Submitting in Faith

The gospel, the good news, is that we have a king who has come and delivered us from all our enemies through his life, death, resurrection, and ascension. But if you believe this gospel, and if you believe it is good news for all of life, for the entire world, then your mission is to see this reality impressed upon everything you do and touch. And this is the pattern of death and resurrection. And this means we need to continually go back and study and remember how Christ died. And notice two things: first, when Christ went to the cross, when he willingly suffered the scourging and the beating, the false accusations and the mockery, he did not suddenly begin to agree with his accusers. Dying did not mean that Christ actually decided he wasn’t the Messiah, the King of Israel, and the Savior of the World. In fact it was because he fundamentally disagreed with the proceedings that he endured the shame and excruciating pain of the cross. Second, Hebrews says that Jesus endured the shame of the cross for the joy that was set before him. In other words, Jesus believed unswervingly that God would raise him from the dead. And here is the point, all of you are called to submit in various ways and at various times. You may need to submit to your parents, to your husband, to elders or pastors, or civil authorities. And just so get the picture, Paul says that all Christians must submit to one another. Submission means letting go of whatever it is that you wanted and obeying. It means dying to self, valuing the other person more highly, and following. Now sometimes you will submit and midway through you’ll realize that the other person was right and you were wrong and thank God for that. But it’s very possible that you may be asked to submit to unreasonable demands, what you consider unjust punishment, or just unkind directions. The requirement to submit does not mean that you change your mind, it doesn’t mean that you must suddenly agree with your accuser, Jesus didn’t change his mind. We submit to authorities because we ultimately submit to God the judge of all men. He sees us, he hears our prayers, and we believe that he is the God who vindicates his people. And so the call to submit is the call to trust God, trust the God who sees all and raises the dead. This is the gospel, the good news, that our king has remade this world such that you cannot be finally defeated by any enemy.