete
my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in
full accord and of one mind. Do nothing. This is what I really
want you to see, but I had to get there. Do nothing from rivalry
or conceit, but in humility. What is that? Count others more
significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only
to his own interests, but to the interests of others. Then
he commands the church, have this mind among yourselves which
Belongs to you, which is yours in Christ Jesus. Then he gives
the example who, though he was in the form of God, did not account
equality with God, a thing to be grasped, but made himself
nothing. Nothing. Taking the form of a
slave, doulas, not servant, slave. It's the correct translation
there. Being born in the likeness of men and being found in human
form, He humbled Himself. He subjected Himself. He submitted
Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death. Not just
death, but a wicked, cruel, and unwarranted death of a criminal.
Even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted
Him. and bestowed on Him the name
that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every
knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the
glory of the Father." There's the example. And Paul,
in just a few verses, is going to really open that example up
to a whole new light. I wish that I could come to the
table. I wish you could just tune yourself
and go, OK, I want to think like an Ephesian Christian. And then
I want to read Ephesians. I just want to know what it's
like to be there and to not know everything else and not have
ever read the Gospels and to not have ever, well, they weren't
even written then, but not to have ever read anything else.
And all of a sudden you get this letter and you're told in a place
that they didn't even have marriage, but yet he said, That woman is
your wife, and so wife, submit to your husband, and husband,
die for your wife as Christ. And all of a sudden, just the
reality of what that must do to one who has never heard it,
and how subject we are to the mundane aspect of, how dare I
say it, the grace of God. We have made God's grace so cliché,
it's just there. It rolls out of our lips, but
it's not effective in our hearts. May God plant fervor in our soul. Let's look at the clear expression.
And this is my last turning, and then we'll be back. Well,
I lied. My last turning into 1 Peter 5, one verse. Likewise, verse 5 of 5, 2 Peter
5, 5, you who are younger be subject to the elders. Clothe yourself. All of you with
humility towards one another for. Because God opposes the
proud. But gives grace to the humble. So this is the expression. This
is what I almost call the clear clothing. But it sounded a little
weird. We don't want clear clothing.
That's sort of weird. But the clear expression. Clearly,
there's a clothing by the Spirit of God of humility in the life
of the church. And we're told to be subject
to the elders, we who are younger, to those who are older. We learn
from them. And not to get on a soapbox right
now, but one of the most damnable things that's ever happened in
our world today is that young women and young men and children
are not being trained by people who are older than them. They're
walking around with their peers doing stupid stuff for stupid
millennia. What are children going to do
when they're together? They're going to do what children do. And they're
going to learn from each other. And they're going to subject
their own belief system and their philosophies to that which they
think is right. And it's wrong. If it weren't
for the men of my life who were well older than me, I would have
never made it in the faith. Because that's how God intended
it to be. Peers don't teach peers like wisdom teaches youth. Soapbox put away. So what is it that we see here?
There's three things that I think we see here in First Peter that's
in relation to Ephesians 521 and also in Colossians 3. We
see it there as well. We see affection, we see humility,
and out of that comes a desire. See, it's one thing to say I'm
humble. It's another thing to say I'm affectionate. But how
do we know? Well, we know because that which
we desire Or that which we say we have creates a desire in us
to act in that. To act in a manner of affection
and humility. These are gifts of grace. Don't believe me? Look at Ephesians
4. We've been here forever. Verse
3. Oh, goodness, therefore, I, a
prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of
the calling to which you've been called with all humility, with all patience,
with all gentleness, different order, bearing with one another
in love. Here it is, verse three, eager
to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace.
So what did it say? Is this going to happen? No,
it said be eager to maintain. We have to act. So there's a
clear expression of the power of God in our lives, a clear
expression to be subject to one another, to be subject to the
authorities and the responsible people or governments or whoever
in our lives so that God is glorified. That's the point. Now, there's number four, clear
consequences. When we think of consequences,
we think of negative things. So I'll give you the negative
first. I don't have to go there. But the consequence of not submitting
to one another or submitting out of obligation rather than
adoration is a dire consequence and it brings discipline. But
thankfully, we who are in Christ are disciplined for our maturity.
But I always think of the church of Corinth. I think of Paul,
how he got the letter and he heard of all the great stuff
that was going on. And then Chloe, God bless her,
decided that she would write the truth. And Chloe writes to
Paul and says, dude, these people are lying to your face through
their teeth. They're lying. Things are bad.
