Todd's Road Grace Church would
like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Todd
Neidert. We are located at 4137 Todd's
Road, two miles outside of Manowar Boulevard. Sunday services are
at 1030 a.m. and 6 p.m. Bible study is at
945 a.m. Wednesday services are at 7 p.m. Nursery is provided for all services.
For more information, visit our website at toddsroadgracechurch.com.
Now here's our pastor, Todd Nibert. I'm preaching upon the subject,
what does submission look like? I'm reading from James chapter
4. I'm going to read verses 6 and 7. Verse 6, James chapter 4,
but he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth
the proud. and giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves, therefore,
to God." What does it mean to submit to God? You'll notice the word therefore
in our text. Since God does give more grace,
thank God for that. He's a gracious God and he gives
more grace. The only thing for us to do is
to humble ourselves before him. You see, God resists the proud. pride of face, pride of place,
pride of race, pride of grace. God hates pride and God resists
the proud and he gives grace to the humble. So submitting
yourself to God has something to do with humbling yourself
before God. Submit yourselves, therefore,
unto God." Now, this is a command. Submit yourselves to God. He's
God. He doesn't negotiate. Submit
yourselves to Him whether you understand it or not. He's God.
You don't have to understand everything, but you do have to
submit yourself to God because He's God. And submission is willing. You want to submit to God. If you're going to submit to
Him, it begins with a willingness to do so. I think of the Lord
Jesus Christ being subject to his parents. He willingly submitted
himself to his parents. That's what he wanted to do.
He was subject to them. That's amazing, but that's the
way submission works. You do what he says. You don't
understand it necessarily. When the Lord said to Abraham,
take now thy son, thy only son, whom you love, and offer him
up as a burnt offering to me on a mountain that I'll show
thee of." Abraham didn't say, well, how could that be right?
How could it be right for me to offer up my son? No, he did
what God said to do, not really understanding it. Now he knew
that God's promise would come to pass. He knew that even if
he did kill his son, God would raise him from the dead because
God had promised that the Messiah would come through that boy.
As a matter of fact, if you read the account in Genesis 22, he
said to the men when they got to Mount Moriah, me and the lad
go yonder to worship and we'll return to you. He believed that
even if he killed his son, God would raise him from the dead.
But the point I want to make is he didn't question God. He
didn't say, how could this be right? If God said it, it's right. The only thing to do is submit. And as I said, this has got to
be something you want to do. If you're made to submit, it's
not submission. It's something that you actually
want to do. We read in Romans 12, 1 and 2,
where Paul said, I beseech you by the mercies of God that you
present your bodies a living sacrifice. Holy. acceptable unto
God, which is your reasonable service. Anything else is unreasonable. And be not conformed to this
world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind,
that you may prove what is that good and perfect and acceptable
will of God. Submission to the will of God,
it's good, it's perfect, it's acceptable. This is our reasonable
service and God's will is good because it's God's will. God
has a will. God is all-wise. God is all-powerful. God is God. He has a will. He's a person
who has a will and the only thing to do is to submit to His will
because He's God. He's glorious and His will is
to be submitted to because He's God. His will is Immutable. His will never changes. His will
is sovereign. And the only thing to do is submit. Submit yourselves to God. Now,
when the Lord taught His disciples to pray, what did He teach them
to pray? Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be
done on earth as it is in heaven. In submitting to His will, we're
praying for His will to be done. The essence of holiness is seen
in our Lord's prayer to His Father in Gethsemane's garden when He
was contemplating the cup that He was going to be made to drink.
