SPIRIT–FILLED SUBMISSION
“Be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.”
EPHESIANS 5:21
✧✧✧
Spirit–filled believers will submit to one another.
To the world, submission implies personal weakness or the coercive dominance of one person by another stronger, more intimidating individual. Such perspectives, however, are unbiblical. The noted expositor Martyn Lloyd–Jones describes submission’s original meaning in a military context, which helps us understand its scriptural definition:
It is the picture of soldiers in a regiment, soldiers in a line under an officer … and if he [the soldier] begins to act on his own, and independently of the others, he is guilty of insubordination and will be punished accordingly. Such is the word the Apostle uses; so what he is saying amounts to this—that we who are filled with the Spirit are to behave voluntarily in that way with respect to one another. We are members of the same regiment, we are units in this same great army. We are to do that voluntarily which the soldier is “forced” to do.
In addition to Ephesians 5:21, the New Testament repeatedly expresses the importance of submitting to one another. Philippians 2:3–4 tell us how mutual submission ought to operate: “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.” And Hebrews 13:17 commands us to submit to our spiritual leaders: “Obey your leaders, and submit to them; for they keep watch over your souls, as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you.”
The only way we can possess any of those traits or exhibit any of that behavior is to be continuously filled with the Holy Spirit. Then we will be able to voluntarily and joyfully submit to the Lord and one another in love, just as the apostle John urges: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and every one who loves is born of God and knows God” (1 John 4:7).
✧✧✧
Suggestions for Prayer: Examine your heart and see if your attitude has been a biblically submissive one. ✧ Ask God’s Spirit to reveal and correct any sinful shortcomings you’ve had in that regard.
For Further Study: Read Romans 12:10; 1 Corinthians 4:7; 1 Timothy 5:21; James 2:1. List comparisons and contrasts between these verses and what Philippians 2:3–4 says about mutual submission.
Romans 12:10 —Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. *
1 Corinthians 4:7 —For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not? *
1 Timothy 5:21 —I charge you, in the sight of God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels, to keep these instructions without partiality, and to do nothing out of favoritism. *
James 2:1 —My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don’t show favoritism. *
Philippians 2:3–4 —Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. *Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. *
MacArthur, J. (1997). Strength for today. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.
Sharing Our Love
As a human body has connected tissues, muscles, bones, ligaments, and organs, the body of Christ is comprised of members who are responsible to one another. No member exists detached from the rest of the body any more than lungs can lie on the floor in the next room and keep a person breathing. The health of the body, its witness, and its testimony are dependent on all members faithfully ministering to one another.
The church was never intended to be only a building—a place where lonely people walk in, listen, and walk out still alone—but a place of fellowship. In his book Dare to Live Now! Bruce Larson says:
The neighborhood bar is possibly the best counterfeit there is to the fellowship Christ wants to give His Church. It’s an imitation, dispensing liquor instead of grace, escape rather than reality. But it is a permissive, accepting, and inclusive fellowship. It is unshockable, it is democratic. You can tell people secrets and they usually don’t tell others, or want to. The bar flourishes not because most people are alcoholics, but because God has put into the human heart the desire to know and be known, to love, and be loved, and so many seek a counterfeit at the price of a few beers ([Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1965], p. 110).
This need for fellowship is not met simply by attending the Sunday services, whether they be small groups where everyone is known or large congregations where that is not the case. A desperate need for personal, intimate fellowship exists in the church today. And this fellowship, like the ministering of the gifts, is intrinsic to manifesting practical unity. Finding a good church fellowship is no small matter in our onslaught against anxiety.
In true fellowship Christians don’t judge one another; they don’t bite and devour each other; they don’t provoke, envy, lie to one another, speak evil, or grumble about one another. Since true fellowship builds up, the godly will receive one another, and be kind and tenderhearted toward one another. They will forbear and forgive one another, serve one another, practice hospitality ungrudgingly to one another, admonish, instruct, submit to one another, and comfort one another. That is the true fellowship of Christ’s body—life touching life to bring blessing and spiritual growth.
Too often Christians place themselves inside little glass bubbles and try to look like supersaints, as if they hadn’t a problem or worry in the world. They aren’t willing to share openly and expose their sins to a fellow believer. They don’t know what it is to have another believer say, “That’s the same thing I’m going through. Lets pray for each other.”
