[0:00] And take your Bibles again and turn to James chapter 4. James at the back of our Bibles, right in front of 1 and 2 Peter, right after Hebrews.
[0:16] James chapter 4, I'll read the first 12 verses. What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you?
[0:30] You want something, but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight.
[0:43] You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
[0:58] You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
[1:14] Or do you think scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us tends toward envy, but he gives us more grace?
[1:27] That is why scripture says God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves then to God.
[1:39] Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
[1:55] 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.
[2:09] Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it.
[2:22] When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. There is only one lawgiver and judge, the one who is able to save and destroy.
[2:38] But you, who are you to judge your neighbor? Please keep your Bibles open to James chapter 4.
[2:59] I want to begin by asking you a question and want you to identify, or just by mentioning a word, and I want you to identify the first thing that you think of when I say this word.
[3:16] Are you ready? Submission. Submission. How many of you thought of wives? Husbands, don't raise your hands.
[3:29] Submission is indeed commanded of wives, as we're going to see. But contrary to popular opinion, this word does not belong to wives alone.
[3:43] Not by any stretch. Rather, every one of us are called to submit. No one in the world is free from this duty. Husbands, husbands, parents, children, employers, employees, citizens, kings, presidents, judges, elders of churches and church members, demons, angels, and yes, we'll even see the Lord Jesus Christ.
[4:06] Now, submission is something owed to those in authority over us. And every one of us have authorities over us.
[4:18] We may be in authority and have others submit to us in some spheres, but in other spheres, we are under authority and must submit to others. Let me begin with just something of a definition of submission.
[4:36] I don't often bother you with the Greek language in which the New Testament was written, but there is something helpful in getting to the heart of the meaning of this word as we look at the Greek word for submission.
[4:51] It's hupotasso. That's a compound word. It's two words squeezed together in one. Hupo means under.
[5:02] Tasso means to place or to put. So put them together and it means to place under. To put under. That's the root meaning of this word hupotasso.
[5:18] To submit. To put yourself under another. It was a term used in the Greek military for putting oneself under orders of another.
[5:32] To obey. To submit to them. Now, in the military, there's a very clear chain of command, isn't there? And for a chain of command to be affected, there also needs to be a chain of submission to that command.
[5:49] The two come and go together. So when the drill sergeant shouts attention, he expects all of his troops to snap to attention immediately.
[6:03] But what if they're tired and want to nap? Or hungry and want to go get something to eat? Or playing games and don't want to quit? Well, then they must learn to hupotasso.
[6:16] To put their desires under another. And in this case, the drill sergeant. Now, why? To make life miserable for them?
[6:29] No. For their own good. And for the good of their comrades. And indeed, they're good for the nation that they defend. To maintain order.
[6:41] Precise coordination of effort is needed in the battle. For when soldiers fail to submit to their leaders. That's an army in disarray.
[6:52] An army on the brink of defeat. So submission is not a bad word. Can we get that taste out of our mouths once and for all? Submission is a good word.
[7:04] It comes from a good God who has good commands for us. Good purposes for us. To bring order and peace instead of chaos and anarchy.
[7:20] So today we're beginning a series of messages on the topic of submission. And we'll find this is not a small matter to God. And that he has much to say about it in his word.
[7:33] And therefore, there's much that we need to hear concerning it. Where shall we begin? Well, we surely must begin with our submission to God.
[7:48] And if you have your Bibles open to James chapter 4, you'll notice verse 7 gives this command very clear, doesn't it? Submit yourselves then to God.
[8:03] Hupotasso. To God. Put yourself under God. So every one of us owes this submission to God.
[8:17] Notice there's a then or therefore, it could be translated. Submit yourselves then or therefore to God. And whenever you see a word like that, it's pointing us back to what has just been said.
[8:31] Well, what has just been said to us is God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Therefore, submit yourselves to God.
[8:43] In other words, it's the height of pride to put yourself above God. And he will oppose you if you do.
[8:55] No, submission is taking our rightful place beneath God. And he will show his delight by giving more grace to you.
[9:07] Proud people make bad submitters. They will not bow to another. But the humble submit themselves and God gives grace.
[9:22] So, submission to God then is a mark that reveals whether God is for us or is opposing us. It's not a small matter.
[9:34] Now, what is it that gives God the authority over us? Or what gives God the right to command us? To give us orders? We must start at that most basic foundational level.
[9:49] What gives him the right to call us to submit to him? Well, in one word, it's himself. Who he is. The great I am.
