November 14, 2004

Authority & Submission pt.1   

“Submission”
Ephesians 5:21    

18 be filled by the Spirit. 19 Speaking… Singing and make music… giving thanks … 
21 Submiting to one another out of reverence for Christ. 

What does the filling by the Spirit look like in practical terms? The Lord gives us four descriptions of what your life will be like if you are being filled by the Spirit. The first three are expressions of joy.
1. Fellowship (speaking to one another in song)…
2. Worship – singing from our hearts to God…
3. Thanksgiving – a constant stream of love responses to God’s love at all times, for absolutely everything, through the Lord Jesus Christ.
 Then comes #4 in v.21.  And if you’ve been influenced by worldly thinking, v.21 might seem totally out of place. The 4th mark of the Spirit-filled life is Submiting to one another out of reverence for Christ.  Speaking, singing, giving thanks, and submitting. 

The World’s Rebelliousness
People in the world hear that word “submit” and they think of something along the lines of “saying uncle.”  They think submitting is what you do when you have been overpowered and have no other choice. Submitting is what weak people who lack self-confidence and leadership ability have to do. That’s the world’s attitude, and it has affected many Christians.  A lot of people in the Church have the attitude, “I’ll submit, but I wish I didn’t I have to.” For people like that, this section must seem like the Sesame Street game where they show 4 things and sing “One of these things is not like the others…” They think, “Speaking to one another in song? That’s joy!” “Singing and making music in my heart to the Lord? That’s joy!” “Having a heart that constantly pours out thanks to God? That’s joy!” “Submitting to other people? That’s bondage!” Our culture does not value authority and submission.  In fact, what they do value is rebelliousness. You can watch a culture decline morally when they start out with a Biblical ethic on some issue, and then, bit-by-bit, that sin becomes more and more prominent. It’s still carries a stigma, but that stigma gets smaller and smaller until finally there is no shame attached to that sin at all. But that’s not even the end of the process.  The next step down is when the culture begins to look at that sin as a virtue.  That is what happened with the sin of rebelliousness in our culture. In the 50s there were rebels, but they were seen as rebels. In the 60s the rebellious attitudes of the youth went uncorrected, and a large group in that generation became convinced that rebellion was perfectly OK. And as they become the dominant generation in the culture, rebelliousness and disrespect for authority was transformed from a vice into a virtue in the eyes of our culture. So now you have full-grown adults, without any shame, driving around with a bumper sticker that says, “Question authority.”  It doesn’t say “Question corrupt authority.”  They think it’s a good thing to question all authority just because it’s authority. And these people actually raise their kids to be rebellious. They make their family a democracy (or a dictatorship run by the most rebellious child). They automatically side with their kids against teachers. They put radar detectors in their cars, and they cheat on their taxes, and they are just against the establishment in general. When they talk, you can tell they think everyone who is in a decision-making position is probably making poor decisions and shouldn’t be in power. You hear these people talk about foreign policy. You never here people like that say, “I’m sure the people in charge know what they are doing. I trust them.” They don’t trust anyone in authority. The only people they trust are other rebellious complainers.  And those people they trust with almost total, blind faith. They hear any rumor at all that someone in power has done something dumb, and they instantly believe it. They will question all authority, but they never question gossipers or complainers. 
That prevailing attitude in the culture has infected the Church. People complain and grumble about the decisions the leadership makes in some area. It might be an extremely complex issue that the leadership has wrestled with for months or years. They have spent many hours in prayer over it, they have searched the Scriptures, they have consulted wise, experienced people, and after all that they ask God’s guidance and then they come to a consensus as a group and make a decision. And then someone in the church gathers 2 or 3 facts about the issue, thinks about it for 10 minutes, and decides the leadership is way off base.  We tend to be more affected by our culture than we realize. So we would probably do well to just format the hard drive altogether, erase whatever viruses the world has planted in us, and start clean and relearn how to think about authority and submission.

New start

The Nature of God
The beginning point in understanding how to think about authority is the nature of God. Authority is good. And it is for the same reason love or integrity or patience are good; it reflects the character of God. Authority and submission are good because there is authority and submission within the Trinity. 

