Submission — John Dennison

Our Father, we're thankful that we have been thrilled so much to think of our Lord Jesus, and yet there is nothing more challenging to consider the perfect man. We're thankful, Father, for his complete surrender to the will of God, and yet it was not something that he did with difficulty, but rather with delight.

His desire was to please the Father, and to do thy will with delight and joy brought delight to him, and we're thankful for the one who did this, not just when he was serving and bringing delight to others, but when others were mistreating him.

And even at the cross, we're thankful for the obedient Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. We're thankful for all we have already learned this weekend. Help us as we consider the word of God one last time in ministry, and give help in the gospel, we pray, that the conference might close with souls coming to know this blessed man of Calvary, our Lord Jesus Christ.

We ask it in his precious name, amen. Now I would like to ask you to turn to 1 Peter 2. 1 Peter 2. And while you're turning, I as well, not out of custom, but out of genuine reality, would like to say thanks to the assembly here for the privilege of being with you.

Thanks for your friendship, the excellent food, and for the privilege of being with you. I've enjoyed very much, been challenged by the ministry of Jason, the spiritual and scriptural ministry. And often I think we feel like when you go to a conference, you think that the preachers are going to be used by God to somehow speak to the people.

But three out of the last four weekends, I have been, had the experience of having the preacher speaking to the preacher. I've had the privilege of listening to Sandy's ministry three out of the last four weekends.

And what you have heard this weekend, I've heard now three out of the last, not wasn't the same messages. That would not be a Higgins trait. But I've really enjoyed it, Sandy. Thank you so much for your Christ exalting and very challenging ministry that has been a blessing to me and to my wife and to my children as well.

Submission in Every Sphere of Christian Life

First Peter chapter two, please. Verse 13, submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether it be to the king as supreme or unto governors. Verse 18, servants be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward for this is thankworthy.

Chapter three, verse one. Likewise, ye wives be in subjection to your own husbands that if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wise while they behold your chaste conversation, your manner of life coupled with fear.

And then turn if you would please to chapter five. I'm sorry, chapter three, we'll read verse 18, or rather verse 22 about the Lord Jesus. He has gone into heaven and is on the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him.

Now chapter five and verse five. You'll notice that in verse one, he speaks about the elders which are among you, exhort who am also an elder. And then he gives instruction about feeding the flock of God and then the reward for elders from the chief shepherd.

Verse five, likewise ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another and be clothed with humility for God resisted the proud and giveth grace to the humble. And here, just in the context, it can sometimes elder, younger can be age.

And that may be true, but just in the context speaking about elders as in those who are the spiritually mature, the overseers in the assembly, I take it the younger are those who are younger, less mature in the faith and those who are under their care.

Now, I think you know that I had said that I would like to look at the subject of submission. I was tempted to get up and I was going, because I knew it was going to speak on submission, Sandy, and I was just gonna get up here and play it again.

It was very, very good. I hope that what I say will not take away from it, but only be based on it and build on it a little bit more, the subject of submission. Really in our world there, the difference between Christianity, God's values and God's word and God's plan for our lives and the culture we live in, is becoming more and more diverse.

There are people in this room who remember back in the day when it would be the same almost. You would find such a parallel. For example, take the issue of marriage. There was a day when it was almost universal, not just believers, but there were people who were unbelievers and they believed that marriage was for life between a man and a woman.

Can you see how culture now is very different on that? The Christian pattern, the biblical God's value for marriage, God's plan for marriage and what our culture is, is very different. The same is true when it comes to, I'm just looking at it or it comes to my mind, I'm looking out today at women wearing head coverings and men who are not wearing head coverings.

Why there was a day, and likely some here remember, where that would not have been a strange thing, an unusual thing, to see somebody in a religious service, even places where they didn't preach the gospel, you would find women.

Now today, it is more divergent than ever. So as we look at that, I want you to think about the subject of submission, that when we are looking at something that is counterculture, this is not something that you will find support for in the world in which we live.

The Domains and Meaning of Submission

Now, Peter writes about submission and we have read, first of all, I want to notice the domains, the domains, I'll call them the domains of submission. It is interesting that it is Peter who writes about this subject because Peter was arrested three times by unjust authorities.

