Sermon Central
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Submission Series
Contributed by John Oscar on Aug 29, 2022 (message contributor)
Summary: Father's Day Message- Pastor John explains how biblical submission to authority is both protective and necessary to live productive lives filled with Christ's power.
Father’s Day 2022
Ephesians Series
CCCAG, Father’s Day 2022
Scripture: Ephesians 5:21-6:4
Early in my military career I had a guy in my unit named Ross. Ross was always in trouble with the NCO’s and other leadership in the unit. He would always question orders, be disrespectful, and try to dodge work and doing his duty to the squad and platoon. One day, he mouthed off one too many times and the company commander put him up for a field grade article 15 with consideration to take him to court martial.
Eventually, they found him guilty of refusing to obey lawful orders and disrespecting his chain of command which would have gotten him time in Leavenworth military prison. He managed to plea bargain it down to a lesser sentence of a general discharge from the military because of his inability to adapt to military lifestyle.
What Ross never learned is one of the principal things that is wrong with our world today. Let me show you what it is.
Close your eyes-
I’m going to say a word, and I want you be honest with yourself and judge if you have a visceral, negative reaction.
Submission
How many of you can honestly say, “I don’t’ like that word? I’m a free person- a free American living in a free country and I don’t submit to anyone.
‘Merica!
That reaction is the reason our country and world is in such chaos, is because everyone hates that word. It’s the same reason everyone is turning away from Christ
Many believe this idea of submission is antiquated. “We don’t do that anymore”
And I know we always want to put at the world outside of the church as the source of everything bad- and blaming it definitely has its place.
But it’s not the primary reason that we are seeing this rebellion.
It comes from a concerted effort that began in the 1960’s to break down the family. Now the world and the forces of darkness have had their role in the destruction of this vital cornerstone of human existence.
Premise- However, a large part it that destruction came from a lack of biblical submission to authority, and that authority is first experienced in and through the family.
As we finish up our series on the book of Ephesians, I want to explore how that submission beings in the home and sets up a framework in which we can learn that vital biblical, Godly, and moral attribute and to live it.
Let’s read the scripture for today before breaking it down-
21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church—30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Prayer
I said a few moments ago that the reason the world and even the church is in such a mess is a lack of understanding and living under submission. I used the example of a soldier I knew that got kicked out of the army for not learning that lesson and living it as a member of the military.
But it’s not just about rank and authority. I know that this idea of submission can be uncomfortable… make us want to puff out our chest a little and say, “I’m not submitting to anyone!”
But that’s not God’s way.
Let me begin to biblically define this word- Submission is about humility- realizing that there are things that are larger than yourself. It will mean being willing to put your immediate wants and desires aside to make sure that thing is put first in your life.