1 Cor 11:3 Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.
	In the Psalms God the Father refers to the Messiah as “My Son” (Ps.2:7) and in Isaiah He calls Him “My Servant” (Isa 42:1, 52:13). Jesus referred to God as the one who sent Him about 50 times.
John 7:28 I am not here on my own, but he who sent me is true.  Lit: I have not come of Myself
NET I have not come on My own initiative
John 7:16 My teaching is not my own. It comes from him who sent me.
If you pride yourself on being independent, you’re nothing like Jesus. He was so absolutely dependent, and subject to the authority of the Father- that He didn’t say or do anything other than what the Father commanded Him to say or do.
John 12:49 For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it.
John 6:38-39 I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 
I don’t know if it’s possible to make a stronger statement about submissiveness than that. That’s really the essence of what true submission is.  Submission is not just following the rules of the one over you. Submission is doing the will of the one over you instead of your own will. So there is authority and submission within the Trinity.  Jesus obeys and submits to the will of the Father. He is God’s Son and God’s Servant and He obeys the Father. And it even seems as though the Holy Spirit is in submission to the Father and the Son (since They are the ones who send Him). And when Jesus took on human flesh, He placed Himself in a role under the authority of both the Father and the Spirit. In Mk.1:12 it says the Holy Spirit cast (lit) Jesus out into the desert to be tested by the Devil. In fact, in His humanity, not only did Jesus place Himself under the authority of the Holy Spirit, but He also placed Himself under the authority of a young couple named Mary and Joseph, various religious leaders, Ciaphas, Herod, Pilate, Caesar.
Submissiveness is a characteristic of deity. Authority and submission are not just practical arraignments that make things run a little smoother. They are rooted in the very nature of God. And they are good simply because of that.
Misused Authority

“But what about the fact that many people in authority have abused their authority?”
 	Some of you have suffered beatings, verbal and emotional abuse, and all kinds of terror from people in authority. And so when you think of authority, the concept of a showerhead of God’s blessing is the farthest thing from your mind. To you it seems like a showerhead of evil.
	If that describes the way you feel, I would like to suggest to you that the problem isn’t with authority. Satan uses all kinds of tools to perpetrate his evil. Remember what he used to tempt Jesus in the desert? The Bible. But that doesn’t make the Bible evil. Millions of people have suffered horribly at the hands of people who claim to be Christians.  But that doesn’t make Christianity a bad thing. Satan uses parents to abuse children, but that doesn’t mean parenting is a bad thing. Satan uses cars to kill and injure people, but that doesn’t mean cars are evil. Satan uses women to serve as prostitutes, but that doesn’t mean being female is bad. And so when Satan has used someone’s authority as a tool to perpetrate evil, we make a mistake if we think the problem is with authority.We should resist Satan’s efforts to turn God’s good gifts into tools for evil. But we don’t resist that by rejecting God’s good gifts. We resist it by following God’s Word.
	We do need to be wise about which authorities we place ourselves under. You don’t have any choice in some cases. But in other cases you do, and so we should be wise about that. But never allow a misuse of God’s gifts let you despise the gifts themselves.
Authority is a good thing, and while it’s fine to watch out for abuses, our default attitude toward all authority should be respect. I would like to have a bumper stick that said, “Honor authority.” When you are legitimately under an authority, and you respectfully submit yourself to that authority, you are acting like God. The authority of God the Father is a beautiful thing. He has this perfect, beneficial plan, and He carries it out by means of His authority. That shows His love and care for those over whom He exercises authority. And the submissiveness of the Son is also a beautiful thing. It shows trust in the Father and selflessness and humility and usefulness. And since authority is a beautiful and beneficial aspect of divine character. And since submissiveness is a beautiful, beneficial aspect of divine character. In His love God has planted the DNA of His character in every institution He ever created. There is authority and submission in the relationship between the government and the people, the employers and employees, the spiritual leaders and the sheep, husbands and wives, parents and children. None of that comes from human tradition.  It all comes from the way God instituted relationships based on His own nature. It’s part of the TOV of God – his goodness and beauty and complexity and order and structure that is seen in everything He made. 
You even see it in organisms.  The human body is in an authority/submission relationship with itself. The brain is in charge. The rest of the body does what the brain says. The more responsive your body is to your brain, the more admired you are. When we see the world-class athlete, who has such amazing command over his body, we honor that. When we see someone whose body won’t respond to the brain – someone who has uncontrolled spasms and convulsions and seizures – we do everything we can to cure that person. Regardless of who the authority is, where there is authority and submission, that is better than rebellion and anarchy. Lawlessness in society is like spasms in a body. Disobedience to authority is like a seizure in the body. It doesn’t bring honor to anyone. On the other hand, where there is submission (even to a poor leader) there is honor. If the authority commands you sin, of course you must disobey that authority. But that is the only time. (And that would include fleeing that authority if your life is being threatened, like David and Jesus both did). We do not have the option of disobeying authority on the basis of incompetence.  And that’s to our advantage, because, as I said, even an incompetent authority is better than a spasm. Even Hitler is better than total anarchy. People in Nazi Germany should have disobeyed Hitler when he required them to sin, but they were right to obey his traffic laws, and all his other laws that weren’t immoral. If no one followed any law – everyone took whatever they wanted, did whatever they wanted, drove wherever they wanted. Society would be such chaos that it would be a horrible existence. So authority is a wonderful gift from God.