[10:01] The eternally existing one. The supreme being. The only God. Our maker. Ah, there it is.
[10:13] Our maker. God's authority over us is rooted in creation. He made us. And so, he has authority over everything that he's made.
[10:28] Listen to just three verses. Psalm 100 and verse 3. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us. And we are his.
[10:40] His because he made us. Psalm 24, 1 and 2. The earth is the Lord's and everything in it. The world and all who live in it. Why?
[10:50] For he founded it upon the waters. And established it upon the sea. His because he made it. Acts 17, 24.
[11:02] The God who made the world and everything in it is Lord of heaven and earth. He's Lord. He's master. He's king of all that he's made.
[11:13] So, because he made us, we're his. His to do with whatever he pleases. Daniel 4, 35. And no one can stop him and say, what are you doing?
[11:29] His to command. His to judge. His to punish or reward. His to judge. He's the potter, the scriptures say.
[11:40] And we are the clay. And so, he has potter's rights over the clay that he has fashioned. A rightful authority then.
[11:55] And so, to him we owe our submission. Now, kings rule by their laws. And the king of kings also rules and exerts his authority through his law, his commandments.
[12:17] He's the law giver. And he rules by his laws. He's also the judge and enforces his laws. You saw the James 4, 7.
[12:31] Commanding us to submit to God. And then we're reminded of who he is. In verse 12. There is only one law giver and judge. The one who is able to save and to destroy.
[12:44] Clearly thinking of Isaiah 33, 22. That says, the Lord is our judge. The Lord is our law giver. The Lord is our king. It is he who will save us. So, he is Lord.
[12:56] Law giver. That's how he rules over his people. So, our good and kind creator king exerts his authority over us through his laws.
[13:08] Laws that are holy. Laws that are right. Laws that are good. Beneficial. Advantageous for us as seen by the one who created us.
[13:20] So, that's lesson number one. Our duty of submission to God is rooted in creation. We owe him submission because he made us.
[13:34] And that's why the Bible begins with what? God creating the heavens and the earth and everything in it and everyone in it. Why is that so important to start there?
[13:47] Because it establishes from the get-go the ultimate authority of God over us. So, when we find him giving commands to Adam, we won't say, well, what right does he have to tell Adam what to do?
[14:04] No. We first see him creating Adam and then commanding Adam. It's a rightful authority. And that's where the Bible begins.
[14:15] Creation is why we all owe submission to God, our maker. It's no wonder, then, why men and devils attack the Bible's opening chapters on creation.
[14:32] And want to replace it with a theory of evolution. Or any wild-eyed theory, for that matter. To break that inevitable link between the creator over the creature.
[14:52] Because if God didn't make us, why then, we aren't his to command. We're not his to judge. And he has no business telling us what to do. And we have no duty to submit ourselves to him and his laws.
[15:04] We're free to do whatever we jolly wish to do. That is the spirit of rebellion set loose in the world by the fall. And every one of us have gone astray from God to do our own thing.
[15:19] So, it's no coincidence that the rejection of God as creator with authority over us is found right alongside of the moral revolution all over the world.
[15:32] It's a universal conspiracy. Psalm 2 tells us, why do the nations rage and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth get together and they say, let's get rid of the Lord and his anointed and his laws.
[15:48] They're like chains and fetters that bind us and keep us from what we'd really like to do. And Psalm 2 says, God sits in heaven and laughs.
[15:59] It is impossible to throw off God's law. He will enforce his law as judge. He's lawmaker and judge. But men want to be free of it. And this whole moral revolution that we're seeing sweeping our nation is just one more evidence of man not wanting God as creator so that we are cut free from our obligation to submit.
[16:24] The transgender chaos is nothing more than the refusal to submit to God as creator and to his fixed laws of nature and creation. Genesis 1.26 and 27, the first chapter of the Bible tells us that God created mankind in his own image.
[16:43] Male and female, he created them. And the clay is saying to the potter, I don't like what you've made.
[16:57] You've messed up. That's turning things upside down. The prophet Isaiah says, shall what is formed say to him who formed it? He did not make me.
[17:07] Or can the pot say to the potter, he knows nothing. You didn't get it right when you made me a man or a woman. Yes, men are saying if I want to be a woman, then that's what I'm going to be.
[17:23] And women are saying if I want to be a man, that's what I'm going to be. And they're just simply refusing to submit to their creator who has already made that decision for them. And stamped it on every cell of their body.