A brother in Christ confessed a sin to me and promised to tell me each time he committed it. Later he told me that promise prevented him from committing the sin again because he didn’t want to endure the shame of telling me about it. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote powerfully of this privilege of
confessing our sins to one another:
Sin demands to have a man by himself. It withdraws him from the community. The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is his isolation. Sin wants to remain unknown. It shuns the light. In the darkness of the unexpressed it poisons the whole being of a person. This can happen even in the midst of a pious community. In confession the light of the Gospel breaks into the darkness and seclusion of the heart. The sin must be brought into the light. The unexpressed must be openly spoken and acknowledged. All that is secret and hidden is made manifest. It is a hard struggle until the sin is openly admitted. But God breaks gates of brass and bars of iron (Ps. 107:16; Life Together [New York: Harper & Row, 1954], p. 112).
Confessing our sins to one another results in a purer fellowship of people who know and love one another—who understand one another’s needs, anxieties, and temptations. What strength resides in such a community!
Here is a key principle that all Christian communities should operate by: “If a Christian is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help him back onto the right path, remembering that next time it might be one of you who is in the wrong” (Gal. 6:1, TLB). Pick him or her up and say, “Let me show you from the Word of God what is going on. Let’s pray together. Let’s walk on the right track together.” That is restorative care. We as Christians haven’t done our duty if we only rebuke. We need to come alongside and restore—in love.
That verse is perhaps the clearest example from Scripture of how we as believers are to look out for one another. In attacking anxiety, be encouraged to know that angels are looking out for you, but also make a point of knowing and being known by mature believers in a context of mutual ministry. The responsibility of finding such a fellowship is yours. Never underestimate the power of godly fellowship in bearing the burden of your anxieties.
MacArthur, J. (1993). Anxiety Attacked. MacArthur Study Series (72–73). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.
“Be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.”
EPHESIANS 5:21
✧✧✧
Spirit–filled believers will submit to one another.
To the world, submission implies personal weakness or the coercive dominance of one person by another stronger, more intimidating individual. Such perspectives, however, are unbiblical. The noted expositor Martyn Lloyd–Jones describes submission’s original meaning in a military context, which helps us understand its scriptural definition:
It is the picture of soldiers in a regiment, soldiers in a line under an officer … and if he [the soldier] begins to act on his own, and independently of the others, he is guilty of insubordination and will be punished accordingly. Such is the word the Apostle uses; so what he is saying amounts to this—that we who are filled with the Spirit are to behave voluntarily in that way with respect to one another. We are members of the same regiment, we are units in this same great army. We are to do that voluntarily which the soldier is “forced” to do.
In addition to Ephesians 5:21, the New Testament repeatedly expresses the importance of submitting to one another. Philippians 2:3–4 tell us how mutual submission ought to operate: “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.” And Hebrews 13:17 commands us to submit to our spiritual leaders: “Obey your leaders, and submit to them; for they keep watch over your souls, as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you.”
The only way we can possess any of those traits or exhibit any of that behavior is to be continuously filled with the Holy Spirit. Then we will be able to voluntarily and joyfully submit to the Lord and one another in love, just as the apostle John urges: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and every one who loves is born of God and knows God” (1 John 4:7).
✧✧✧
Suggestions for Prayer: Examine your heart and see if your attitude has been a biblically submissive one. ✧ Ask God’s Spirit to reveal and correct any sinful shortcomings you’ve had in that regard.
For Further Study: Read Romans 12:10; 1 Corinthians 4:7; 1 Timothy 5:21; James 2:1. List comparisons and contrasts between these verses and what Philippians 2:3–4 says about mutual submission.
Romans 12:10 —Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. *
1 Corinthians 4:7 —For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not? *
1 Timothy 5:21 —I charge you, in the sight of God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels, to keep these instructions without partiality, and to do nothing out of favoritism. *
James 2:1 —My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don’t show favoritism. *
Philippians 2:3–4 —Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. *Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. *
MacArthur, J. (1997). Strength for today. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.