And yet it is Peter who writes to us and he says in chapter two, verse 13, "'Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man "'for the Lord's sake, "'whether it be the king of supreme or under governors.'".

And he goes on from there. Interesting that a man who lived the reality of this, he writes it down. And then you come to verse 18, "'Servants, be subject unto your masters.'". I don't know whether he was the master or the servant, but we do know that he was a working man.

He understood the employment sphere. He understood the vocational domain and what it's like and the value of leadership and submission. Out of all the apostles, there's only one that we know of for sure, absolutely sure.

We even, well, he never mentioned his wife, but he had a mother-in-law. I don't think you could have a mother-in-law without having a wife. If you can figure that one out, let me know later. But he was a married man.

And it is this one who writes to us, chapter three, "'Likewise, ye wives.'". I know Paul writes about it too. "'Likewise, ye wives, "'be in subjection to your own husbands.'". But it is to this man. He is given the responsibility now.

He is given the responsibility to write to shepherds and to write to sheep. And he is the one who writes to sheep who are too younger and they are to submit to the elders. Why this man? Well, you'll remember that it was to him the Lord Jesus said, to Peter.

He said, "'Feed my sheep, "'feed my lambs, "'and to tend my sheep.'". This was the man. And now he says, as an older man, he says, "'I'm writing to you elders. "'I also am an elder.'". I know what I'm talking about.

I have experienced, I have witnessed the beauty of God's design, of his hierarchy in the local church, the ecclesiastical submission, if you will, this domain, ecclesiastical domain of the sheep and the shepherds.

But what does it actually mean to submit? What does the word mean? Well, now, last night we were looking at, it probably sounds even more ridiculous here than it did there. But last night out with the young people, we took a little look at a simple Greek class.

Now, don't be thinking anything fun. It's just, it was taught by a kindergarten Greek student. And we looked at something, here's something super simple. This word is actually a compound word. There's a preposition, which means under, hupa, and then you have a verb, tasso, which means to arrange or accommodate or set.

So you get the idea. Under, to arrange under. You can see that. In fact, those two words, separate, separate, are found, do you remember the story about the centurion, the Roman centurion? And when he spoke, called for the Lord Jesus, and he made it very clear.

He said, I am a man set under, hupa, tasso, under authority. Well, Peter takes that and that's combined and it's compounded, it's meshed together in one word, hupa, tasso, hupa, tasso. And that's the word that he consistently uses in his writing.

And it's not only a compound word, it's a military word. I'm not really up on the military, so if I'm getting this all backwards, forgive me, all of you military people, but just suppose, just suppose I'm a sergeant and Jason is a colonel.

How's this supposed to work in the military? Well, there's a hierarchy. You've been hearing about that today. And what I have to do is, it doesn't mean that he's more invaluable than I am. I could be more important to the war than Jason.

I could be more important to the military, but it's not even about importance. It's about a hierarchy and in that hierarchy, it'll all work together if I take my place and I set myself under, what did I say I was?

I think I was a sergeant and he's the colonel, Colonel Jason. The girls are gonna be calling him Colonel Jason from now on. You see, that's the way it works. And that's the military. It's a compound word, it's a military word.

It means to set yourself under. But now that's very interesting because what it implies is that there must be that hierarchy. And so Peter, in our King James Version, you have it here. Paul says the same thing.

Submit yourselves one to another. So how does that work? Now we are not Colonel Jason and Sergeant John. We are Jason and John and we have to decide who's going to preach first. So we're supposed to submit to one another.

And so I go to him and I say, you go ahead. And he looks at me and he says, no, you go ahead. And I look at him and say, you go ahead. And we'll be here all night. We're both trying to obey the word of God if it just means to let the other person go first.

That's not what it means. It implies there's an organization, a plan that we all find our spot, our role in that plan, that hierarchy and we set ourselves under any who are above us in that plan. Well, that plan that is implied is the hierarchy that Brother Sandy has been talking about, the hierarchy of God.

And so that brings me now, not just the domains, the four domains that are here and the definition. It means that in a marriage, that a wife would be to set herself under her husband. It's nothing to do with importance or superiority or inferiority.