Rom 13:1 there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.  
It doesn’t matter who the authority is – believer or unbeliever, good or bad. If he is in authority over you, his authority comes from God. And your attitude toward his authority is your attitude toward God. That’s why God so hates rebellion against authority – it is an assault on His very nature.

1 Sam 15:22-23 To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. 23 For rebellion is like the sin of divination, 
and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. 

If you have a rebellious attitude, that’s just as bad as occultism or idolatry.

Three Benefits of Authority
It is based in the very nature of God, which is why God chose authority to be the conduit through which He delivers many of His blessings to us.
For example:
1. Submission to authority relives stress.
It is the greatest stress reliever there is. Everyone seems to agree these days that one of our biggest problems is stress. Everybody is stressed out. We hand over truckloads of money to drug companies for mood medications and antidepressants to help us cope with stress. Worrying in response to stress causes a huge range of illnesses.  It weakens the immune system making you susceptible to all kinds of sickness. It causes backaches, headaches, stomachaches… That’s why we spend so much money trying to relieve it. And nothing relieves stress like being submission to authority. “You’ve got to be kidding! Being under authority causes me more stress than anything!” No it doesn’t. Resisting authority causes stress. But submitting to authority relieves stress. You see, people who can’t trust God to lead them through their authorities feel the pressure to oversee everything. They can’t trust the leadership of the church with the decision making, and so they have to look over their shoulders to make sure everything is being done the best way. Wives can’t trust God to lead through their husbands, and so they take upon their own shoulders all the responsibility of seeing to it that everything works out OK. And they can’t trust the city officials to make good decisions, and they can’t trust the federal government. And so they take on their shoulders the burden of worrying about whether we should be in the UN, and when should we pull out of Iraq, and how are we going to protect our borders? When someone is not submissive to authority, it isn’t long before the weight of the whole world is on their shoulders. Nothing is more stressful than taking upon yourself the responsibility for something that you don’t have the power to control. If you are a wife and you feel the responsibility to make sure your husband is doing everything right, that is stressful, because you can’t control him. You have things you feel you need to take care of, but the only way to take care of them is by nagging your husband – and he may or may not respond to that. People do the same thing in the church, and in the government. People feel it’s their responsibility to make sure the United States government is making all the right decisions in a war, and so they get picket signs basically go out and nag the whole country.  (Rebellious people are always nags, because they think they have to control everything.) Being under authority is stressful when you are not submissive to that authority, and you feel you have to control it. But, if you can ever come to the point of trusting God to lead you through that authority, nothing is more restful and stress-relieving than that. If you believe in the sovereignty of God, then you understand that God is capable of leading you where He wants you even through poor decisions on the part of authorities. I’ve been fired from three churches. And all three times I was fully convinced that the ones firing me were using poor reasoning. But each time I rejoiced when it happened, because I had full confidence in God to lead me where He wanted me by means of my authorities.
2. Being under authority is one of the rare times when it’s easy to discern God’s will on non-moral issues. How do you know if it’s God’s will for you to leave a church or to change jobs? Normally that’s a very hard call to make. It can involve arduous, intensive work trying to discern the various pros and cons. But when those in authority say “You have to go,” that makes it easy. At that moment you know with absolute certainty that you are in God’s will. 
