Mutual Submission 1983

In the second lesson for today, we read, May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, according to Christ Jesus, that together you may, with one voice, glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Such harmony. I'd like to share some things that I believe the Spirit is dealing with us in, so that we can have that harmony.

And I'd like to begin by reading one verse, the 21st verse of the fifth chapter of Ephesians. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Once we've come into the kingdom of God, surrendered our lives into the hands of Jesus, tasted the power of the world to come, this life, which God has then put in us, won't just by itself automatically stay there and grow.

No, it has to have some cooperation from our side, just like that seed that gets dropped in the soil can only grow and develop if the soil is ripe. So once God has put his life in us in this way, in order for that life to stay and increase and develop in us, there are three relationships that we have to maintain all the time. A relationship with God, a relationship with each other, and a relationship with the anguish of the world.

A relationship with God does not take care of itself automatically. There are things that we have to do. We have to listen to him.

We have to take the trouble to seek his face. We have to pray. We have to walk in the light that he gives us.

A relationship with each other doesn't sustain itself automatically, but it takes work. A new commandment I give you, says Jesus, and a commandment means it's something we have to do, that you love one another as I have loved you, that you love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

If our relationship with each other in the body becomes weak or sick, very quickly our relationship with God also becomes weak and sick. Then there's that relationship with the anguish of the world. And that too is something we have to work on.

It doesn't take care of itself. Just as the Father sent Jesus out into the world, so he now sends us out into a world that is indifferent to God, often hostile to God and the things of God, in order to bring good news to the poor, deliverance to the captive, sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed. If we, in whatever way, ignore that command to go out and touch the anguish of the world and we kind of withdraw into our own safe little enclave, very quickly we lose touch both with God and with each other.

And so in all the teaching that goes on in this fellowship, here in the assembly and in the smaller groups, it's certainly been stressed over the years that if the purpose of the kingdom of God is going to be fulfilled in our lives, we are responsible to keep maintaining the relationship with God, our relationship with each other, and our relationship with the anguish of the world. Now, we certainly are aware of the fact that all three areas require work, plenty of room for improvement in all three of these areas in every one of our lives. But if someone were to ask, which of the three have we as a fellowship here tended to neglect, I think most of us would agree it would be area number two, our relationship with each other.

Most of us here have been more diligently seeking the face of God and more conscientiously reaching out and touching the world than we have been fitting in with each other. This has always been a problem for us. And many of us can remember those who were around here nine years ago, about nine years ago we had a series of congregational meetings where we were going to try to rectify this.

And we read this book by Michael Harper, A New Way of Living, describing a Christian community as practiced by brothers and sisters in a flock down in Houston. We had at least 50 of these books floating around, everybody was reading them, and we would get together and we would talk and we'd have each other over for dinner, try to get to know each other better, thought about ways in which we could tighten up the structures of our congregational life somehow. And when it was all said and done, we were still more comfortable seeking the face of God and more comfortable reaching out to the world than in fitting in with each other.

In recent months, and certainly in recent weeks, the Spirit of the Lord has been speaking to us again about this matter. It's been coming up in the assembly here in prayers and prophecies. It's been coming up on Wednesday nights, and it's been coming up, I'm sure, in the smaller groups as well, everywhere that we hear the voice of the Spirit calling us to really do something about this, that we do need to fit in with each other better than we're doing, that we do need to somehow learn to function as people who have been knit together in the body as members of one another.

And the area that needs work in this area, number two, our relationship with each other, is not, first of all, changing our structures or doing things about our organization. That may come, too. But the place where it has to begin, and I'm sure we agree with this, is in our hearts.

That's where it begins. Reading from Ephesians chapter five, starting in verse 15. Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise, making the most of the time because the days are evil.

Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit. Addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, always and for everything, giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God, the Father.

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Our submission to Jesus only takes on flesh and blood when it's translated also into submission to those who are part of his body, to each other. Only when we begin to submit to each other, serve each other, fit in with each other, yield to each other.

Reading from John chapter 13, verse one. Now, before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of the world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. And during supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, that he had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper, laid aside his garments and girded himself with a towel.

Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples feet and to wipe them with a towel with which he was girded. He came to Simon Peter. Peter said to him, Lord, you wash my feet.

Jesus answered him, what I am doing now, you do not understand. But afterward you will understand. Peter said to him, you shall never wash my feet.

Peter answered him, if I do not wash you, you have no part in me. Simon Peter said to him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. Jesus said to him, he who has bathed does not need to wash except for his feet, but is clean all over.

Here we see Jesus cleansing his disciples, not by lording it over them, but by submitting to them, by putting himself under them, by laying aside his glory and getting down there and serving them. This is always how Jesus brings life to his body, by emptying himself of his glory, by laying down his life so that they might have life. And now he, Jesus, our Lord and master, who laid down his life for us, is calling us to do precisely this for each other.

Our submission to Jesus is not real until it begins to take shape as submission to our brothers and sisters, to each other in the body, until we begin to get down there and wash each other's feet, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. And this runs all through the new covenant, the gospels and the epistles, reading from Colossians chapter three, starting at verse 12, put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, and patience, forbearing one another. And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And to put on love, to put love into action, is to submit ourselves to each other out of reverence for Christ. Mutual submission.

Now, what does it mean to submit to each other? It means several things. First of all, mutual submission means commitment to each other, means that we commit ourselves to each other out of reverence for Christ. When a man and woman marry, they commit themselves to each other for better or for worse.