the cup of God's wrath, the cup of the sins of the elect and
all the horror of drinking that cup, three times he prayed, if
it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not
my will, but thine be done. Christ had a human will, or has
a human will, He has a divine will and the human will shrunk
at the thought of drinking that cup and being made sin and bearing
God's wrath. Yet his prayer, nevertheless,
not my will, but thine be done. That is all he wanted and that's
all you and I should want as well. We submit to God because
he's God. No other reason is needed. Submit. Right now, unconditional
surrender. He's God. He doesn't negotiate. He doesn't change. The thing
for you and I to do right now is to submit. If we submit to
God, it's seen in our submission to his Word. Now, people can talk about submitting
to God, but yet they don't submit to what the Bible says. Now,
I want to remind you. that this book, the Bible, the
book I'm preaching from, I just read from the Bible, submit yourselves
to God. This is the inspired Word of
God. Somebody says, how do you expect
me to believe something like that? How do you expect me to
believe that this book you're preaching from is the inspired,
inerrant Word of God? How do you expect me to believe
that? You believe that God created the universe. Somebody says,
no, I'm agnostic, I'm atheist. Well, I don't believe that. You
know somebody had to cause this creation. And you know that nobody
caused him. You can see that God is God. He's in complete control. And
if He is able to create a universe, He's able to inspire men to write
a book that reveals to us who He is. This is the inspired,
infallible Word of God. And what we think of God is seen
in how we submit to what He says in His Word. Don't dare sit in
judgment on His Word and pick out which part you agree with
and which part you do not. It's the Word of God. It's whole
and complete. And that man who picks out something
and says, I don't like that and I don't believe that, that's
a failure to submit to God. We submit to all He says in His
Word. There's nothing in it that's
unimportant or non-essential. Now, we submit to what God says
about Himself. In His Word, He reveals He's
holy. That means He's not like me and
you. He's altogether separate. He's other. He's absolutely pure. He's of two pure eyes to behold
iniquity. He's absolutely just according
to His Word, justice and judgment are the habitation of Thy throne.
Whatever He does is according to absolute pure justice. He's gracious. The Lord, the
Lord God, merciful and gracious. He's sovereign. That means He's
in complete control of everybody and everything. Do you know even
the thoughts going through your mind right now He's in control
of? Somebody says, I don't believe that. Well, He's in control of
that too. He's God, and He's in absolute control, and we submit
to all He says about Himself in His Word. He's the God of
the Bible. Somebody says, well, my God's
not like that. I know your God's not like that, but that's not
the living God. The living God is the God of the Bible, and
we submit to whatever He says regarding Himself, and we submit
to what He says in His Word regarding us. Let me give you a few scriptures.
Genesis chapter 6, verse 5. God saw that the wickedness of
man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Now, this is
what God says about me. This is what God says about you.
Every imagination of the thoughts of your heart is only evil continually. Now, submit to that. You say,
I can't see that. submit to it anyway. And really
you might not see it, but you look at the cross of the Lord
Jesus Christ. You and I are so bad that the
only way God could accept us is through what Christ did on
the cross. You're too bad. I'm too bad. The heart is desperately wicked,
deceitful above all things. That means incurable. Incurable.
The only way somebody like me or you could be saved is through
Christ coming and dying on Calvary's tree and satisfying God's justice
and putting away my sin. There's nothing I can do about
it. Romans 8, verses 6-8 says, the carnal mind, the fleshly
mind, the mind you were born with is enmity against God. It's not subject to the law of
God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the
flesh cannot please God. Romans 3, 10-12 says there's
none righteous, no, not one. There's none that understands.
There's none that seeketh after God. They've all gone out of
the way. They've together become unprofitable. There's none that
doeth good. No, not one. Now that's God's
testimony. And what am I called on to do?
Submit. I'm to submit to His way of salvation. Christ is all in salvation. I
submit to that. I love it. Salvation is by grace. I submit to that. I submit to
God electing a people before time began. People complain about
election. How can it be fair for God to
choose some and pass by others? How can it be fair for Christ
to not die for everybody? Hush that up. Whatever God does
is right. You and I aren't in the place
to sit in judgment on God and say, Well, this is, I don't think
that's fair. Whatever he does is fair. He's
right. And we submit, we submit to his way of saving in a way
that he gives all the glory and none goes to us. That's what's
called submission. We submit to his way of salvation. I want to read a scripture from
Romans chapter 10. I think that'll give a good explanation of what
I'm trying to talk about. In Romans chapter 10, beginning
in verse one, Paul said, brethren, My heart's desire and prayer
to God for Israel is that they might be saved. Two things let
me point out from that verse. These people were not saved and
Paul wanted them to be. He said my heart's desire and
prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. For I bear
them record that they have a zeal of God. They're very religious. but not according to knowledge. For they, being ignorant of God's
righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness,
have not, here's the word, submitted themselves to the righteousness
of God. Now, because they were ignorant
of God's character, they didn't really understand righteousness. Take the Ten Commandments. I
love the Ten Commandments. No other gods before me. The
commandment against idolatry, false ideas of God. The commandment
regarding taking his name in vain. The commandment concerning
the Sabbath day, and honor your father and mother. And thou shalt
not kill, thou shalt not adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt
not bear false witness, thou shalt not covet, the Holy Law
of God. If you think you've kept one
of those commandments one time you prove you don't really understand
the Law and you're ignorant of God's righteousness. Because
someone that's ignorant of God's righteousness they're going to
fail to submit to His righteous character. But what is this thing
of submitting to His righteousness? Now first of all If we submit
to his righteousness, we submit to the fact that he is right
in all that he does because he is righteous. He's altogether
righteous, altogether holy, altogether pure, altogether perfect. He's
the God of glory and he is righteous. We submit to his righteousness
when we submit to his righteousness in our damnation. If He casts
me off and sends me to hell, just, righteous, and holy is
His name. Whatever He does is righteous.
