The Problem Comes Down to Submission

This morning, I was thinking of the problems facing the Church, as I seem to do a lot nowadays. There are great divisions within the Church, and people pointing fingers at one another, calling each other false believers, attacking doctrinal positions (not on Biblical grounds, but because it doesn’t align with what their flavor of Christendom states), and dividing over which building their branch of the Church meets in on any given Sunday or Wednesday. And while we’re arguing over words and meanings, pulpits are falling to progressive teachers who have contempt for the authority of Scripture, Congregations are moving further away from Christ according to the scriptures, and the lost aren’t hearing the good news. They’re seeing us fighting, and finding alternatives to Christ because we can’t seem to get it together.

I know some will say “they were destined to do so,” but we also need to understand that we are accountable to God for what we say, what we do, and what we don’t do (remember the Parable of the Talents and the man who buried his!). We can’t have merely an intellectual faith, but one that bears fruit (which Jesus said the desire of the Father is that we bear MUCH fruit!). So, what is our problem? Why can’t we pull it together? Simply put, we don’t want to submit. We want to build a faith we can understand, and we will even argue with and explain away the Scriptures that contradict our doctrinal positions instead of submitting to them. We want a god we can understand instead of submitting to the will of the One True God, as is plainly spoken of in His word (and we use phrases such as “it’s all up to interpretation” when we run in to something that contradicts our way of thinking!).

Submission is the key to fixing everything, first to Christ as Lord, and then to one another. Scripture speaks of this again and again, and we can’t get it through our thick skulls enough to understand! We’ve been arguing this for 2,000 years (despite what some church traditions say), and the letters to the churches by Paul, Peter, John, Jude, and James are just as relevant to us now as they were when they were written! The Words of Christ are just as true as ever! The Greatest commandment is to love the Lord with all of our Heart, Mind, and Soul, so why don’t we listen and obey? That same commandment also demands we love our neighbor as ourselves. And Jesus gives a new commandment, one that the world will know we are His if we follow it: by how we love one another. So why don’t we do just that? Submit! Christ has died and rose again to reconcile us to God and one another. Let us submit to Him in all things, and set aside every weight of argument for the cause of His Gospel!

Hebrews 12

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,

nor be weary when reproved by him.

For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,

and chastises every son whom he receives.”

It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.

For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.