They covenant to be faithful to each other as long as they're both alive. Now, when we come into the kingdom of God, there is a similar and deeper, really, commitment that we make to Jesus. And this commitment, which we make to our Lord, carries right down into the body.

If I'm committed to Jesus, that means that I am also committed to every single member of his body anywhere on this earth and beyond the earth. But particularly and especially, I am committed to those people to whom God has joined me in the congregation, wherever that is. And every one of us has to find out where that is for him or for her.

But it's somewhere. These people in this congregation, where God has put me, have become then flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone. We belong together.

We're going to fit in with each other. We're committed to each other. We're going to stick with each other, no matter what.

Mutual submission. Also means that we honor each other out of reverence for Christ. When I submit to you, that means I'm putting myself under you.

Submit, put myself under. And in doing so, I honor you. I'm showing you respect.

So, you know, if I'm truly submitted to Jesus, then I owe that kind of honor to every member of his body on earth. So it's not our problem to make sure everybody honors us. How come people don't honor me? How come nobody shows me? I get no respect.

That's not our problem. Our problem, our responsibility is to make sure that we show respect to every member of that body, to the poor and to the rich, to the swift of mind and to the slow of mind and to the confused of mind, to the old and to the young, to the mature and to the immature. Honor to treat each one, each one as royalty, as a son or a daughter of heaven itself.

When I catch myself veering from that and starting to think otherwise of this person or that, and the spirit convicts me, I need to repent immediately. Very important that we show high, high, high honor to each other out of reverence for Christ. Neutral submission also means that we forgive and forbear with each other out of reverence for Christ.

Forbearing, one another, Paul says in Colossians 3. That means giving each other the benefit of the doubt, you know, making allowance for each other. Oh, I mean, he's a Christian. He shouldn't be like that.

Having a generous, kind, gracious attitude toward our brothers and sisters. And if any has a complaint against another, he says in Colossians 3, forgiving each other. As Christ has forgiven you, so you must also forgive, he says to us.

And so if we take this seriously and we're going to be in submission to each other, this means that the grudges go out the window and the resentments go on the ash heap and that our unity with each other is, and our hearts are ruled by forgiveness and forbearance. And if we're having trouble, God gives us lots of practice with each other to learn how to do that. You know, how else are we going to learn how to do it if God doesn't give us a little practice? And the place where we get to practice is in the body, not outside.

It's in the body. That's what we learn. To forgive and to forbear.

Neutral submission also means that we intercede for each other, pray for each other. See, do I care enough about these people to take the time to lift their name up before the throne of God every day? I mean, surely we pray for our families. I mean, if the kingdom of God is at all important to us and if our families are at all important to us, surely we have the time to take our wife, our husband, our mother, our father, our children, our grandchildren, brothers and sisters and all family by name, lifting them before the throne and asking God to pour out blessings on them.

That's essential. See, and now this extends out into the family of God into which we've been put. And now we begin to pray by name or if we don't know their name, at least by face for these people.

Somebody says, that's really asking too much. I mean, I don't have time for that. But don't say that and don't complain about it until you try.

You know, this is a suggestion to get started. If there are those who aren't doing it, start with 30 or 40 names, write them down, memorize them any way you choose and take these names and lift them up before the throne every day. This week, take the time to do this.

Pretty soon you'll find yourself with much more than 40 or 50 names. It doesn't take that long. And it will do something.

Suddenly you begin to see these people with a different eye and they will begin perhaps to see us with a different eye. And some people who maybe we have clashes with will be clashing with us for a long time yet, but we'll be praying for them. And it will make a tremendous difference in our relationship.

And it will give us a sense of the body is the body in a way we could never have it any other way. Finally, mutual submission means to wash each other's feet, to refresh each other, to encourage each other. You know, this brother, this sister comes in from the world and they're really discouraged.

It's been really going hard. Now we wash their feet and we bring them back to life by washing their feet. We refresh them with a handshake, a smile, a cup of coffee, sandwich, a kind word, a letter, a phone call, a favor, a song, a hymn, a spiritual song.

We worry far too much about how come nobody ever washes my feet? You know, we stand there and challenge anybody to come and wash our dirty feet. The best thing we can do is just start washing other feet. And in the mystery, pretty soon, our dirty feet will come clean.

God will take care of it. He absolutely will submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Our vision of God and our effectiveness out there in the world are directly connected with our unity with each other.

If we're not in unity with each other, our vision of the Lord is going to be very weak and our message to the world will be very weak. Or off the track, if we are in unity with each other, we will see Jesus and the world will hear his voice through us. And so the spirit of the Lord has been speaking to us and is speaking to us again, calling us to take this seriously and to learn from him what it means to submit ourselves to each other out of reverence for Christ.

And if we will do this, we will commit ourselves to each other. Honor each other, forgive and forbear each other, pray for each other. Wash each other's feet.

Our vision of Jesus will become more clear than it's ever been. And our power to bring life to the world will be greater than we've ever known. In a few minutes, we're going to come together to the Lord's table to eat his body, drink his blood, to be unified around him, to be refreshed.

As we eat this food and commune with him, the Lord in a wonderful mystery gets down again and washes our feet and then he gets up and he speaks to us and he says, do you know what I've done to you? You call me teacher and Lord. You are right, for so I am. If I then your Lord and teacher have washed your feet, you also want to wash one another's feet, for I've given you an example that you should also do as I have done.