“But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him to say “We don’t want this man to be our king.” (Luke 19:14 NIV)
Dick Brogden points it out and I know he’s right because the truth leaves a welt on my flesh. “We do not naturally want to be be submissive.” We are the servants sending out a delegation. We want to rule our own story yet we are so very bad at it.
I knew it first with my parents and then again as a student. I know it in my marriage and even under church leadership. My flesh does not approve of submission. I don’t want to be told what to do. I want to go my own way and do it how I want it done. We don’t talk about submission much in this culture, we tend to fly past these verses as thought they are outdated. We rarely talk about submission and authority lest we make a scene. But today’s parable about the men with the minas makes it very clear: Jesus is King, whether we recognize His lordship or not.
Our rejection of His kingship contributes to our demise. The men who refused their king were eventually destroyed. The waywardness of our flesh will be our undoing unless we learn to submit.
“But this enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them – bring them here and kill them in front of me.” (Luke 19:27 NIV)
We want Jesus to loving and peaceful and He is to those who accept His authority. But make no mistake, our flesh, our unconfessed sin and unsubmitted heart will ultimately bring about our death.
James offers us a better way. He says to go ahead and submit, to trade in our apparition of personal authority and accept God’s full leadership of our life.
“But he give us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud, but shows favor to the humble.” Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and He will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up.” (James 4:6-10 NIV)
Our flesh fights it, but there is great freedom in submission. Surrendered flesh is protected flesh. What belongs to God is not easily overtaken by the enemy: it seems our flesh must first be repossessed by us before the enemy can infiltrate. Therein lies the divine protection of total submission to God’s leadership.
So often we get this backwards. We resist God and submit to the devil. Of course, we don’t mean to. We submit to the voracious appetite of our flesh, but it is untrustworthy and easily influenced by the enemy.
Why is it so hard to submit to God? Why does our carnality rise up so fiercely against Him? I have a friend who says we reserve our right to sin. I consider my own dark narrative with sin and I’m afraid she’s correct. My flesh will only go so far with God before it starts to buck up and demand it’s own way again. We are convinced that life won’t be as good without our little indulgences.
For me, ‘reserving my right to sin’ is tied up in small petty things. I want to maintain my options on what I watch or read or my relationship with stuff and food and phone. These days, so much of what the Lord is calling sin the world declares as innocent. But we forget: He is the King. His definition of good and bad is the only definition that holds up for all eternity.
I don’t know abut you, but upon further examination, my flesh holdouts bring me no real joy. The guilt is greater than the enjoyment. Why do I hang on as though life will be lesser without them? Have I ever regretted anything I’ve surrendered to a good God? Is there any part of my fallen flesh that I am now missing? Not to date. Every sin He has lopped off has left me feeling lighter, freer and closer to Him. Turns out, when we lay down our sin, we really do draw near to God and He draws nearer to us. So why do we fight Him on it?
We were in service yesterday, individually working our way through SOAP exercises on Psalm 119. I couldn’t get past the very first verse.
“Blessed are those whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of the Lord.” (Psalm 119:1 NIV)
Blame blocks our blessing. It masks off that area of our life and keeps the Spirit of God from permeating it, redeeming it. Confession is the only way to washe the blackboard and open our story back up to blessing. When confession halts, our spiritual growth stalls out. Confession alone makes way for renewed submission to God’s instructions. Submission is how we move forward in surrender.
I sat there in service, the preacher who had just come down from the pulpit, utterly convicted. Let me be clear, there are no big, ugly, obvious trespasses in my life right now, only little flesh holdouts. We can try to discount them until we realize that these flesh holdouts are the precise places the enemy looks to slip in.
If I’m honest, my personal confession has been lackluster lately. Not non-existent, just very general. “Lord, forgive me for any area I’ve neglected or offended You.” But broadstrokes of ‘I’m sorry’ will never do the delicate surgery of concise confession. We need to carefully search our actions and motives: identifying the specific areas where our flesh is still rising up against God’s leadership in our lives. He is King. We are subordinate. We submit ourselves and find freedom.
“The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God, it does not submit to God’s law, or can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you.” (Romans 8:7-8a NIV)
“Blessed are those who keep His statues and seek Him with all their heart.” (Psalm 119:2 NIV)
Lord, we long to please you. What would it look like to live in absolute obedience? Could we do it for an hour? A day? A week? What freedom might we find in fully following You? We confess our shortcomings; search us out and help us see all the specific places we are opposing Your authority. We resubmit to Your leadership in our lives. Please strengthen us to say ‘yes’ to every inclination from Your throne room. Today we acknowledge that You are King. Please awaken Your power within us, help us follow Your lead. Let us live in the realm of the Spirit and not in the realm of the flesh. May we seek You with all our heart. Amen.