[17:35] They are male. They are female. But they will not humbly put themselves under God's authority.
[17:49] But proudly put themselves above him and above his laws. At least attempt to do so. And it's the creator in chapter 2 of our Bibles who says to Adam and Eve, For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be united to his wife.
[18:08] And the two shall become one flesh. The creator there uniting the first man and his wife in marriage. Clearly defining marriage as that between one man and one woman.
[18:23] And when two men or two women say we love each other. And so we have every right to be married as well as any man and woman. They show their hostility toward God.
[18:35] And their refusal to bow. To put themselves under God. We will not have God to rule over us.
[18:48] We will not have him as our king and lawgiver. It is ironic, isn't it, that the LGBTQ plus movement celebrates their actions under the name of gay pride.
[19:06] Pride month. Pride parades. I say it's ironic because that's just what scripture calls it in James 4, 6 and 7.
[19:18] It's pride that refuses to cupotasso. Put oneself under God. And so God opposes the proud.
[19:32] But it's not just the LBGTQ plus people, is it? Ever since Adam and Eve, our first parents, proudly rebelled against the creator and refused to submit to God's command.
[19:45] And all of their offspring, you and I, have done exactly the same. We've all come into the world with this inborn hostility to God that refuses to bow.
[20:01] To put ourselves under. To submit. So, James 4, 7 is our first text. We're going to turn now to Romans 8, 7. Romans chapter 8 and verse 7.
[20:15] And we're going to notice the next point in the Bible's teaching about submission. We all owe God submission. Because he's our maker.
[20:30] And he rules by his laws. Now in Romans 8 and verse 7, we read. The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law.
[20:43] Nor can it do so. Now, notice the sinful mind that we're all born with as sinners. We all come into this world with this sinful mind.
[20:54] It is hostile. It is enmity against God. It's got its dukes up as it comes into the world. It's not friendly toward God. It opposes God.
[21:05] It's hostile. It's an ingrained aversion to God. That opposes him. Now, many would argue otherwise.
[21:17] We're not atheists, John. We're not God haters. But before you go there, let me ask, how do God's enemies show their hostility to him?
[21:33] Look at Romans 8, 7. It's simply by not submitting to his laws. Not putting themselves under his commandments. God says, thou shalt, and they simply don't.
[21:46] God says, thou shalt not, and they do it if they want to. As if he had not spoken. So you see, not all show their hostility as angry atheists.
[22:00] Not all are waving their fists in God's face in a gay parade. Many are very religious people. With their selective obedience.
[22:11] Obeying some laws, but ignoring others. And so they obey when God's laws are agreeable to them and in line with what they think is okay.
[22:23] But they don't obey when their will clashes with God's. Yet it is only when the two clash that the heart can be seen for what it really is.
[22:36] That though they may be religious, in reality they may be God's enemies. And they show it by their refusal to submit their will to God's will when the two clash.
[22:49] So a Mr. Sinner doesn't steal his neighbor's car. But it's not because God says, thou shalt not steal.
[23:03] That's not why he doesn't steal it. No. He has his own reasons for not stealing. He'd probably get caught and shamed. And besides, he likes his neighbor and he doesn't want to steal his car.
[23:15] So in other words, in not stealing it, he wasn't submitting himself to God's law. He was just found himself in agreement in that point.
[23:27] And so he carries on doing what he wants and what he decides is right and wrong for him. He's still in the driver's seat, you see.
[23:38] He's still calling the shots. Oh, but wait. What happens when the two clash? So Mr. Sinner doesn't steal his neighbor's car.
[23:53] But his submission is really not tested until what God wants and what he wants are at odds. So now he wants to save 200 bucks on his taxes. So he decides to lie.
[24:07] Because he doesn't think he'll get caught. And no one will know. And I'll be $200 the richer. Now here's a true test of submission. The true test.
[24:20] When God says no and he says yes. Now the question is, will he put himself under God's law? Or will he put himself above God's law?
[24:34] Proudly doing what he wants. By lying and stealing in the breaking of God's law. You know, that was the filthy rags righteousness of the Israelites in Isaiah chapter 64 and verse 6.
[24:47] Well, they had a certain outward righteousness. It was a selective obedience. They obeyed God's laws when it agreed with them.
[24:57] And so they were willing to keep God's ceremonial laws. Yeah, let's keep bringing the lambs and butchering them. God will be pleased. But as for his moral laws, they were committing adultery.
