Stuart Briscoe tells the story of a young man who reached his 18th birthday. To celebrate, he asked his Dad for the car keys to go out with his friends. His Dad said, "It’s a school night; we want you home by 10:30." The young man said, “I’m 18 years old now. Nobody can tell me what to do.” And the father said, “OK, it is getting hard to tell you what to do. But I’m keeping the keys and you can walk to be with your friends.
The next day he went to football practice at school, but he got there late. When the coach saw him coming out on the field, late, he told him to do 30 push-ups. And he said, “Coach, I’m 18 years old now. Nobody can tell me what to do.” And the coach said, “OK, if that’s the way you want it, you’re off the team.”
With extra time on his hands, he got a job after school. But one day the boss told him to sweep up a mess and he didn’t think that should be part of his job, so he said, “I’m 18 years old now. Nobody can tell me what to do.” And the boss said, “That’s your choice, but if that’s your attitude, you’re fired.”
There was this one major paper that was due in his hardest class and he really didn’t want to do it. So he put it off and he put it off. And when the teacher asked him for it, you know what he said, “I’m 18 years old now. Nobody can tell me what to do.” The teacher said, “That’s your choice, but you get an F for the course.”
Now it seemed like everything was going wrong for him in his hometown. So he joined the army in hopes of having some adventures and having freedom from all the people that bugged him at home. On the third day of boot camp, the sergeant ran them to exhaustion and then told them to do another 50 pushups. And he said, “Listen sergeant, I’m 18 years old now. Nobody can tell me what to do.” And I’m not telling you what the sergeant said because I don’t use that kind of language. But it was not a happy day for this young man.
And, of course, it is very appropriate for an 18 year old to be learning to think for himself. Every teenager has the developmental task of branching out, making a healthy separation from his or her parents. And wise parents encourage that branching out and do their best to support it.
But all of us, at every age, need to learn to submit to others at the appropriate time. This is something practical. Every group needs people to bend their individual wishes in order to help the group fulfill its common goals. Those who never learn how and when to be submissive will spend their lives banging into walls as they fight battle after battle that is totally unnecessary. So submission is a very practical thing to learn.
But it is also a very deep spiritual lesson. I am convinced that if someone has never learned to submit to their fellow human beings, whom they can see, then neither have they learned to submit to God, whom they can’t see.
And so, the Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Ephesian church, was sure to give them the instruction to be in submission to one another. Actually our text translates it, ‘Be subject to one another,” but the thought is the same. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. We’ll read Ephesians 5:15-21, but our emphasis this morning is just on verse 21.
15 Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, 16 making the most of the time, because the days are evil. 17 So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 18 Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, 19 as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, 20 giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 21 Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Submission, to be subject to one another, runs against the grain of our culture. Old timers loved the Frank Sinatra song, “I did it my way.” Burger King promises that when we come in for a burger they’ll let you “have it your way.” You can’t do it your way and be in submission to someone else at the same time. You can’t.
And the result is a world of chaos, like someone trying to herd a flock of cats, with every group activity required endless negotiation and complication.
As an example of the chaos, I remember back to driving across country on family vacations. The sign on the interstate says that 2 miles ahead you can have your choice of Arby’s, McDonalds, Taco Bell, or Subway. One calls out for Taco Bell. One wants Subway. Another wants Arby’s, another wants McDonalds. And somebody insists that we just have to hold out for Wendy’s, which we’ll certainly find at the next exit. And it wasn’t a discussion that got resolved within 2 miles on the interstate. And more than once I resolved it by just announcing, “All right, we’re going to McDonalds.” And McDonalds really did work just fine for everyone.
And last May we had the van full again for a family gathering for my parents’ wedding anniversary. And you know what? They’ve grown up. We handled it just fine. All of those restaurants have food that any one of us could enjoy. It’s just not worth fighting over.