So, being submissive to authority 
1.	relieves stress
2.	enables you to know for sure God’s will
      3. Being submissive to authority creates the greatest efficiency for the institutions of God.
A nation is at its best when the people are submissive and respectful to the government. When people disobey the government and commit crimes, that creates problems for everyone. Can you image what society would be like (even in our godless, secular culture) if every person in the United States was obedient and respectful to the government? 
If every person followed the law? There wouldn’t be any need for locks, prices would be lower (no theft), insurance rates would be much lower, fewer accidents, fewer lawsuits, lower taxes (wouldn’t have to spend so much on law enforcement). If people were just submissive, this society would be such a wonderful place. The same goes for the church – and the home. Submissiveness not only reduces your stress, it reduces everyone else’s stress, and it makes the institution more efficient and effective. And that is especially important in the Christian family and in the Church, because those are the primary institutions where God is carrying out His work. God is putting on display before all of the powers in the heavenly realms the grandeur of His wisdom. And He is doing that through what He is doing in the Christian family in the small scale and through the Church on the large scale. And the more those institutions run like well-oiled machines, the more they display His wisdom. And you can oil those machines by being submissive to those in authority. Or you can hinder the work of those machines, and throw a wrench into the gears by resisting authority. 
So submission is a wonderful thing, and it fits perfectly with other expressions of a joyful life. Because only joyful people submit. The person who has full faith and trust in God’s perfect plan joyfully and happily and eagerly submits to the authorities God has instituted to carry out that plan.
The authority/submission model is part of the very character and nature of God, and so He chose that system to be a means of blessing for us. God wants to give you what you need through the authorities He has placed over you.
Why resist that?

Misused Authority
“I’ll tell you why. I have suffered unthinkable pain from people who were in authority over me.” “How can you say authority is the showerhead for God’s blessing when the authorities in my life have abused me?” Some of you have suffered beatings, verbal and emotional abuse, and all kinds of terror from people in authority. And so when you think of authority, the concept of a showerhead of God’s blessing is the farthest thing from your mind. To you it seems like a showerhead of evil. If that describes the way you feel, I would like to suggest to you that the problem isn’t with authority. Satan uses all kinds of tools to perpetrate his evil. Remember what he used to tempt Jesus in the desert? The Bible. But that doesn’t make the Bible evil. Millions of people have suffered horribly at the hands of people who claim to be Christians.  But that doesn’t make Christianity a bad thing. Satan uses parents to abuse children, but that doesn’t mean parenting is a bad thing. Satan uses cars to kill and injure people, but that doesn’t mean cars are evil. Satan uses women to serve as prostitutes, but that doesn’t mean being female is bad.  And so when Satan has used someone’s authority as a tool to perpetrate evil, we make a mistake if we think the problem is with authority. We should resist Satan’s efforts to turn God’s good gifts into tools for evil. But we don’t resist that by rejecting God’s good gifts. We resist it by following God’s Word.
We do need to be wise about which authorities we place ourselves under. You don’t have any choice in some cases. But in other cases you do, and so we should be wise about that. But never allow a misuse of God’s gifts let you despise the gifts themselves. This verse is like last week’s – the outline is just the three parts of the verse:
1.	What?
2.	Who? 
3.	Why?