Sharing Our Love
As a human body has connected tissues, muscles, bones, ligaments, and organs, the body of Christ is comprised of members who are responsible to one another. No member exists detached from the rest of the body any more than lungs can lie on the floor in the next room and keep a person breathing. The health of the body, its witness, and its testimony are dependent on all members faithfully ministering to one another.
The church was never intended to be only a building—a place where lonely people walk in, listen, and walk out still alone—but a place of fellowship. In his book Dare to Live Now! Bruce Larson says:
The neighborhood bar is possibly the best counterfeit there is to the fellowship Christ wants to give His Church. It’s an imitation, dispensing liquor instead of grace, escape rather than reality. But it is a permissive, accepting, and inclusive fellowship. It is unshockable, it is democratic. You can tell people secrets and they usually don’t tell others, or want to. The bar flourishes not because most people are alcoholics, but because God has put into the human heart the desire to know and be known, to love, and be loved, and so many seek a counterfeit at the price of a few beers ([Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1965], p. 110).
This need for fellowship is not met simply by attending the Sunday services, whether they be small groups where everyone is known or large congregations where that is not the case. A desperate need for personal, intimate fellowship exists in the church today. And this fellowship, like the ministering of the gifts, is intrinsic to manifesting practical unity. Finding a good church fellowship is no small matter in our onslaught against anxiety.
In true fellowship Christians don’t judge one another; they don’t bite and devour each other; they don’t provoke, envy, lie to one another, speak evil, or grumble about one another. Since true fellowship builds up, the godly will receive one another, and be kind and tenderhearted toward one another. They will forbear and forgive one another, serve one another, practice hospitality ungrudgingly to one another, admonish, instruct, submit to one another, and comfort one another. That is the true fellowship of Christ’s body—life touching life to bring blessing and spiritual growth.
Too often Christians place themselves inside little glass bubbles and try to look like supersaints, as if they hadn’t a problem or worry in the world. They aren’t willing to share openly and expose their sins to a fellow believer. They don’t know what it is to have another believer say, “That’s the same thing I’m going through. Lets pray for each other.”
A brother in Christ confessed a sin to me and promised to tell me each time he committed it. Later he told me that promise prevented him from committing the sin again because he didn’t want to endure the shame of telling me about it. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote powerfully of this privilege of
confessing our sins to one another:
Sin demands to have a man by himself. It withdraws him from the community. The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is his isolation. Sin wants to remain unknown. It shuns the light. In the darkness of the unexpressed it poisons the whole being of a person. This can happen even in the midst of a pious community. In confession the light of the Gospel breaks into the darkness and seclusion of the heart. The sin must be brought into the light. The unexpressed must be openly spoken and acknowledged. All that is secret and hidden is made manifest. It is a hard struggle until the sin is openly admitted. But God breaks gates of brass and bars of iron (Ps. 107:16; Life Together [New York: Harper & Row, 1954], p. 112).
Confessing our sins to one another results in a purer fellowship of people who know and love one another—who understand one another’s needs, anxieties, and temptations. What strength resides in such a community!
Here is a key principle that all Christian communities should operate by: “If a Christian is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help him back onto the right path, remembering that next time it might be one of you who is in the wrong” (Gal. 6:1, TLB). Pick him or her up and say, “Let me show you from the Word of God what is going on. Let’s pray together. Let’s walk on the right track together.” That is restorative care. We as Christians haven’t done our duty if we only rebuke. We need to come alongside and restore—in love.
That verse is perhaps the clearest example from Scripture of how we as believers are to look out for one another. In attacking anxiety, be encouraged to know that angels are looking out for you, but also make a point of knowing and being known by mature believers in a context of mutual ministry. The responsibility of finding such a fellowship is yours. Never underestimate the power of godly fellowship in bearing the burden of your anxieties.
MacArthur, J. (1993). Anxiety Attacked. MacArthur Study Series (72–73). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.
.Do you think I am on the right track?Of course I know I am but am I trying to go too fast?I think of what you said so long ago,that we seem to be getting our lessons on fast-forward.Well,just a cig. break so back to supper,Love Ruthanne
I wish I could say I didn't have that problem anymore, but I do, so that's another thing I'll have to continue to work on too. But, back then, if the lights didn't come on, I figured my parents planned it that way and it was a great adventure, a new game. I didn't see it as a bad thing. I knew everything would be fine no matter what happened.