The body of Christ. Now get this. Chloe was not an
elder. Chloe was not a teacher. Chloe
was not a leader in the church of Corinth. Chloe was a woman
of God who stood up for what was right and told the apostles
that these people were living a lie. And she had not only the right,
but the responsibility to do so. And Paul comes up and says,
holy cow, I got, he didn't say I got an anonymous letter, he
said, I got the letter from Chloe, your sister. And she told me,
y'all a bunch of lying, thieving rogues down there, and you're
sleeping around with all your stepmamas, and you're suing one
another, and you're telling everybody that you're in Christ, but you
act like you're from hell. But maybe that's where you're
going. You know, Paul was not happy with them. And as you see
through the first discourse of the first, anyway, correspondence
to the Church of Corinth, you see Paul, he threatens them and
then he gives them a little bit of massage and says, OK, you
doing all right? And then he gets to thinking about something
and he threatens them again and he comes and then he warns them,
don't you make me come down there. I want to come down there and
worship with you. I don't want to come down there with a rod. I don't want
to come down there and be whacking on people. I don't want to do
that. So there is a consequence for not submitting. And I always think about Revelation,
John's Apocalypse, when Jesus speaks to the church of Sardis. And He says to them, I know your
works. And your reputation is that you
are alive, but you are dead. And to paraphrase here, he says,
you better repent. I'm going to remove your lamp. You know
what it's like to be a church without light? You know what
a church without a lamp is? That means God's removed their
influence. And the gospel is no longer preached
there. And the people no longer worship there. They worship the
church. They worship the pastor. They
worship each other. And they have boards and barriers
to worship. They have people who manage the
business. And then there's no zeal for
the gospel. There's no zeal for the lost.
We just want to get them plugged into what we do. And they're
fine. We don't care that they're going to hell. We just don't
want to be bothered by their problem. Well, they've got problems. Alright, put all the people who
have problems with money over here in this ministry and let
people who can handle that deal with that. Put all the people
who have problems with emotions over here in this ministry and
let the people who can handle that deal with that. Put all
the people who have problems that we don't know how to identify
over there and plant a new church across town. We don't know what to do with
them. God's calling y'all to plant a new church. Get out of here. We call
it a church split. And all the while, people stand up. Well,
I don't like the way that looks and I don't like the way that
sounds. And the elders go, God's word says. And they say, we don't
care. You're not the boss. And. And then everything goes to pot. There's a consequence for not
submitting. You know what it ultimately is,
we become worthless. vain. And we play church, and
we play Christian, and we carry a multitude of people to our blind, dead, cold religion. But there's a second part of
a clear consequence, and that is the consequence of obedience.
The consequence of obedience is found in Ephesians 3.10. The
purpose of the church is to display the manifold wisdom of God to
the powers and the authorities of heavenly places. The consequences
of true submitting and true subjection is that the Word of God is powerful. And then there's a celebration. There's an image. There's a picture.
And the world looks at it and goes, cult? That's a cult. They don't do things like the
world's churches. They do things like the Bible. And so they're
a cult. They told Jesus he was a friend of sinners and they
hated him. Why are we not friends of sinners? Are we not friends with each
other? I think we've forgotten that from
which we have been saved, the wrath of God on our sin. And friends, the consequences
of true submission in the body of Christ to one another To the
Lord, to the word through the means in which he has given to
govern his freedom. It's beautiful. It's a joy. And
that's the fifth thing I want you to see in closing. It's a
clear celebration. It's a clear conclusion that
no really what to say there. So I said both a clear conclusion. There is a clear conclusion.
And the conclusion is that we who are the people of God, we
celebrate life together. We don't just fellowship. That
word is so worn out. I hate it. I know what it means,
and when you say fellowship, I'm thinking really, really,
really, really a different thing. I could hang out with you and
laugh all day long and never fellowship with you. I could
hang out with you for 25 years and we could share the same toothbrush.
We would be pretty stinking intimate, but we could never have fellowship. Fellowship is an absolute intimacy
in the body of Christ that's reflected. It's going to kill
you. It's reflected in the relationship
between husband and wife becoming one flesh. One flesh, the Greek word koinonia. One flesh, all things common.
So in that, then I want you to see Celebration and true fellowship
is a supernatural spiritual and it is spontaneous in the life
of the church. It is something that comes out of us and we go,
where did this come from? Oh, God, you're working, you're
working. We show the power of God to the
world. We show the power of God to the
cosmos, to the world, to the universe. And they look at us
and they say, you know what, if somebody ever treated me like
that guy over there, I can't believe he forgave his neighbor
for doing that. Why not? Oh man, if that person had done
that to me, I'd have so sued them so fast their head would
have spinned. Christians don't sue. Christians forgive. I'll tell you what this clear
conclusion is. It's a reflection of the true affections that are
from grace. They are from grace. And ultimately, when you think
of submission and we'll get into defining it more, we see what
it is. We see the need. We see the command.
We see the consequences. We understand the example of
Christ. We understand what it means.
And we'll see now Paul will do in verse 22 as he gives examples
of how it's to be played out. But the opposite, let me give
you in closing three statements. Three, I would say, maybe summary
statements. Maybe just, they might not even
tie together. I think they did when I thought
of them. Tried to put them in perspective. But I'll put it this way. Christians
do not aspire to dominate or control ever. But they conspire, I mean, excuse
me, they aspire To die for the maturity, for the unity,
for the worship, and get this, for the usefulness of the body. There you go. That's what Christians
do. They aspire not to dominate,
but to die. To submit for the usefulness
of the body of Christ. Second. God has ordained an order of
submission. And we who are his desire this
order with joy to hear that. And then I thought this. I thought,
wow, what about this part of my life? What about that circumstance?