1. What is submission?
First, what is submission? The word submit is u`pota,ssw (hupotasso).  And it simply means “to obey.” It’s used of 
•	obeying God (Ro.8:7, 10:3, 1 Co.15:28, Eph.5:24, Heb.12:9, James 4:7, 1 Pe.3:22)
•	Obeying the Government (Ro.13:1,6, Tit.3:1, 1 Pe.2:13
•	Obeying Church leaders (1 Cor.16:15-17, 1 Pe.5:5)
•	Slaves obeying masters (Tit.2:9, 1 Pe.2:18)
•	Jesus obeying His parents (Luke 2:51)
•	Demons obeying the Apostles (Lk.10:17)
•	Wives obeying their husbands (Eph.5:24, Co.3:18, Tit.2:5, 1 Pe.3:1,6)
When an authority tells you to do something (that is within the realm of that person’s authority), you do the will of the authority. That means you don’t just follow the letter of what he said, but you actually do what he wanted.

2. Submit to whom?
Secondly, let’s take a look at who it is we are to submit to.

Submitting to one another

This little phrase has been at the center of a lot of controversy and misunderstanding about this verse. The feminist theologians see the word “one another” and say, “This refers to mutual, reciprocal submission.” “Everyone submits to everyone else in the same way, therefore there are no hierarchical relationships.” And usually when they say that they don’t apply it to the parent-child relationship.  It’s only applied in marriage, so they can escape the idea of wives being under the authority of husbands. And even some non-feminist interpreters have said v.21 is pointing to mutual submission that is fully reciprocal. They say “to one another” must mean “everyone to everyone.”  And there are contexts where the term “one another” does mean that. However, it doesn’t always mean that.

For example, Rev 6:4 Then another horse came out… Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay one another. 

Does that mean each person who killed someone was also killed by that same person? When it says men killed one another it simply means some men killed other men. Men killed one another in the sense that some human beings were being killed and other human beings were the ones doing the killing. Or in 1 Cor 11:33, where it says that when we get together for a potluck, before we start eating we should wait for one another.  That doesn’t mean everybody waits for everybody else.  It means the ones who are early should wait for the ones who are late. That’s how the word is used in this context. It doesn’t mean everyone submit to everyone else.  It means some people submit to other people (the subordinates submit to those in authority). And we know that by just reading Paul’s explanation. He goes on to talk about wives submitting to husbands, children to parents and slaves to masters. He says nothing about masters submitting to slaves, parents submitting to children or husbands submitting to wives. Rather, the husbands, parents and masters are just told not to abuse their authority. So submit to one another means “submit to those in authority – wives to husbands, children to parents and slaves to masters.” And the very meaning of the word “submit” requires a hierarchy of authority.

Submitting is not the same thing as Serving
When people argue for the mutual submission view of this passage, very often they will point to v.25 and say, “See, husbands are to love their wives like Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her…” “Christ submitted to the Church in that He became her servant . And so husbands should do the same thing.” Should husbands serve their wives? Should parents serve their children? Should masters serve their slaves? Yes! Absolutely. But we must not confuse servanthood with submission. That’s the mistake the world makes. The world thinks being in authority means being served, and being under authority means having to serve the one over you. Jesus corrected that erroneous thinking in Mt.20.

Mt.20:25-28 Jesus called (the disciples) together and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 26 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first must be your slave- 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." 
Leadership in the Kingdom of God is fundamentally different than leadership in the world.   In the world, the leaders are served by those under them.   And they tend to think of them as underlings and inferiors.   Jesus’ word for that is to “lord it over” the ones under you. That’s the world’s twisted idea of authority. In the world, being a leader means having a lot of people serving you.   People open doors for you, get coffee for you, drive you around, etc. But in the kingdom, it’s the leader who is the one who does the serving, and the one under authority who is served.  In Tommy’s house, which person do you think is served the most? There’s no question about it – it’s the 2-week old baby, Toby. All she has to do is cry, and food will be brought to her, diaper changed, dressed, undressed, laid in bed, given a bath. She doesn’t have to do anything for herself at all. And who is the biggest servant? (I’m sure it’s a pretty close call between Tommy and Helen), but technically it should be Tommy. He works full time to support the family, and almost all the time he’s not working or sleeping he devotes to the family. Servanthood is not submission.  The world has it completely backward. When the disciples and Jesus were gathered in a room and there was no household servant around to do the normal, menial task of washing everybody’s feet, it became apparent that someone would have to do it.   Whose job was it?  Jesus’ job. Jesus was the highest authority in the room – the highest ranking person, and so in the Kingdom of God He was the most logical candidate to do the foot-washing.  This was a hard lesson for the disciples to learn, but it is a crucial part of life in the Kingdom.