[25:12] They were greedy. They were abusing the poor and the needy, the widows, the orphans. And with that, they showed their real heart.
[25:27] That even in giving the lambs and the goats and the bullocks on the altar, they weren't doing it because God said so. Because if that's the point and the motivation that's causing them to make their sacrifices, then it would also hold true when he says thou shalt not commit adultery.
[25:44] And you shall not abuse the poor and the needy. And so their hearts are revealed. Their hearts are revealed. It exposes the emptiness of their supposed obedience.
[25:58] There was no real heart submission to God in their sacrifices. Their supposed obedience, since it's not done unto him, under him, just because he says so, to please him.
[26:14] And so God wasn't having it. Your righteousness is like filthy rags, he tells them. And so Romans 8, 7 is pointing out the faultiness of all their religion and all their living.
[26:24] The sinful mind does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. They have no power to submit. Verse 8 goes on to say, So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
[26:42] Not only will they not, but they cannot. When it says they do not, the sinful mind does not submit to God's law, it's in the present tense which emphasizes and points out that their insubordination to God's law wasn't a rare thing.
[26:57] It was rather their continuing dominant pattern in response to his laws. That when they clashed, they refused to submit. So that's our lesson two.
[27:10] Hostility toward God is seen in not submitting to his laws. And that can be done with a smile or a fist, you see?
[27:22] It can just be to ignore God's commands. But make no mistake about it, the law is the rub. The law is the antagonizing factor here.
[27:34] They don't want God telling them what to do. And so they rebel in not submitting. But when a sinner, with a sinful mind that is at hostility against God and refuses to submit, when a sinner with that kind of heart is born again and given a new heart, a new mind, a new desires, and a new will, well, he or she becomes a new creation.
[28:09] And the old is gone and the new has come. And the old that's gone is that inward, proud principle of rebellion that refuses to submit.
[28:23] And in its place, the new that's come is a willingness to humbly put himself, herself, under God and his laws.
[28:36] United to Christ, we have new capacities, new abilities. With the Holy Spirit powerfully at work within us, both to will and to do the things that please God.
[28:49] And so with this new heart, his laws are no longer burdensome to us, 1 John 5, 3. Oh, you mean I have to do that? No, no. They were burdensome, and I chose my way instead of his way.
[29:06] But now, you see, our hearts have changed, and as Paul can say in Romans 7, verse 22, then in my inward being, I delight in God's law. So lesson number three, believers are given a new disposition of submission to King Jesus and his laws.
[29:28] At conversion, we're given a new disposition to submit to King Jesus and his laws. Now, what's the proof for this? Well, this is our third text.
[29:39] Turn over to Ephesians chapter 5. Ephesians chapter 5.
[30:01] You'll notice right away we are in this passage that talks about wives needing to submit to their husbands and everything. And we'll return to this text another day for that.
[30:13] But I want you to see something else this morning, and that's that it's not just the wives who are here submitting. Verse 24. This is a word to the wives.
[30:26] Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands and everything. So, the husbands are given a model to love their wives in Jesus Christ, the way he loves his church.
[30:42] And the wives are given a model to follow in the way the church submits to Christ. Well, let's start there. We'll leave the wives for another day.
[30:54] Do you get what's being said? As the church who potassos to Christ. The church puts itself under Jesus Christ.
[31:05] That's a mark of the church, the bride of Jesus Christ. Notice it doesn't say the church should submit to Christ. That would be true.
[31:16] It says that the church does submit to Christ. Now, who is the church? Well, it's the sum total of all true Christians, all true believers, all who have been born again, joined to Jesus Christ by faith so that we now submit to Christ as our head, our Lord, our authority.
[31:38] And if you're not marked by submission to Christ, then you have no business thinking that you belong to the real church of Jesus Christ. Why? Because the church submits to Christ.
[31:54] That's a mark of his bride. Do you want to know who his people are in this world? Well, most of them are refusing to submit in this world, and they put themselves above God and his law and do as they please.
[32:08] But there are people out there, they're called a remnant, that are the bride of Christ. And you'll find that they are submitting to Jesus Christ.
[32:22] Not yet perfectly, but really and truly and radically and humbly. It's a change from the old man, the old woman that refused to bow.
[32:37] You will see they are learning to humbly bow to Christ and what he commands. We receive a new disposition in conversion.
[32:55] It's sad that when someone is careful about submitting to God's law, they're often called legalists. You heard that charge by the grace preachers that any time you talk about the law of God, they cry legalist.