It is just recognizing that this is the order of God. And when it comes to in society, like the president, like the government or not, we take our place, we set ourselves under the governmental authority.

And in the job, on the workforce, as servants, we put ourselves under, we set ourselves under, and we'll look at the practical meaning of that. And in the assembly, we are all equal of value and importance.

It is not a case of inferiority or superiority, but we must recognize that God has an order for the assembly. And Peter reminds the younger ones, spiritually younger, that we must set ourselves under the elders.

The Divine Design and Provision of Submission

But now let's go back and look at the design, the design of submission. Where did submission come from? There was not a government on planet Earth that suddenly said, we need to submit our citizens. That's not where it came from.

This is not a government thing. This is not some despot somewhere who said, you know what, I'm gonna invent the concept of where somebody submits other people. That's not what it came from. And let me just say as well, this is not a male thing.

This did not come from a male on Earth, a chauvinistic male who decided that submission is the way to go for marriage. This is a divine design. Can you see the divine pattern here in the scriptures? Like we've already been reminded of this.

1 Corinthians 11, the head of every man is Christ. How's the verse end? The head of Christ is God. Where did submission come from? It came from heaven. You see, that's why the world may not appreciate it.

But we need to recalibrate our thinking to realize that submission is a heavenly divine value. It has existed for eternity and it will exist for eternity. It is a positive, a beautiful, a divine, a heavenly thing that comes.

And you can see it in the design pattern and the submission of Christ to the authority of God. But I want you to just remind you, Sandy, pardon me for the overlap. It must be that God must want us to learn this.

It's all I can think of. I really didn't steal his sermon. But notice the divine provision in this. You say divine provision. Divine provision, I actually think it's kind of limiting. That if the government says I have to pay a 25 tax or 35 tax, I find that actually kind of limiting.

And if my boss doesn't accept my ideas, and if the overseers will not, and if my husband, hold on just a moment, let's step back a moment. The 10 commandments, do they reflect that God is good and kind and a provision from God for our protection and blessing?

All commandments for God convey that. These are commands to submit, and they are no less from the heart of God who wants the... So what is the very best for society that citizens submit to a government?

Couldn't be better. What is the very best for people who are working in a company? That they learn biblical submission and they carry it out. Yes, the whole leadership side is equally biblical. That's their responsibility.

What about when it comes to a marriage? You say, well, we're a team. Thank God we should be teams. But God has said there are these different roles of head and helper, and there is the responsibility to love.

And yet at the same time for the woman, for the wife, the responsibility is to upotazo, set yourself under. And wow, to our world, that seems like something that somebody has taken out of a museum somewhere.

God says, that's a freshened idea. It could not be better to have submission in a marriage. Nothing could be better for a sister than that. That's divine provision. But I want you to think about divine precision in this design, because this design is precisely directed to the person who is responsible for the submission.

No government is told to submit their citizens. In Peter's letter, no master is told to submit their slaves or their servants or their employees, even though you may feel like it sometimes. In Peter's letter, there is no husband who is told that he has to submit his wife, put his wife under submission.

That is despotic thinking. That has no place in the Bible. And there is no teaching that shepherds need to submit the sheep. What is in the Bible is the precise giving of the homework of the responsibility to citizens to submit to the government, to servants, to employees to submit to their employers, to wives, that's your responsibility.

The husband who crosses that line and somehow is getting involved in the responsibility of the woman about submission, he is out of line. That's in scripture. He has his, I have my responsibility as a husband.

She has her, that's between her and God. I have my responsibility. And we as overseers, while we can teach on the subject and present the plan of God, we are not responsible to submit others. It is the sheep who are responsible before God.

That's their responsibility, divine precision. Submission is where you submit yourself. You put yourself, you put yourself, well, in English, it's like a reflexive thing where you put yourself under and all of these different domains.

But I want you to think now, because as soon as you touch on this subject, there are all kinds of fears that come into our hearts. What if an employer, you know what I'm referring to, takes advantage or if the government, what if the government says, and what if the elders and what if my husband, there are divine parameters when it comes to submission.

Biblical Limits on Submission and the Principle of Responsibility

The first parameter that hardly even needs to be stated, but is obvious in the scripture is that anything at any one of those positions of leadership and any one of those domains that asks those under their leadership to do something that is not according to the word of God.