And lest you think that was only part of Jesus’ humiliation: Lk.12:37-38  It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. I tell you the truth, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. 
 
The greatest servant in heaven will be God Himself, because He’s the highest authority. Part of being a Christian is being humble & selfless, treating others as more important than yourself, and serving.   So every Christian should be eager to serve every other Christian. And every wife should be eager to serve her husband just because she is a Christian. However, is it the duty of one partner or the other in a marriage to serve as part of their role in the family – more than the other?   Yes.  As the leader, it’s the husband’s role to be the greatest servant in the family.   There are plenty of times Tracy will serve me.  She will bring me something to drink, or do some other favor for me.  But that has nothing to do with my role as leader or her responsibility to submit.   That’s not submission.   That’s just one Christian doing another Christian a favor. It’s not wrong to ask someone for a favor from time to time.   But if you expect your wife to serve you, you have departed from the very heart of the Christian life. So all that to point out that submission is not the same thing as servanthood. And so when people point out that the husband is to serve the wife, and then they say, “See, that’s a kind of submission to her authority,” they are falling into the same error as the world does. So, submit to one another means those who are under authority are to obey, respect and follow the leadership of those who are in authority.

3. The Motive: Fear of Christ
Now let’s take a look a the motive for this submission.

Submitting to one another out of (en) reverence for (lit “fear of”) Christ
The word fear, here, is translated “reverence,” because the concept of fearing God involves reverence and respect and awe. In fact, some argue that that’s all it means. They say that in the NT, the element of actual fear and dread and trembling out of concern for personal well-being is absent. But there is no real support for that view.  From what I can tell people believe that just because it doesn’t seem right to them that there should be any actual fear involved with my relationship with God. The idea of being afraid of God brings up the image in their minds of a child who is terrified of an abusive parent. I can assure you that fearing God is nothing like that. It’s not that God is a harsh, unkind, abusive parent who is always against us and down on us and always finding fault with us. If you think of God that way remind yourself of James 1:5. There God’s character is described, and it says He’s the type who gives generously to all without finding fault. God isn’t constantly finding fault with you and condemning you. He is not a harsh master who is impossible to please. He is tender and compassionate and exceedingly gentle and patient with us. However, that does not mean we can take this word “fear” and make it mean something that doesn’t involve fear. This word is used in the NT in contexts that talk about being afraid of consequences on Judgment Day.
1 Peter 1:17 Since you call on a Father who judges each man's work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in fear.

