People who are trying to submit biblically will often ask,
“Well, then, how much submission is too much?”
There are certainly some levels of injustice that we need to bear up under, and there are some levels of injustice that are abusive. The question, then, is when is submission abusive, and how much abuse should a person bear up under? A second and equally important question is this: When a person can’t or shouldn’t bear up under it anymore, how does he or she get out of that situation? Here are three guidelines to help you decide when enough is enough. First, it depends upon the source. There are some things you can tolerate in your marriage from your spouse that you would never tolerate from your employer. A greater amount of grace is given at home because of the lifetime commitment that has been made. So it depends on where the abuse of authority is coming from.
Second, it certainly depends on the severity of it. If the abuse you are experiencing is merely passive, if it’s neglect as opposed to aggression, you can bear up under it much longer with God’s help. As tough as a neglectful situation might be, that is hardly grounds for getting out of the commitments that you’ve made before God. However, if it’s aggressive and active in verbal and physical ways, I remind you that you are not a slave.
Here’s one aspect of severity to consider: Is the abuse just involving you? Sometimes you can bear up under things in the Lord’s strength for a season to give Him an opportunity to work. But if it’s spilling over to your children, then there is a responsibility to protect that extends beyond your own capacity to endure.
Third, your response will depend upon the frequency. Once a month or once a year or once in a lifetime is no excuse for you to jump out and say, “Good! I’m free from this commitment! I wanted to be free! Now I’m out of here!”
Again, if your boss has said some awful, hurtful things to you and you just started working there this week, you might start looking around. There’s more of that coming. But if you’ve been working there for fifteen years and this has happened only two times, I think your response is obvious; you can endure.
It depends upon who is the source and what is the severity and the frequency. Those are appropriate limits to consider under submission, knowing that God wants His children to live as free people, not as slaves.
AVOIDING THE EXTREMES
One extreme is using abuse as an excuse to escape commitments when difficulties aren’t frequent or severe. The second extreme is using submission as an excuse to stay, using a misunderstanding of what the Bible teaches about submission. The biblical teaching on submission does not encourage staying in a relationship that’s destroying you and others you love.
“Well, how do you get out from under an ungodly, repeatedly abusive authority?”
If that’s your question, look at 1 Peter 2:21—look at Christ. Verse 21 indicates Christ is to be our example. Peter says, “For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps.” The context is submission. Our example is Christ and how He bore up under injustice. “Who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth” (verse 22).
It’s surprisingly easy for an abused person to claim, “I’ve never committed any sin in this situation. No deceit is ȁn my mouth. I’m not part of this problem in any way.” No, I don’t think anyone can say that but Christ. He was unjustly treated. Notice, however, His response: “While being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats.” That’s pretty clear. “But kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously” (verse 23).
Who is the “Him who judges righteously”? God, the Father. Christ, the second person of the Trinity, kept entrusting Himself to the Father. He only had one above Him in authority, the Father. We have a lot more up-lines than Christ did. Here’s the biblical principle: When Christ was ridiculed, He kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously. When Christ was harshly treated and finally crucified, He kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously. Christ appealed to the highest authority. He went above.
AUTHORITIES CAN HELP
If the authority structure in the home is failing, the next level of authority needs to be involved. Children or abused spouses need to know that if there are things going on in their home that are sinful, bringing them hurt and abuse, the authority above the authority of their home is their church. They should talk to a pastor or elder. They need to get their problem out in the light, and let the authority structure help. The church leader will offer biblical counsel and, if necessary, can recommend other, outside authorities.
Remember, the church is over the home. If you are not placing yourself or your family under any church, then you’re out from under the protection. The authority structure of the church exists to help when the authority structure in the home fails.
What about abuse occurring outside the home? I think you understand how it works in society. Christians don’t take other believers to court. Just read 1 Corinthians 6. If I have a problem with another believer, and the relationship structure has broken down and failed, I appeal to the elders in my church and ask them to intervene and work that out. But if it’s someone in society who has wronged me—engaged in a legitimate, significant wrongdoing—it is not wrong to go to court to ask for justice. Remember, God loves justice. That’s why He has established that system. That’s why we have municipal courts, appellate courts, and supreme courts. You appeal to the higher authority.
That’s what Christ did, but He only had one option. We have many options. If it’s a criminal activity, what do you do? You call the police. You call the local child welfare agency. (In Illinois, we have the Department of Child and Family Services.) Those are not wrong decisions. Those are the authority structures that God has established. If the authority structure over you is failing you and injuring you significantly over an extended period of time, it is not right to remain in that situation. That is not biblical submission. It is right to appeal to the next higher authority as a way of allowing God to accomplish the transformation that He wants to bring.
