The Church of Eleven22 - S02E25 - Submit to One Another Out of Reverence for Christ

Episode Date: September 27, 2021

A great relationship with one another is ultimately defined by mutual submission out of reverence for Christ. Whether it be in marriage, between children and parents or between bosses and employees, may we humble ourselves and submit ourselves to one another, just as Christ did for us.

Welcome to Deepen with Pastor Joby Martin. The Church of 1122 is a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus Christ. And we're praying this message helps you deepen your relationship with him. Now let's dive in. Howdy Church family. Welcome back to Deep and Devo as we continue in our one another series. It comes today from Ephesians chapter 5 verse 21. And it's an often overlooked verse because,

of the weightiness, and maybe even for some people, some of the controversy in the verse below it. And Ephesians 521 says, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Part of reason I want to talk about that verse this week is this past weekend we just went through Jesus' betrayal in the Garden of Gassimony. And the way I see it,

that really the theme in John chapter 18 is that of submission, And you'll remember the guards come up. They're carrying torches and swords, and they ask for Jesus. And when Jesus identifies themselves, the guards submit, but not in a, like, submit their life to the Lord kind of way, more of like a UFC kind of submit. Like they fall on the ground in fear. So there's that kind of submission.

And every single human being will submit to the Lordship of Christ. You'll either submit in calling him your Lord or you will submit to his judgment, but we all will submit. So they submit that way. Judas betrays Jesus, so ultimately what he does is submit to the demonic. The Bible says that the enemy or the devil fills him, and he submits to that, and it leads him down a very, very dark road that ends in his own suicide. And so if you've ever had thoughts like that, do not submit to that.

Call us, let us help you. Peter, remember Peter at first, he's like, I'm not submitting to anybody. Jesus, I would die for you. I would lay down my life for you. And then Jesus says, are you sure? Because I think you're going to, I know that you're going to, I know that you're going to betray me before the rooster crows in the morning, and then Peter's like, no way, not me.

And so he chops off a guy's ear. But eventually what we see in the life of Peter is he submits to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. But it's a bit of a delayed submission. And then Jesus is the ultimate example of what submission looks like. Jesus in the Garden of Gassimini says, Father, not my will, but your will be done.

He submits to the will of the Father. Now, Ephesians 521 says, submit to one another out of reference for Christ. So in other words, as Christ submitted to the Father, we should be submitted to one another. And submission doesn't mean that you're a doormat. Submission doesn't mean you just do what anybody else tells you to do. Submission doesn't mean you're not valuable. No, no, no. Submission is just to make somebody else's deal a bigger deal than my deal.

That's what it is. That's what submission is. Submission's like, no, no, no, you go first. And the reason that we submit to one another is not because the other person is submittable to. It's not necessarily because they earned it. It's not necessarily because they deserve it. It's not because they're smarter than you. It's not because they're more valuable than you.

No, no, no, it's simply this. You submit to one another because you revere Christ. And as Christ submitted himself to the Father and this part will make your head blow up if you think about it too much. and Christ has submitted himself to you. Think about this. When Christ is in the Garden of Gassimony, and he's talking about this cup that God has, let this cup pass before me, pass from me,

he's talking about the cup of the wrath of God that would be poured out on the sin of humanity. Whose sin is that? That's our sin. And ultimately, what Jesus does when he says, not my will, but your will be done, he makes himself lower than us. He becomes sin on the cross, that the wrath of God would be poured out on him

so that whoever would believe in him, he would give us his righteousness and lift us up. That the almighty king of the universe at the cross made your deal a bigger deal than his deal. Now, it was ultimately for his glory, but in that moment, when he paid your sin debt, he took responsibility for things that were not his. fault. So then that's the banner over which we get what's called the household code. And in Ephesians

five, and it leaks into six, Paul is going to instruct us on how we are as believers to relate to one another. He's going to talk about marriage. He's going to talk about parenting. And in our context, he's going to talk about work. So again, the banner is, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. A great relationship is ultimately defined by mutual submission. And then he gets into the specifics. And he says, wives, submit to your own husbands. Now, there's a lot of people that wrestle against that, but you need to see it in the context of what he just said, that we are to be mutually submitted one to another. Therefore, wives submit to your own husbands. It doesn't say women submit to men anywhere in the Bible. It says wives submit to your own husbands as unto

the Lord. Why? Because as you revere Christ and the way God has ordained the household, the husband is the head of the house, therefore wives you are to submit. And then it actually raises the bar for the husband. It doesn't say husband's lead or husbands you're the boss. It doesn't. It says husbands love your wives. And how? As Christ loved the church. Well, how did Christ love the church? He submitted himself, he submitted his glory to the penalty of sin so that the church could thrive, so that the church could happen, so that men and women can be saved. So what does that look like? It looks like an ongoing submission competition between husbands and wives.

The wife ultimately is trying to help her husband feel like the man God created him to be, and then the husband is simultaneously like Jesus getting up from the table, dressing himself as a servant, washing her feet, serving, serving, serving. It's no, you go first, no, you go first, no, you go first, no you go first. It's a submission competition. That's what it is. Out of reverence for Christ. And then, and I preached entire sermons on that, so feel free to go look those up. And then the next category is he talks to parents.