And we submit to that. We really believe that whatever
He does is right. And if He sent us to hell, it's
right. But not only do we submit to
His righteousness in our condemnation, we submit to His righteousness
in our salvation. If I'm saved, it magnifies the
righteousness of God. You see, my sins were punished. God's never going to let sin
go unpunished. My sins were punished in my substitute, the Lord Jesus
Christ. And his perfect righteousness,
just as truly as my sin became his sin, his righteousness becomes
my righteousness. And when God saves me, he's given
me what I deserve because I'm perfectly righteous before him
through the gospel. Have you ever submitted to the
righteousness of God? When I hear, he has made us accepted
in the beloved, I willingly and joyfully submit to that. When
I hear, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed and to sin, but
alive unto God through our Lord Jesus Christ, I submit to that. Whatever God says in his word,
we're called upon to submit to. or to submit to what He commands.
You know, God only speaks by commandment. When the scripture
says, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you know what? That's
a command. You are commanded, I am commanded
to believe, to trust, to rest in the Lord Jesus Christ as all
that is required to make me perfect before God. To know that everything
that God requires of me, He looks to His Son for, and I believe
on Him. God commands all men everywhere
to repent. Submit, repent, change your mind
about all the silly things you believe and the silly things
and the wrong things that are contrary to his word. Repent
and believe the gospel. The Lord said, "'If any man will
come after me, let him deny himself. "'Take up his cross and follow
me.'" What do I do if I submit? I deny myself. I take up my cross,
my confession of Christ, and I follow the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, in this thing of submission, whatever he says is sin, we submit
to it. Whatever he says is sin is sin.
In this thing of submission, there must be willingness. You know, the only way a woman
will submit to her husband is if she wants to. If the husband
tries to force her to, woman, submit to me. That's not going
to work. She's not going to submit. The only way a woman will submit
is because she wants to. Submission must be willing. Thy people shall be willing in
the day of thy power. Work out your own salvation with
fear and trembling, for it's God that worketh in you both
to will and to do his good pleasure. So my thought is, Lord, make
me willing. Cause me to submit by your grace. Cause me to submit. Don't let
me rebel. Don't let me stand away from
a complete, willing submission to who you are and what you say
in all things. Make me submit. Cause me to walk
in the way of thy statutes, David said. Teach me to do thy will. That's the desire of every believer.
Turn me, and I'll be turned, Jeremiah said. The psalmist said
in Psalm 80, Turn us again, O God of hosts, and cause thy face
to shine, and we'll be saved. I can't turn unless he turns
me. So I say, Lord, turn me. If I don't turn, I won't be saved.
Lord, turn me. Don't leave me to myself. Cause
me to turn. Submission. I think of our Lord
saying in 1 John 3, 14, He that loveth me keepeth my commandments.
He that loveth me keepeth my commandments. Love is behind
submission. If you love him, you'll keep his commandments.
And you're going to be honest about it. Somebody says, well, I keep
his commandments. Well, if you're talking about
the Ten Commandments, you're lying. You haven't kept one, one time.
And if you're a believer, you've kept them all because when Christ
obeyed the law for you, That became your keeping of the law.
And that since I don't try to keep the law, I do keep the law
because Christ kept the law for me. But in 1 John chapter 3,
we read his commandments. This is his commandment that
we believe on the name of his son and love one another as he
gave his commandment. Now, those are commandments every
believer's keep. I do believe on the name of his
son. I believe all of salvation is
in Christ. I'm resting in Christ and I love
my brethren. He that loveth the brethren is
passed from death to life. Every believer loves all those
who believe and is a sincere and real love to his person. For this is the love of God that
we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not
grievous or irksome. They're a joy to keep. Now, if
I submit to him, not only do I submit to his word, I submit
to His providence." Now somebody says, what do you mean by the
word providence? Everything that happens in time is God's Providence. It's what He ordained before
time. Everything that happens in time
is God doing what He determined to do. He's in control of everybody
and everything. Whoever is in office, wins an
election, it's His will. If someone's saved, it's His
will. If someone's not saved, they're
damned for their own sin, but He passed them by. He's in absolute
control. He said to Pharaoh, even for
this same purpose, have I raised thee up, that I might show my
power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout
all the earth. Therefore hath He mercy on whom He will have
mercy, and whom He will, He hardens. Now regarding everything that
happens, listen to this scripture. 1 Thessalonians 5, 18, Paul said,
in everything, give thanks. In everything, give thanks. For this is the will of God in
Christ Jesus concerning you. Whatever it is you're going through,
it's God's will. He is in control of everything. It's called that good and acceptable
and perfect will of God. The believer has this promise.