Christians who overlook these principles often help bad situations go on that could have been healed. God desires wise, proactive submission, not slavery or ignorance from us. But having said that, let me add this: The vast majority of Christians who are struggling with issues of submission are not in abusive situations. I have dealt with the terrible situations reflected in the previous paragraphs, because I’m not oblivious to the kind of sinful people that we all are. But for most of us, the struggles that we’re having in our lives are not abusive situations. Our difficulties are just the basic relational hardships of “I am tired of that person telling me what to do.” In those contexts, we need to remember that submission is duty to God. Submission is our protection.
In summary, Peter says we are free, not slaves, but we are not to use our freedom to do whatever we want. “Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God” (2:16). Do not use your freedom as an excuse to do what you want. Remember that as one who is free, you are not to be enslaved to any person—but you are to be slaves to God’s will.
PRINCIPLE FOUR: SUBMISSION IS FAVOR FROM GOD
Here’s the reason submission takes us out of the wilderness: Submission is favor from God. This is the phenomenal truth of this text. God loves heartfelt, willing humility.
Some of the most powerful worship songs that we sing at Harvest Bible Chapel focus on humility. When we raise our voices, I know God is pleased. I sense His presence moving through our congregation. It’s like, “Look at My brother over here. Look at My daughter over there. Look at My son over here. He is so humble. Look at the way he bears up under—.” God loves a gathering of humble, submitted hearts. He’s there!
When God sees you bearing up under injustice with a submissive spirit, get ready to get blessed, because God loves that! God invites us to submit, and honors us when we do. “Servants,
be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable” (1 Peter 2:18). Most of us, sooner or later, have to work or live with someone in authority who is unreasonable. Peter explains why we do: “For this finds favor, if for the sake of conscience toward God a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly” (verse 19). If you bear up under unjust suffering, you get favor from God. How great is that promise? But Peter’s not done. “Fo r what credit is there if, when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience?” Remember , if the problem is you r fault, God is not up in heaven saying, “Look at him hanging in there.” He’s going, “Boy, I wish he would stop doing that.”
But there is favor with God when we endure for the right reasons: “But if when you do what is right and suffer for it you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God” (verse 20).
PRINCIPLE FIVE: SUBMISSION IS INTIMACY WITH GOD
Lastly, and I think most wonderfully, 1 Peter 2 offers this truth: Submission is intimacy with God. There is a unique fellowship with Christ that comes through submission to suffering. “For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps” (verse 21). What steps? The steps of suffering. The steps of submitting to ungodly authority and finding God’s favor through it. Suffering is not incompatible with biblical Christianity; it’s part of it. Notice Christ’s example: “While being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously; and He Himself bore our sins” — how unjust is that?— “. . . so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed. For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls” (verses 23–25). If, in fact, you have returned to the shepherd of your soul, make no mistake about what it means to follow in His steps. To follow in His steps is to embrace suffering.
For most of us, the challenge, almost all the time, is to embrace suffering, to submit to it, knowing that there is a God who loves us and is watching. God is so capable of pouring favor into our lives if we live in submission to Him. This means submitting even when we don’t seur sinsctions on our behalf, even when submitting brings suffering and heartache. God is opposed to the proud, but He gives grace to the humble.
UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL
What is the greatest injustice that you’ve ever suffered? In the past or maybe in the present? Maybe someone in authority just jerked you around, really badly. Think about it for a minute. It happens to all of us, doesn’t it? It’s part of life. I remember three times when I experienced great abuses of authority. Each time God taught me a submissive response, and used it to bring blessing (though once He had to show me the hollow victory of resisting the person in authority).
THE DEATH OF ONE DREAM ... AND THE BIRTH OF ANOTHER
During my high school years, basketball was everything to me, and in my senior year I encountered a great disappointment. Leading in every statistical category, I should have been the person on my team picked for the league’s all-star game. It’s just a fact. I should have been there, but I wasn’t. I could give you all the reasons that the person in authority did not choose me. (Some, no doubt, were my own fault.) But, bottom line, in that moment I was deeply hurt and felt so unjustly treated.
I remember going to the game, sitting in the stands, watching the other players, and thinking, “I should be out there! This isn’t right!” It was so hurtful to me at the time. Now it’s laughable. I’m embarrassed to even bring it up. But maybe someone will relate to it.
