When Submission Isn’t Submission

If you are like me, there are parts of Scripture that you love to read and study because you are so naturally passionate about them.  Parts where, when they come up in small group discussion or a sermon, you move to the edge of your seat, ready to excitedly “amen” the challenge that lays before the group.  For me, it’s anytime Jesus is sending people into uncomfortable waters (literally or figuratively).  For you, maybe it’s passages about loving the poor, or the importance of studying God’s word – regardless, when they are taught, you find yourself looking around and thinking, “You all are getting this, right?!  I need to find this recording so I can play it for Joe!”  And when the application points are addressed, they usually aren’t bold enough for you, but you’ll take it, thinking, ‘If our church could just understand this, we would be unstoppable.”

Then there are the other parts.  The parts that make me uncomfortable.  The parts I would rather ignore, or skip past.  The parts where I hope for an alternative translation to release some of the pressure I feel in reading it.  For me, that happens going through James, and the power of the tongue.  I tend to be a bit sarcastic, blunt, and missing a filter at times.  So when I am studying James, I either feel guilty or try to defend myself…or feel guilty for trying to defend myself.

What this reveals is that I submit to God’s word and the lordship of Christ when I agree and am passionate about it.  But if it’s something I disagree with, or find difficult, then I don’t submit and obey.  The question is – if I submit only when I agree with something, is that really submission?

As my son has said to me, “I obey whenever you ask me to do something I like.”

So what’s the answer?  How do I address my rebellious heart?  I think the answer lies in an unlikely place – submission in the areas where I am passionate.

Pseudo-Submission

A rich young man came to Jesus one day and asked what he needed to do to inherit eternal life (Mark 10:17).  Jesus rattled off some of the law (he clearly hadn’t taken evangelism training).  The young man was all too eager to show how well he obeyed.  Jesus, again showing his lack of evangelism training, says, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor; and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” (Mark 10:21)  Why?  I don’t think I am taking too many liberties in saying that the young man agreed with the law.  He was a moral person.  He lived rightly.  But his heart was dark. And Jesus is always after the heart. In the end, all of the man’s right living was counted as rebellion because it was from a heart submitted not to God, but to himself.

The point of this passage was not “if he would have just given up his love for money he would have been all set.”  The point is that his love of money and refusal to submit to Jesus in that area revealed an ugly truth about his good works: that he wasn’t obeying the law out of submission to God, he was obeying the law out of submission to his own sense of morality.  God did not rule in his life, his own conscience did.  He just happened to agree with much of what God said.

If I may be so bold, I think this is rampant in the church today – especially in the U.S.  We aren’t really submitting to Christ as Lord as much as we just happen to line up with him on some issues.  And the more issues you line up with him on, the more spiritually mature you are.  This is not submission.

I don’t worry about money.  Never have.  “Good,” you might say, “that’s what the Bible teaches.”  True.  But the thing is, I am able to not worry about money in my own strength.  What looks like faith is just me being irresponsible.  What makes it worse, is that we, as the church, actually praise each other for this pseudo-submission – “Wow, Jay really trusts God with his finances.”  This only feeds the delusion that I am obeying God.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.  (Matthew 23:27)

Hope for Change

If we hope to see change in our weaknesses, we have to begin by submitting to Christ in our strengths.  Our rebellion may be revealed in our weaknesses, but it is fed and finds shelter in our strengths.  I think this is part of why Paul boasts all the more in his weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).  Our weaknesses lead us to repentance and dependence on Christ – we can’t hide our rebellion there, it’s too obvious.  Our strengths, on the other hand, give us the illusion of independence and righteousness – and that makes a great hiding spot for rebellion.  The sins of pride and self-righteousness grow readily in areas I am wired to “agree” with God, and those are not good tools in the work of sanctification.

Have you seen this in your life?  Are you using your strengths to cover up a rebellious heart?  Is your giving fueled by a generous heart or by a legalistic sense of obligation?  Is your love for the poor fueled by God’s love for you, or by wanting to be seen as loving?  Is your ability to make peace fueled by Christlike compassion or an unwillingness to say hard things?

Questions like this remind me that even in my strengths, I am weak.  But the cross reminds me that when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:10).  My hope is that you would go to the cross, and find the joy of letting Christ be your strength in all things, to find the joy of true submission.