And we know that all things work together for good to them that
love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
Now, something a believer should never say is, I'm not happy. I'm not happy. God's in control. Whatever happens, happens because
of His will. You mean even a baby dying? Well, I'm glad God's in control
of that. Even a natural disaster, God's
in control of that. He's absolutely sovereign. What
if I find out I have cancer? God's in control of that. Whatever,
fill in the blank, it's the Lord. When Samuel came to Eli and said,
God's going to kill your two boys, he said, it's the Lord.
Let him do what seemeth him good. When Shammai's cursing David
and throwing rocks at him and throwing dust in the air and
saying, you're a bloody man, and Abshai says, you want me
to take off his head? David said, no, the Lord said, curse David. David understood that. Here Shimei
is cursing him and David understood it's because the Lord told him
to do it. That's why he's doing it. Job said, Naked came I out
from the womb, naked shall I return. The Lord giveth and the Lord
taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. He's in control of everything. So everything in providence,
that doesn't mean things are easy. I have trials, I have troubles,
you do too. Man that's born of woman is born
to trouble as the sparks fly upward. But God is in control
of everything and with regard to his will, we submit. You know
what meekness is? Blessed are the meek, for they
shall inherit the earth. Most people think, well, that's
weakness. It's not weakness. It's the greatest of strength.
A meek man or woman is someone who accepts whatever God does
as good because he did it. It's a recognition of the absolute
sovereign authority of God It's Him doing this, therefore we
receive it as good because it comes from a wise heavenly Father's
hand who's too wise to err, too kind to be cruel, too strong
to have anything outside of His absolute control. So when we
submit to God, we submit to His Word, we submit to what He says
about Himself, we submit to what He says about us, sinners. We submit to what He says about
salvation, how salvation is of the Lord. It's all of His grace. It's all of His doing. And we
submit to His providence. It's all good. Whatever He does
is good because He did it. And let me read a couple of other
scriptures. I don't have time to deal with
these right now, but let me read this. Hebrews chapter 13, verse
17, we read, Obey them that have the rule over you. And submit
yourselves, for they watch for your souls as they that must
give account, that they may do it with joy and not with grief,
for that's unprofitable for you." Now he's talking about the pastor.
If someone is a pastor, submit to what they say if they're preaching
the gospel. Submit. You need a pastor. Nobody makes
a good pastor to themselves. So submit to the pastor if he's
preaching the gospel. I can't say there's a whole lot
of pastors that are just professional preachers. I wouldn't submit
to them. I wouldn't listen to anything they're saying because
they don't preach the gospel. They're false prophets. But if someone's preaching
the gospel, submit to them. Listen to what they have to say.
Be persuaded by them. Listen to the gospel they're
preaching. And then we read in Romans chapter 13 verse 1, submit
yourself to every ordinance for the Lord's sake. The powers that
be ordained of God. Let every soul be subject to
the higher powers. Whatever authority God has put
in place, submit yourself to. He put it in place. Somebody
says, well, what if I don't agree with him? Well, he still put
him in place. Whoever's in authority, you submit to him. Scripture
says he bears not the sword in vain. Now, police officer, Teacher,
employer, whatever authority it is, submit yourself to that
authority because God has placed them there. And then I love what
Ephesians 5, 21 says, submitting yourselves to one another in
the fear of God, showing deference to one another, taking the lowest
seat in the house. Submissive people, submitting
themselves one to another out of love. And like I said, the
only way anybody's ever going to submit is if they do so willingly. Submit yourselves, therefore,
to God. We have this message on DVD and
CD. If you call the church, write
or email, we'll send you a copy. This is Todd Kniper, praying
that God will be pleased to make Himself known to you. That's
our prayer. Amen. To request a copy of the sermon you have
just heard, send your request to messages at toddsroadgracechurch.com. Or you may write or call the
church at the information provided on the screen.