What I felt in my own heart was, “This is death of my basketball dream.” Of course, I was at the end of high school, and thought maybe college ball awaited. But I look back now and realize it was the birth of my ministry dream. “I’m not going to be the person I thought I was going to be. I’m going to go in a very different direction instead.” My response brought favor with God, as I didn’t make a big scene or say a lot of things that I would regret. That ill treatment by a God-established authority was used by God to bring favor and blessings that I simply could never have imagined at the time.
MAKING THE GRADE
Later, during Bible college, I had a professor who taught preaching but didn’t like me at all. I’m sure it was partly my own fault. You don’t see these things about yourself when you’re younger. But, for whatever reason, he didn’t like me. Every time I would preach a message in front of all of the other students, he would get up and criticize me and belittle me. He made me feel so lousy, like I had no ability at all to speak for God! It was such a hard thing.
I didn’t handle this one very well. I got so troubled about it one day that I borrowed a paper from one of my buddies in school. I recopied and improved it a little, and put my name at the top to prove a point. We both turned in the exact same paper. My buddy got an “A;” I got a “D.” I was upset! I took both papers to his office and laid them down right in front of the professor. I challenged his authority, and on a human level I was 100 percent in the right. But you know what? I didn’t win; I lost. He didn’t back down. My actions injured my reputation, and I didn’t get favor from God in that instance.
It was only later, through submission, that God’s blessing rested upon me, when I realized nothing good was accomplished by taking things into my own hands. I was right, but I was wrong!
HARD EARLY DAYS
I think of some of the early days at Harvest when twelve of the eighteen people that we started the church with turned their backs on Pastor Rick and myself and walked out and said some awful things about us. I tried to leave and Rick tried to leave. It was such a hard time. I can remember just weeping before the Lord, but God broke us during that and we submitted to the hardship.
None of the favor and blessing that have come since could have happened apart from submission. It seems to me that the history of my life has been seasons of struggle under difficult authorities involving choices of submission, followed by abundant favor and blessing from God.
What if in any of those opportunities I would have said, “I’m out of here! I don’t want to put up with this! I don’t care anymore”? I would have missed the favor of God. If there is anything in my life that will stand at the judgment seat of Christ, I trace it directly to those choices of submission and the favor of God that followed abundantly those seasons of hardship.
LET’S TALK SOLUTION
I asked you at the beginning of this chapter to set aside, for a time, your understanding of submission. I pray you now understand the critical way that submission affects your relationships with others and your relationship with God. Here are three questions to measure this attitude in your life and three action steps to develop this Promised Land attitude.
1. Do I practice submission? Here’s an easy way to find the answer to that question. Make a list of the primary authorities in your life. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being total rebellion and 10 being total submission, what has been your attitude of submission to each of them? Put the number after the person’s name. Then list next to each authority what you plan to do as a way to improve your attitude of submission toward them.
2. Am I experiencing the results of submission? Can you illustrate submission in your life by decisions that have cost you? It’s easy to submit to a caring and gentle leader. How have you done with authorities who have placed unpleasant demands on you? When you examine your life, can you see the difference in past situations between the results of submission and the results of rebellion?
3. Am I ready to submit to those whom I am resisting? Consider that some of the authorities in your life may have withdrawn and will not reengage with you unless you confess and state your willingness to recognize their rightful role. As you pray the prayer below, open yourself for direction from God regarding relationships that need rebuilding through submission, and those that need to be d
eepened by a new appreciation on your part of your role as someone who willingly submits for God’s sake.
Look Up
Father, at this moment, I would just say without apology that I desire Your favor. I have lived my life long enough to know that at the end of the day what really matters is the favor and the blessing of almighty God. Lord, Your Word says, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” I realize, God, that You are for me, and You’re for my highest and best. You don’t use me or abuse me. You make my life something phenomenal and great and praiseworthy. And so I choose the path of submission for my lifestyle.
Lord, I know there is enough relational conflict in this world to stifle any person’s joy. There are enough selfish, sinful people in positions of responsibility who take
advantage of others and think only of themselves. But, Lord, I want my eyes to be on You. I choose by faith to walk in obedience to Your Word. I anticipate already in my home, my church, and where I work and in my neighborhood the blessing and the favor that come only from a God who is watching and who knows. So I ask You, Lord, to help me. Help me to put off my pride and rebelliousness and to put on submission and grace and forbearance and hard work in the midst of hardship. Lord, help me wait and rest and live in obedience to You. Give me strength to live in submission, not ultimately to human authorities, but to You and to that lone. I offer myself to You afresh for those kinds of victories. I pray all of this in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
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