[33:13] It is not legalism to be careful to keep God's commandments. No, Jesus says it's love in action for whoever loves me will keep my commands.
[33:25] That's the kind of obedience we're looking at here. An obedience not to earn our way to heaven as if our obedience earns and our submission merits salvation from God.
[33:39] No, no, not at all. But a submission because we love Jesus and he's our bridegroom and the bride submits to the bridegroom.
[33:52] His laws are good. I want to please him. I want to do what he says, what he wants. And so I submit to him. It's my privilege and delight to do so.
[34:04] It's Christ's likeness, as we'll see, because Christ himself submitted to his father's law. So. What have we seen? Well, we've we've seen that we we all owe God obedience or submission because of creation.
[34:20] We've seen that we all come into the world with this aversion to obeying and submitting to God's law, but that when we're born again and joined to Jesus, we get a new disposition to submit to him.
[34:38] We've seen. James connect a failure to submit with pride and the Bible does the same in other places, that it's that it's proud rebellion not to bow to legitimate authority, especially God's authority.
[34:57] So when King Saul in 2 Samuel 15 was commanded by God to go and wipe out the Amalekites and all their possessions. Well, he didn't put himself under, did he?
[35:11] He saved some of the best of the sheep and the best things. And because of it, he lost the kingdom. He stripped of his throne. But he excuses himself to Samuel saying, well, the sheep, we kept them to make sacrifices to God.
[35:30] We're going to offer a praise for our victory in war to God. To which Samuel replied, does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord?
[35:42] That's submitting to the Lord. To obey is better than sacrifice. To heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination.
[35:55] And arrogance is like the evil of idolatry. God calls Saul's failure to submit to his word arrogance and rebellion.
[36:09] And that's what it is. The Israelites did the same when they came to Mount Sinai and they heard God say the Ten Commandments. And in the second, he says, you shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything.
[36:21] And Moses is up on the hill for 40 days and they're what? They're melting down their jewelry and making an idol in the form of a bull and worshiping it. And amazingly, the Lord comes and pronounces his name to Moses saying in Exodus 34, 6 and 7, the Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion.
[36:56] There it is. Forgiving rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty punished. Unpunished, sorry.
[37:08] He does not leave the guilty unpunished. Forgiving rebellion, yet not leaving the guilty unpunished. Then how can we be saved if we're all guilty of not submitting?
[37:29] And yet here's this promise that he does forgive rebellion, but he doesn't leave the guilty unpunished. Well, lesson four, through Christ alone. Turn to Galatians 4, our final text.
[37:43] Galatians 4. Galatians 4. And in verses 4 and 5, we read that in the fullness of time, when the time was just right, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law that we might receive the full rights of sons.
[38:10] Who's he referring to? This son of God. Well, this is none other than the Lord. Our lawgiver, our judge, and our king. It is he who will save us. Isaiah 33, 22.
[38:22] He's the very one who is the lawgiver. And so, as such, he's not under the law. He's on top of the law. He's the one that gives laws to men.
[38:33] Right? So in Adam, we were all under law. Adam's our representative. We were all in Adam in the garden.
[38:45] We were under the authority of the law. Under the obligation to submit to God in his law. With the penalty of death threatened, in the day you do eat of this tree, you'll surely die.
[38:57] Eternal life promised if he did obey. And Adam proudly rebelled against the command. And would not submit to it.
[39:10] And so he's under the curse of death. The second death as well of hell. Now, we too then have inherited from Adam that same heart.
[39:21] We're born into this world under the law. You and I don't come in above the law. No, we're under the law. God made us. We owe him submission. Well, how do we do?
[39:35] Well, no better than Adam, did we? No, not any better than Adam. We too are hostile to God as we came into the world and refused to submit to God's law.
[39:47] We're under obligation to the law, but we refused to submit to it. So that means we're lawbreakers.
[39:58] And that means the curse of God's everlasting wrath was upon us. And there was no way to undo the curse. No amount of our obedience to the law could ever undo what we'd already disobeyed.
[40:12] For Galatians 3 and verse 10 says, Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the law.
[40:26] Cursed. You see, selective obedience will not cut it because selective obedience is selective disobedience. Selective submission is selective lack of submission.
[40:41] And the law said, Cursed is everyone who doesn't continue to do everything written in the book of the law. So we are guilty lawbreakers under the curse rightfully.