God, I remember that. I remember when I didn't want
to submit there. What's that mean about me? Am
I lost? Good test, Tiffins. Where's your
hope? You know why you didn't submit
there in that personal situation? Because you didn't believe in
that circumstance. that it was for your good. And
you did not believe that I actually would bring it to My glory and
for My glory. And so you decided to rebel. And so I ask the question, what
do you do if you do not want to? What if it's worse? What if it's you cannot? You
try, you do want to, but you can't. How do we do it anyway? What
is this submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ?
Here's what's wrong. If we can't, it's because our
worship of Christ is damaged, is punched in the face. Something's
wrong, it's been hijacked by something else. We need to find
out what that idol is and we need to remove it, number one.
Number two, If we're having trouble in that area, then we understand
the command there is not submitting. The submitting is the outcome
of the command. The command is to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
So if we cannot submit, it's because we're not full. I've
already stated this. This is summary. And if you remember it, if you
don't remember that sermon, you want to go back and hear it,
go back and listen to us on the church site, you can go back
and listen to it. How we filled In a quick summary, we're filled
by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit through the
continued discipline of obtaining the grace which is given by the
Word of God. Not, yes, individually, but not
unto the individual. It is given to us that we might,
as a whole, be filled with all the fullness of God. Do you see
that? Remember that sermon? And all that's from the letter
to the Ephesians. Every bit of that that I just
said. And we do it with the fullness
of joy in Christ. And you might then say, I can't
see that either. Friends, if you can't see it,
it's because you haven't been born again. And for us who have been in John
3 on Tuesdays, you understand that Nicodemus comes and he says,
you are from God. And Jesus says, except the man
be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven. And Nicodemus
doesn't get it because he can't see it. And then Jesus says,
well, you can't even enter the kingdom if you haven't been born
again. That which is flesh is flesh, that which is spirit is
spirit. And then he says that I speak from above. I speak in
a heavenly way because I am from above and I've come down. But
you speak in an earthly way. And you who are earthly do not
receive my testimony, for I've seen the glory of God. I've walked
with the Father. I've been in communion. And the
Father gives the Spirit. And I'm bringing a bunch of stuff
all together right here. The Father gives the Spirit without
measure to the Son, because He loves the Son. And the Son is
a testimony and a witness to the Father. And if we can't see
the Son, we can't see the Father. Jesus' words. And if we can't
see the Father, Jesus' words in John 17, we are not born again. And if we can't see the submission
of Jesus Christ as the gospel, we can't see Jesus. Friends, if we can see Jesus,
then we can see what Jesus sees. And Jesus sees the beauty of
submission. For the glory of the Father. And Jesus has been
glorified and set to the right side of the Father. And in John's
prologue, no one has seen God. He had his side has made him
known. And from the fullness of him, we see the son. And from the Son, we receive
grace and truth. We receive grace upon grace upon
grace. And so, friends, your only hope
today is the mighty mercy of God and His grace through Jesus
Christ who died that you may live. Believe on Christ. Repent of your way and your sin. And know that your satisfaction
comes only through Jesus. And your life comes only through
Jesus. Not even through submission.
That is a fruit of what God does in His church. But if you cannot
submit today, you need to repent and trust alone in Christ. And that is not an effectual
moment in your life that because you did or said the right thing,
cause you to be born again. It's because the Spirit of God
in His wind has blown in your ears and in your heart today.
And you have been given eyes of faith. And you see it. And
you see it. And you savor it. And you can't
wait to taste it again. And so by God's grace, you who
are His, submit. Let us submit out of reverence
for Christ. as Christ submitted to the will
of the Father. Let's pray. God, we are thankful. We are thankful to be Your chosen
sheep. As Jesus said, there are many
sheep who are not of this fold. I must go to them. He said, My
sheep know My voice and they hear Me and they obey Me. Father, Your voice, Your Word,
Cheon Lagos, the Word was God and the Word became flesh. And Father, Your Word is speaking
to Your sheep. Come. and see. See and believe. Let us who are Yours, Father,
be effective in our faith, knowing that You have saved us and because
of that, we can accomplish that which You are doing. For You
are accomplishing it in our lives that we could put on compassionate hearts and kindness
and meekness and humility. bear with one another that when
we are grieved we can forgive one another as Christ has forgiven
us. So, Father, let us always be
mindful, Father, of Your glorious grace. And let our lives be a
reflection of Your power. Set the seeds of this Word in
the hearts of our children here. Of those who cannot even understand
language, God, store it in their minds that when their language
is developed, God, You might give them life. Father, through Your Spirit,
hide this Word in our heart that we might not sin against You.
But if we sin, we are sure we have an advocate with you, Jesus
Christ the righteous. But you've written these words
that we might not sin. Let us walk striving for righteousness,
sanctifying righteousness that is ours alone in Christ, not
the cause of our deeds, but the cause of Christ's accomplishments. and His obedience, and His death,
and His resurrection. It's in Christ we pray, in Jesus'
name, Amen.