A clear example of Peter and John was, we ought to obey God rather than man. So if the government, as it has in some countries, told people, their citizens, including Christians, that if you have a second child, you must abort that child, we must obey God rather than men.

And if an employer said we are going to fudge the books and not pay taxes, we must obey God, who says, render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's rather than men. And if a husband said we're going to do something on Friday night that would be against the word of God, we obey God rather than, and if somehow elders, now we'll be real clear on this.

This are things that are extremely clear in scripture. If, for example, in an assembly, the elder said, we are asking you, sister, we are commanding you, sister, we want you to speak next Sunday in ministry.

What you should say is, I ought to obey God rather than man. And the Bible says that in the church, let women keep silent. You see, there's parameter about going beyond what God has said, very clearly beyond what God has said.

But let me give you another parameter, if I may suggest this for your thinking. When it says to be subject, I do not think that he's referring to a lot of the commands and the obvious principles of God.

So for example, parents, the children. Well, let me just stick to the four domains that are here. If your boss says to you, listen, don't you be cooking the books, don't you be making things out? You pay the taxes, you're in the accounting department, you pay the taxes.

Are you submitting to your boss? No, you're not. God has already addressed that issue. What God has already addressed, let me give you another example. Husband says, you know what, we're going Sunday morning to break bread.

That's the final decision. We're going to break bread because, no, the Lord Jesus said, this do in remembrance of me. I'm doing it because he said. You see, it's direct. It doesn't really enter. The elders get up and they say to you, in the local assembly, do not commit fornication.

You say, what, is that submitting to the younger, submitting to the, no. That's just direct to God. That's what James uses this word. And he just simply says, submit to God. You see, there's no need to talk about submission on those matters.

The issue at stake, please follow me closely is what I've been working, trying to work on all weekend is, it comes down to submission, setting ourselves under on the application of principles. So that's the parameter.

But now how does that work? The principle that's behind this design. Here's the principle. You get the principle, we'll understand how submission is supposed to work. The principle is that whoever is responsible to God for the relationship makes the final decision.

Now, the ideal thing would be that the government and the citizens are together. Just suppose the government announced, we're going to reduce the tax burden down to 5%. Anybody want to stand up and say, no, I don't think that's a good idea.

I don't think so. So there's no conflict. If there's a difference of opinion, who is responsible to God for that relationship? The government, they get the final vote. Employers and employees can go, just picture a Christian company and they're back and forth and they're discussing and there's different ideas and they're going, somebody's got to make a decision.

Who's responsible to God? Can I just speak to children here? All the children, just look at me for 30 seconds. Who makes, who had, yes, you can give input, you can express an opinion, but understand that God's plan is, who's responsible to God?

I'm speaking to children. Some of you are in the assembly, maybe, living under your parents. In the end, who's responsible to God? That's the principle behind this. Paul says, children, obey your parents.

Okay, children, you go back to sleep. And when it comes to marriage, yes, there should be teamwork and fellowship and communication and hopefully every time, almost every, most of the time, the majority of the time, it's just, there's no issue.

But if it comes down to a decision has to be made, what does God say? Hupotasso. Who's responsible to God for that? Remember Adam and Eve? When they sinned, God didn't come and say, Eve. He didn't even say, Adam and Eve, where are you?

He said, Adam, where art thou? Hast thou? What has happened? You are the responsible one for the decision that has been made. And so you see this beauty of working together, but God has provided the solution, the hierarchy in God's plan.

Submission Across Cultures and Generations

And so the divine principle is that whoever is responsible will have to make that decision and will be held accountable to God for the decision that is made. But I want you to think now, divine providence, because we so quickly try to escape from this and we say, but this is modern times.

We live in modern, modern times? You think it's out of vogue now to submit? What was it like in the days of Nero who was killing Christians and using them as human torches to light the ways, pathways, who was slaughtering people?

And Peter, he's about to go on the throne or he's already there, and Peter is writing, submit to Hupotasso. Put yourselves under the authority. In a culture where cultures were that women were despised.