[40:52] And this is where the amazing grace and love of God broke in. And I trust that God will stir our hearts as we think of it again this morning.
[41:07] That one day when heaven was filled with his praises, one day when sin was as black as could be, Jesus came forth to be born of a virgin, dwelt among men.
[41:23] Our redeemer is he. Living, he loved me. Dying, he saved me. Buried, he carried my sins far away. Rising, he justified freely, forever.
[41:35] And one day he's coming, oh glorious day. Rather than curse all of us to hell as we deserved as rebels who refused to bow and submit.
[41:48] Instead, in grace and love he sends his son to redeem us who were under the law, under its obligation as lawbreakers, guilty and under the curse.
[42:02] And so he was born of woman that he might represent mankind. And he was born under law that he might obey that law for us lawbreakers.
[42:18] Wonder of wonders that the law giver has now come in Jesus Christ to be the law keeper in order to redeem us.
[42:29] And he did it by meeting two of our great needs. We see the first need, we need perfect obedience to get into heaven.
[42:40] Our right to heaven must be perfect obedience, but we're guilty lawbreakers. We failed. He comes and he perfectly submits to his father's law.
[42:52] He puts himself under. He's born under the law and every time that law impinges upon his life and decisions, he puts himself under. He submits to his father even in the hardest obedience to go to the cross and be damned in place of his people and he's humbling himself and being obedient even unto the death of the cross.
[43:16] And by that obedience, he has worked out a merit, a perfect obedience to give to us who have none, who have only filthy rags and not true submission.
[43:32] But we have another problem and that's what we have coming because of our disobedience. There was a curse involved, a punishment of hell to pay. And so Jesus comes out of heaven, born under the law to redeem those under law.
[43:52] In chapter 3 Galatians in verse 13 says Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. As it's written, curse it is everyone who is hung on a tree.
[44:07] He bore our sins in his body to the tree where he was a curse, made a curse, cursed in our place, his life's blood shed, paying the debt we could never pay throughout all eternity in hell.
[44:22] Why? That we might be saved and have life by his death, that we might receive the full rights of sons, even the inheritance of eternal life. Yes, living, he loved us by keeping the law for us and dying, he saved us by becoming cursed to pay our penalty.
[44:41] We needed both, his perfect obedience and submission to the law and his atoning death to remove our punishment from us. So that's our first study on submission.
[44:56] Oh, what trouble our not submitting to God has brought us that Jesus Christ, the eternal law giver, was born under the law and became the law keeper for us.
[45:12] That he might save us law breakers from the curse and credit to us his obedience and take the punishment for our law breaking.
[45:24] Ah, but it doesn't end there. But then also by his power and the indwelling of his spirit to turn law breakers into law keepers who find delight in submitting to our God, our creator and now our redeemer.
[45:42] You see, it's it's Christ and his work of salvation that accomplishes in our hearts this glorious change that we now want to be like Jesus who submitted to the law of his father and we too.
[45:57] Move from being law breakers to law keepers. Flawed, yes, and that's why one day he's coming.
[46:09] Oh, glorious day. And then we will keep his law perfectly through the eternal ages. That's the best lesson of all.
[46:20] The gospel that cures our submission problem. Have you received this Savior and Lord? You know, he welcomes rebellious law breakers to come to him just as you are as a lawbreaker and tell him you're a lawbreaker.
[46:36] Confess that to him and ask him to have mercy on you for Jesus sake. He turns none away who throw themselves upon the mercy of God and Jesus Christ.
[46:47] It's not a small thing to be offered a full pardon. It's not a small thing for death row criminals to be offered a free and full pardon.
[47:01] Eternal life. It's yours for the taking. Jesus is more willing to give it than you are to receive it. Don't refuse him. Don't let another day go by rejecting Jesus.
[47:13] Receive him and begin this new life with him today. Let's pray.
[47:24] thank you father for not damning us to hell when we had rebelled and refused to submit to you. Thank you that in your amazing love and grace you sent your son to be born as a man representing us and to be born under the law that he might keep that law for us and then go to the cross as an all sufficient sacrifice that we might be redeemed from our sin and that we might receive the gift of the Holy Spirit who works in us a new disposition that wants to submit.
[48:06] Oh forgive us for the times we stiff necked, refuse to submit. Teach us to humble ourselves and make us more like Jesus who said not my will but yours be done.
[48:20] Thank you for such grace. May others taste it and come to delight in it today we pray in Jesus name. Amen.