We often misunderstand what submission means. Does it mean becoming a doormat, just doing everything you are told? For little children that’s mostly it. They mostly should do what they are told. But adults are being told to do lots of different things by lots of different people and it only makes sense to choose.
There’s a story of a little boy who kept standing up on the pew at church. His parents gently asked him to sit down, but he didn’t do it. They told him more directly, but he still ignored them. Finally his mother threatened that if he didn’t sit down immediately he’d have no TV privileges for a week. And to him a week sounded like forever.
He sat down, but he leaned over and said to his sister, “I may be sitting down on the outside, but I’m still standing up on the inside.”
He finally obeyed his parents, but did he ever submit? No, he was just waiting for the next opportunity to defy them. He was still in a fighting mode inside.
And even the apostle Peter refused to obey when the high priest told him to stop preaching about Jesus. Our first submission is to obey God. But he did it with a respectful attitude.
Submission is an attitude that puts others first, that chooses to let go of control over your own life for the sake of helping the group working together or for the sake of good order. It’s an attitude. But that willingness to let go of control, to put others first, to take ourselves off the throne of our lives and follow God and those whom God puts over us, is a hard. Many Americans just plain refuse to let go.
Does submission mean you have to keep your mouth shut? No, you can very respectfully ask a question of parents or teachers or bosses or other authority figures. You can make suggestions. You should make suggestions. And when you have a cooperative attitude, often those suggestions will be welcomed.
Children need to learn to submit to parents. If parents never teach them how to submit, they’ll be banging their heads into walls their entire lives. And sincere questions should always be welcomed.
Students need to learn to submit to teachers. Every parent has that moment when your child comes home and says, “I hate my teacher. I can’t learn anything in that class.” And wise parents say, “Oh, yes you can. You just have to work at it. You need to learn to submit even to someone you don’t like.”
We all need to learn to submit to our doctors, to follow good medical advice. If you don’t, you pay.
We all need to learn to submit to our governments and obey the laws. If you don’t, there’s chaos and you pay.
Kathy and I have learned many ways of submitting to each other. When there are color decisions, she’s way better than I am, so I’m glad to go with her taste, even if it means that about a third of the time when I pick out my own outfit she sends me back upstairs to change the necktie.
Sometimes she’s more assertive than I am and it has been good for me to have her push me a little bit.
She leaves me to make most of the financial decisions. I always discuss them with her, but she mostly just tells me to do what I think best because she trusts me.
I pity couples who have to check up on each other and negotiate everything out. It’s so much easier to develop your own rolls about who does what and then just trust each other.
Wise people look for those to whom they can submit, people from whom they can learn. We have set it as the mission of our church to make disciples. And the process for becoming a disciple requires that we find a wise teacher and submit ourselves to be taught.
And most important we all need to submit to God, by opening our hearts to him, loving him, and obeying his commandments. And it you don’t, you pay.
And there are a few people who will openly refuse to submit to God. They’ll call themselves atheists or agnostics. They may join some occult group that summons up the devil in defiance of God. But that’s rare.
But much more often, we’ll openly say, sure God I love you and I’ll obey you. And then just go right on doing what we want. We hear something new of God’s commandments. But a month later has our life changed because of it? No. That’s because we are doing it our own way. And we say we will follow God, but our actions show it isn’t true.
I remember my basketball coach telling us how to play defence. He said that if your guy has the ball, he may fake with the ball or his feet or his eyes this way and that. But watch his belly button. Where his belly button goes, that’s what he’s really up to.
We know that we are really submitted to God when we obey him. We know that we really love God when we love to follow his commandments.
This morning I invite us all to look deep inside and ask, “Am I submitting myself where God wants me to submit? Or am I just barreling along, going my own way? Who is really on the throne of my life? What evidence is there that I am bowing my heart and soul and submitting to God? Could it be that I am still in rebellion, doing it my way? Am I going to trust? Am I going to obey? As we come forward to receive communion, I invite you to bow your knee before God and bow your heart before God. AMEN