And to them, Peter writes and he says, Hupotasso, submit. You see, the providence of God looks down through all ages and all cultures and all times and he says, I want to give you a principle that'll work anywhere.

For any marriage, any culture, any society, any employment situation, and any church situation, he says, let the younger submit to the elder. Divine providence. But I want you to think with me as well about how these are divine precepts.

Why does he have to say submit? Well, when anytime you have a command, I think you know that that's because it's not natural for us. We have a dog and our dog's name is Jeeves. If you don't know where that came from, well, yeah, it's a pretty ugly name unless you know the story behind it.

But anyway, Jeeves, the boys wanted to see what they could do with this dog. And so, what they did was they taught him that if they put on his snout a piece of bacon and they tell him to leave it, he's not allowed to touch it.

Now, please don't arrest my children for cruelty to humans, cruelty to animals, but so they put a piece of bacon or a carrot or his ultimate treat, lettuce. I know he's a strange dog, like his owners.

And they put lettuce on his snout. And what does the dog do? His eyes are crossed, he's looking at it, and he's almost shaking. And you can almost sense he's about to drool and he's looking at it because you put it on there and you say to him, leave it.

And then you look at him and you say to him, take it. And before you can put the period on, or the exclamation point on the end of take it, it's gone. What's the difference? We never had to train him to take it.

We had to train him to leave it because it's not natural. The natural thing for a dog is to take it. And the natural thing for us is not to submit. It's to seek our own, to be selfish, to insist on our own way.

And so the divine has to put it as a precept, as a command, because it's not natural. But I want you to think as well that this divine precept, really, it's not optional. Now, I understand that there could be extreme cases and we'll leave those out for the moment.

The general teaching here is this is not optional. It is a command for all. And all of the different domains submit the divine precept. So I hope that when you stop and you look at the design and you look at it, wow, this idea of authority and submission, this is something that came from heaven.

And God has given it to us in his word. It's really a provision for our best interest. It's precisely given out to the responsible parties. It has got the parameters that it doesn't get out of control, very specifically as to what it refers to.

And yes, it is a precept that has to be carried out. When you look at that, you start to appreciate the divine design of submission. But I wanna just speak for a couple of minutes about the difficulties, the difficulties with submission.

The Opposition of the Flesh, the World, and the Devil

I don't know whether you would find it difficult, whether you do find it difficult to submit. Why is submission so difficult for us? First of all, consider with me the opposition, the opposition and its ferocity.

It is fierce, the opposite. Where does it come from? Well, just take for a moment your flesh. You remember the works of the flesh in Galatians 5? Of the works of the flesh, we are given there a list in which there are 17 works of the flesh that are mentioned.

Of those 17, nine of the 17, more than half, nine of the 17 deal with interpersonal problems. Whether it's anger or whether it's strife, all these different, it's just that every fiber of our flesh, of our sinful nature is against the idea of submission.

So that's part of the fierce opposition we face when it comes to submission. But what about the world? Last night, we were looking at 2 Timothy 3 with the young folks and we were looking at the idea of what it's going to be like.

Do you remember that list, some of you young people? The description of people are going to be abusive and arrogant and they're going to speak badly about other people and all of it. The world is going absolutely against the concept and we live in that world.

It's hard for that not to affect us and to oppose the idea of submission. But let me remind you as well that our third enemy, the devil, he is not out there trying to applaud us and encourage us in submission.

He is the one who did not say, put yourself under. He is the one that said, I'm going to put myself up. You remember that? Isaiah chapter 14, he said, I will ascend into heaven. I'm going up, I will take the throne.

And what did he say to Adam and Eve? He said, this idea of setting yourself under, he said, forget that idea. Go eat of the tree and you will be as gods. You will move up, move up. Don't put yourself in your place.

Take some other place, some better place, some what you perceive as higher place. And so I do feel for employees and citizens and wives and Christians in assemblies because it is not easy to practice submission.

It is against, we have three fierce enemies opposing the concept of submission in our lives. But I want you to think about one of the reasons it's difficult is because our perception, just to go back over this one more time, our perception of inequality, our perception of inequality.

We so much tend to think that if a person submits to authority, that somehow by doing so, they are taking a second class place. They are taking a lesser, a place of lesser importance, of lesser value.