2 Cor 5:10-11 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what 7is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. 11 Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men.
Heb 12:28-29 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and fear, 29 for our "God is a consuming fire."
Is our relationship with God like that of a child and an abusive parent? Of course not. But even in the most ideal parent-child relationship, there is some amount of fear and trembling on the part of the child when he does wrong. The concept of fearing God involves a number of things:
•	Deep respect and awe
•	Being afraid to sin because of the consequences 
•	Being very concerned with God’s approval (fear of man is when you are consumed with getting man’s approval).  Fearing God means caring more about what God thinks than anything else.
There is a degree of that kind of fear in any love relationship. If you love your spouse, there is a certain amount of fear – fear of disappointing or grieving him or her. The more you love someone the more you fear that person’s displeasure. In fact, that can become so extreme it can turn into sin. There are parents who so fear the displeasure of their kids, they won’t discipline them. There are husbands who so fear the displeasure of their wives that they won’t ever do anything she doesn’t like, and so in effect he abdicates his responsibility to lead and puts the whole weight of the family on her shoulders. Fearing man more than God is sin.  Anytime you care more about what some person thinks than about what God thinks, you are in sin. It’s a kind of idolatry. But those illustrations demonstrate how a certain amount of fear is natural in a love relationship. The more you love someone the more you would dread that person’s displeasure. A lot of people have wondered what is going to happen on judgment day for Christians. We know our sins are paid for, so we aren’t going to be sent to hell. But Scripture does speak about having to give an account, and suffering loss, and possibly being ashamed. Most of the time when people talk about what it is about that day we are to fear, they point to the loss of reward. And I don’t doubt that will be a terrible thing. But my guess is that the shame will be even worse. 1 Jn.2:28 talks about having the goal of being unashamed at Jesus’ coming.  I don’t want that day to be a day of shame for me. I want to hear “Well done good and faithful servant.” Remember when Peter denied Christ?  What kind of punishment do you think an Apostle deserves for denying Christ three times right at His greatest moment of need? A beating? A whipping? To be struck with leprosy? To lose his sight? Look at what the Lord did: 

Luke 22:55-60 But when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and had sat down together, Peter sat down with them. 56 A servant girl saw him seated there in the firelight. She looked closely at him and said, "This man was with him." 57 But he denied it. "Woman, I don't know him," he said. 58 A little later someone else saw him and said, "You also are one of them." "Man, I am not!" Peter replied. 
59 About an hour later another asserted, "Certainly this fellow was with him, for he is a Galilean." 60 Peter replied, "Man, I don't know what you're talking about!" Just as he was speaking, the rooster crowed
Now look at what Jesus does - 61 The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. 
Ouch. When you love someone like Peter loved Jesus, that hurts.
62 And he went outside and wept bitterly. 
The Lord just looked at him – I’m guessing a look of tender love. I’m sure Peter would have rather had a thrashing. The sorrow of shame when you sin against someone you love is one of the bitterest kinds of pain. All that to say there is an element of real fear in our relationship to Christ. And it is that fear that is the basis of our submissiveness to human authority. We are to submit to authority not out of fear of that authority, but out of fear of Christ. Always look past the human authority to Christ. That’s the key.  He doesn’t tell us to submit because it will make life smoother. He doesn’t tell us to submit because those in authority deserve to be listened to. We do it out of fear of Christ.  Paul won’t let us forget that point. He repeats it in each application he gives.
22 Wives, to your husbands as to the Lord. 
6:1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord 
5 Slaves, obey your earthly masters … just as you would obey Christ.  … 7 Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men
All authority is delegated authority.
Rom 13:1 there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted
It doesn’t matter who the authority is – believer or unbeliever, good or bad. If he is in authority over you, his authority comes from God. And your attitude toward his authority is your attitude toward God. And we should have great fear of ever having a rebellious attitude toward that authority, because how do you know if you are living a Spirit-filled life? People have a lot of different ideas of what the filling by the Spirit looks like, but here’s what the Bible says it looks like:
•	Your life will be full of joy
•	You will join in joyful fellowship and corporate worship
•	You will have a song in your heart directed to God
•	You will always be giving thanks for all things through Christ
•	You will be submissive to authority.
Anyone who imagines himself to be filled by the Spirit, but who resists authority, he is deceived. Search your heart this morning, and see if there are any pockets of rebelliousness masquerading as some virtue like discernment or independent thinking.  We are not to blindly follow just anyone, but is there any area where you have been resisting authority or have had a wrong attitude?  Whatever authority that is – look past that person to Christ. Look past that difficult husband or difficult boss or inexperienced pastor or inept government leader. And see whose awesome throne is sitting behind that authority. And out of the fear of Him, submit yourselves to one another.

Benediction: 1 Thes.5:12-14  Now we ask you, brothers, to respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you. 13 Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other. 

Review Questions:
1.	Why is authority and submission a good thing?
2.	What does “to one another” mean?
3.	What is “the fear of Christ?
4.	How does that serve as a motive for obeying authority?