He says, children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. I want you to understand this. There is no expiration date on this. Now, if you're grown, you're not a child. Sure, your parents don't have authority over you anymore like they did when you were a child. But the first commandment with a promise in the Ten Commandments is that we would honor our father and mother. And so no matter how old you are, if you're a little kid, for sure, you obey your parents, you do what they say. And as you grow up and as your parents grow old, we continuously honor them. And in honoring our parents, what we're doing is we are submitting ourselves to them. Look, man, I try to call my dad and my mom and just talk to them and hear from them and ask their

advice. And ultimately what I'm trying to do is just honor them. And that's a part of the way that I submit. And then it says fathers. Now, for sure, this applies to fathers and mothers, but dads, let me just tell you, dad, your words just carry more weight. They just do. And ultimately what Paul's going to say to the dads is he says, fathers, do not exasperate your children. To exasperate your kids is to put them in a no-win situation. Pay attention to the way that you speak to your children. Pay attention to the way you say their name. When your kids hear you call their name, do they associate that with a good thing or a bad thing?

I mean, do you say their name as if you're calling them out in a business? punishing them? Well, if you're doing that, then you're not treating them the way Jesus treated you. Because when Jesus called our name, he called it with a tenderness to call us unto himself. If we know him, if we're his child, that's how he says our name. He doesn't call our name like Joby, that's not how he does it. And so what the Bible would have us understand, children and parents, that it is a submission competition, that what we are supposed to do is not exasperate them, not provoke them to anger, that our job as parents is discipline and instruction. That means correct and coach, not catch and punish.

That's very, very different. Does God just catch and punish you, or does he discipline and instruct us? Well, he disciplines and instructs us. And we should love and submit ourselves to that relationship. relationship with our children out of reverts for Jesus. In other words, your kids' idea of God will be primarily shaped by who you are as their father primarily, but moms, this counts for you to. And so, submit yourselves one to another. And then he gets into bond servants and masters. Now, this word bond servant in chapter six, verse five, you can't think transatlantic slavery

of the Americas because it was a completely different thing. When the Bible, the Greek word in the New Testament is doulas, all right, dulos. And it means bond servant. This was not based on ethnicity. There were people from all different ethnicities that could fall into this bond servant category. The closest equivalent today would be employer-employee.

And he says, bond servants obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with sincere heart as you would Christ. Now, the thing about a bond servant is they could buy their freedom. It wasn't slavery like we think about slavery. In fact, in other places in the scripture, man stealing is a sin. So the Bible does not condone it. But the way that we should probably think about these instructions in our daily life

is more like employer-employee. And so, employee, if you have a boss, did a part of the way that we submit to one another, a part of the way that you submit to your boss is not just do what he or she tells you to do. Anybody can do that. But that we are supposed to have goodwill from the heart towards your boss. That we are supposed to have goodwill from the heart towards our employer, towards our boss, towards our managers. Let me ask you this. Are you submitting to your boss out of reverence for Christ? And again, I know I'm confident that you're smarter than your boss. I'm confident that your manager makes dumb decisions.

I'm confident that if you were in charge, you would do everything better. Of course you would. You're the smartest person you know. But in the meantime, God is sovereign over those relationships and a part of the way we're going to display the gospel is that you need to choose to have a sincere heart towards your boss as you would Christ. and not by the way of eye service as people pleasers,

but as bond service of Christ doing the will of God from the heart. How do you do that? I'll tell you how you do that. If you begin to find that you have a negative attitude towards your boss, then you start praying for them. Not praying about them, dear God, please help my boss not be so dumb. That's not praying for them. But I promise you, if you will begin to pray for the people

that are above you in your organization, what God will begin to do, even if he doesn't change them, he will begin to change your heart towards them. And then, if one day you become the boss, then he says, all right, masters or bosses, do the same for them. Don't threaten, knowing that he, who is both their master and yours, is in heaven.

In other words, even if you're the top dog on the org chart, you're not the top dog in the cosmos. Every single one of us have a, boss. And I can tell you this, when I became the boss, I thought, uh-oh, because when I was sitting in the back row as a youth pastor of the church, I felt like I knew everything and what everybody should do. And then one day said, all right, the Lord said, all right, scooter, it's your turn. And I had a brand new understanding of what it meant to be in charge. And so if you are in charge, then we should submit ourselves to one another. Because what did Jesus do when he was

in charge. He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but he humbled himself. He was obedient to become a human being, dress himself in flesh, even obedient to be a servant, and that obedience took him all the way to the cross. And in his obedience and humbling himself, God at just the right time will lift him up and he will reign forever and ever and ever. So, as Christ has lowered himself for us so that we could be exalted with him one day. Therefore, you in every relationship, husband's wives, children, parents, employ your employer-employee. May we, based on the example of Christ filled with the spirit of God, may we humble ourselves and submit ourselves to one another. Let's pray.

Your Father in heaven, Lord, we thank you for the practicality of your word. God, I pray for the marriages that are tuning in right now, Lord, I pray that marriages would be defined by mutual submission. God, I pray for the relationships between parents and kids. God, I pray for the parents that are just, I mean, they just feel like they're at the end of the rope with their kid. And Lord, I pray that we would be reminded that when we were at the end of the rope with the Lord, and he came down on a rescue mission for us. God, I pray for folks when they go to work. I pray that you would give them hearts for their employers,

that they would pray for them and love them and serve them well. And God, I pray for all the bosses that have people that work for them. Lord, I pray, just as Christ did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but he humbled himself that we too would humble ourselves and that we would submit to one another out of reverence for you. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.

Thank you for joining us for Deepen with Pastor Jobi Martin. If you're looking for additional resources to help you further deepen your relationship with Jesus Christ, visit COE22.com slash resources. We're praying this message you heard today helps you experience God in a unique and fresh way. And as always, be free.