If the decision is against their will, therefore the person who made the decision is somehow superior and the other is inferior. We need to take that concept and ban that from our minds because that is blasphemous thinking really.

Because if we start to adopt that, we will fight to not apply that to the very place and persons from which it came. None of us would dare to apply anything like that to the submission of Christ to God, the head.

The head of Christ is God. We need to get that out of our thinking. And whenever it begins to come in, the concept, but that's why it makes it difficult because we fear, and maybe it's just because being honest as a citizen and as a sheep under the care of oversight and as an employee, I once was, I still am, but I have a better boss than all of you.

You understand that when it comes to this issue, we need to get rid of that kind of thinking because what is at stake is not my ego and that if I don't get my idea passed and I don't get my way and my thinking is not honored and respected and respected, that somehow, somehow that means I'm inferior.

That is not the case at all in the eyes of God. The third difficulty would come in the idea of justification by personality. We sometimes tend to think that personality and maybe culture is a good excuse to not to submit.

After all, there are a few kind of mousy Christians, you know, they just seem to just, submission just seems to come to them, but I'm kind of a strong-willed, I was gonna say sister, but I'll just keep it to the brothers for the sake of my life.

Strong-willed, that's just the way I am. God made me that way. Did he? Just imagine, just imagine a brother and he's in the assembly in Crete and he can't get up in the morning. Why? He says, well, we Cretans, we're lazy.

Our poet, even a poet said it in Titus chapter one. He says, we're all lazy. It's just the way we are here in Crete. Can't get up in the morning. Like to get up at one in the afternoon. It's good to be in bed by seven.

You say, well, why don't you get a job and work? Well, actually I did have a job once. I was the CEO of a company here on the island of Crete. You were not, you big liar. Oh, well, we just lie because that's the way we are.

We're in Crete, we're liars. That's what it says, Titus chapter one. You lie and you're lazy and you're loafing and you're devouring. Paul writes to Titus and he says, cultural and personality excuses don't fly with God.

Justification by personality will never be acceptable. Do not accept character flaws. That's the point that impede us from entering into this beautiful part of the design of God. They can be difficulties, but God can give us the grace to overcome these personality and cultural traits.

Justification by personality. But here is one that is much more serious. One of the reasons it's difficulty is because I have no doubt in my mind that sitting in this room this afternoon, there are those who have experienced the exploitation of authority.

I don't know where every country that's represented in this room, but two weeks ago when I was in Hickory and there were folks from the country of Venezuela to be talking about the abuse of government.

They've lived something I have never lived and I hope I never do. Likely there are some here and you have experienced the abuse of employer. And there may be some here and you have experienced the abuse of a man in your life.

I'm very sorry about that. What a shame. That's so unfortunate. There were some in the Bible, there could be some here today and you have experienced the abuse, the abuse of an elder in an assembly. 3rd John, wasn't a man there at the atrophies and he was abused, it can happen.

I can appreciate that the abuse, the exploitation of authority by some in any one of these domains, but please, can I just appeal to you? Don't throw out God's plan because somebody else has abused it.

Don't stop using paper bills to get people to do it. Just because somebody made counterfeit. Poor illustration I know. I take nothing away from the hurt, the pain, the memories that you may live with.

But please, can I appeal to you? Do not use that as an excuse to avoid God's beautiful plan of authority and submission, proper biblical authority and submission. The Bible is full, sadly, of those who exploited authority from Pharaoh, but I think the greatest exploitation of authority has to have been at the cross of Calvary.

You're looking at a man, I don't understand what abuse of authority is. I've never been under that situation. So don't look to me to try and find sympathy. I wish I could, but I can't because I've never lived it.

But you turn your eyes to Christ. He knows what it is to live in authority. He knows what it is to live and experience the exploitation of authority. He still believed in submission. But another thing is we confuse, there's a confusion about being passive.

We confuse submission with passive. That if I'm submissive, that means I can't say anything. I can't express an opinion. I can't do anything because after all, I have to be... No, that is not the Bible idea whatsoever.

Can a citizen express their view to a government? Absolutely. Can Christians express their view to the government? Could you write the government a letter? Could you write the president a letter about your biblical view of whether it comes to abortion?