Sermon Tone Analysis

2008-04-20 Ephesians 5:21-33 Submission

 

          It is going to take more than one Sunday to study this passage.

This is the climactic passage in the book of Ephesians.

This is precisely what the Apostle Paul has been leading up to.

We’ve already noticed that Jesus Christ is the major emphasis of this book.

Repeatedly, Paul uses the phrase, in Christ, through Christ, on account of Christ, for Christ, to Christ, etc.  And, here in verse 21 he uses it again, saying, “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

Notice that it doesn’t say, submit one another out of reverence for one another, out of respect for one another, out of tolerance for one another.

It says, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ!”

This is central to Christian living!

This is worship.

Have you talked to people about worship?

When you do, it isn’t long before you get to a point where you agree that worship needs to be reverent.

This is important, reverence is worship.

So, in this case, Paul is telling us that worship requires reverence to Christ, and reverence to Christ involves submission to one another!

Now, we submit to one another because we’ve first submitted to Christ.

Paul has made it abundantly clear that Christ deserves our submission, and that since Christ has all power and authority, in heaven and on earth, Christ is the only true object of our reverence, of our submission.

Of course, there are people who submit themselves to other people in unhealthy ways, and for unhealthy reasons.

There are people who are more concerned with the latest celebrity gossip, who submit to the latest fashions because so and so is wearing them, and so on and so forth.

But only Jesus Christ deserves our submission.

Paul has gone through great lengths to show the surpassing greatness of Christ including His love for us.

While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Christ empowered His Holy Spirit to work in us, even before we were aware of Him, so that we could follow Him.

Christ made us alive, even though we were dead.

He placed us with Him in the heavenly realms.

He has given us true wisdom and knowledge.

He has made us one with Him.

He has united us together, to be one body, under Him, the head.

That too is another reason to revere Christ: He is our head.

But Jesus is quite different from other heads of state.

See, we still use this terminology, head of state, head of the household, head of the government, head of the world, etc.  Jesus is different, He doesn’t demand reverence and submission simply because he is who he is, though he could easily have done that.

Instead, Jesus humbled himself, took on human flesh, lived on earth, became a servant suffered and died in order to give glory to God through perfect obedience and submission; in order that the world might be saved through Him.

You see, in the Trinity, there are three equal persons, but in function, there is a hierarchy, a wilful hierarchy of function.

The Father creates and recreates.

The Son is the means of creation and recreation, the Spirit is the power of creation and recreation.

The Son is willingly, functionally, submissive to the Father, and the Spirit to the Son and the Father.

But these functional submissions do not make the Son or the Spirit, less eternal, less praiseworthy, less a part of the Godhead.

In some ways, our society and in many churches, we’ve lost this distinction.

Some have come to believe that in order to have perfect unity, perfect equality, people have to be functionally equal.

But that is not the case at all!

The persons of the Godhead are equal, make no mistake about it, but the Father is not the Son, nor is the Son the Father or the Spirit.

And these three persons, though in actuality perfectly one God, not three Gods, these three persons are able to be submissive toward one another without it affecting their equality, their identity as God!

          So, when we look at this passage this morning, and when we pick it up again in May, we need to be clear on what submission means.

Submission isn’t becoming a doormat.

It doesn’t mean that you let people run all over you.

You’ve heard the expression, “turn the other cheek”.

Which comes from this familiar passage: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’

But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person.

If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.

If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.

Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you” (Mt 5:38-42).

Do you understand that passage?

It has everything to do with submission, but nothing to do with being a doormat.

Do you see the difference?

This is completely counter-cultural.

The world, not just the Old Testament runs on the eye for an eye thing.

But Jesus changed everything.

This is totally applicable today.

What happens when someone offends you?  Don’t you get your guard up?  Don’t you, if you don’t have the courage to confront that person directly, though to your credit most of you do, don’t you rather say complain to your friends about how you’ve been wronged?

Don’t get this wrong, we’re not talking about the sin of gossiping here, we’re talking about righteous indignation, seeking vengeance.

If we’ve been wronged, we want to see the person who wronged us brought to justice.

And at times, we’d really like to do the eye for an eye thing.

But clearly, in Ephesians, Paul is saying, and his teaching here is right in line with Jesus, that we cannot live on that system.

Under that system, we’re dead.

For justice is this, we’re sinners and we deserve hell.

But God’s justice is this: Christ paid for our sins, so that we’re made righteous in Christ, in Christ we’re given His righteousness, and we get not hell, but heaven!

So, if we, who have been given all the treasures of heaven, if we, who have every spiritual blessing in Christ, if we, who have the Holy Spirit in us, the guarantee of everlasting life, if we demand an eye for an eye type of justice, we make mockery of God’s grace, His gracious love and salvation!

So, Jesus tells us, Paul, Jesus servant, tells us to submit to one another.

The turning the cheek attitude demonstrates, proves the grace we’ve been given.

If our enemies demand injustice from us, we operate out of God’s grace, we realise that eventually justice will catch them up, and God will take care of it.

So, we instead, turn the other cheek, if sued, we give them more than what they’re asking for, if they require us to help them out by doing something we might conscientiously object to, we go beyond the requirement, we give more!

Why?

Because we’ve received far more than we deserve!

In our submission to Christ, we keep in mind two things.

First, that there was nothing about us that was good enough to deserve God’s love, mercy and grace.

He simply chose us out of the goodness of himself.

This doesn’t mean that we constantly beat ourselves up over how bad we are, as I’ve done to myself and in a way to you also, in the past.

No, we remember where we came so that we stay humble, otherwise the temptation might be that we start thinkin’ we’re all that.

We’re not.

Second, in Christ, we’re more than what we were!

We’re children of the light.

We’re children of God!  We have the righteousness of Christ!

We have the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit that hovered over the waters way back at the beginning—that Spirit is in us!

The power of the Holy Spirit in us empowers us to submit to one another in Christ.

Out of respect for Christ!

That’s what we have to keep in mind!

We have to focus on Christ.

We live and behave like Christ.

Jesus was perfectly submissive to the Father!

That’s how he was able to live a perfect life.

If Adam and Eve had chosen perfect submission, then they would have stayed in the garden.

If not for the temptation of sin, of Satan, they might have progressed in their understanding of God, and learned more and more and eventually reached full knowledge as we’ll have when Christ returns.

But they did not, in fact, God knew in advance that they would not, and yet because of his love and His grace, he allowed them to live freely.

You see, submission is an act of the will; you have to be willing to submit.

If you are willing, you’ll submit, if you are unwilling, you won’t.

So Paul is telling us to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

There are several things going on here.

We submit to Christ and to one another because we are so amazed by Jesus Christ.

We look at what He did for us, even though we were His enemies, and we revere him, him for that, and it impacts how we live.

That’s one way to look at it, but there is a better way.